Ukraine's Got Talent

I was told that there was a “concert” today at the House of Culture. OK, I was up for some culture. And besides, everyone from the library was going. We wrapped up our work around 3:30 and headed over to the HOC. There was a small, yet informative display of war memorabilia and articles and other literature about war heroes etc. near the entrance to the theatre and as 4 o’clock approached, we headed into…a virtually empty theatre! It was the size of a high school auditorium and was pretty much only the employees of the library and relatives of the performers were in the audience. It was embarrassingly sparse. The performance lasted one hour with people of all ages singing, dancing, and playing instruments. I reserved judgment. It was less of a concert than little more than an open mic night at the local community center. At one point Lenara leaned over to me a whispered “I hope this is the worst performance you will see in 2 years, because seeing something worse than this would be very terrible”. Admittedly the bar has been set kind of low, but these people showed up to give a performance and the least I could do was stand out as the only one in my row who actually clapped between songs. The program ran exactly one hour and on the way out the irony was pointed out to me that this day is the anniversary of the Soviet Union’s entry into The Great Patriotic War (what we know as WWII), where they suffered [I believe] 23 million casualties, so the fact they sang “happy songs” seems mildly inappropriate. I understand there is a concert on Thursday and Friday, too. Let’s hope we are on an upswing.
I love the bazaar. Well, more specifically, I love the part with all the farmers selling their goods. It is a farmers market like we are used to, except every seller seems to sell pretty much the same stuff. Whatever is in season is what they all have. All have tomatoes, potatoes, and tons of cucumbers. You really must search for the one stand who has one item unlike everyone else if you want variety (today I actually found hot, green chilis). The other thing is that this stuff is fragile. It really doesn’t keep well in the fridge, so it is way better to buy a little bit every day instead of once a week. At least you know you are getting the freshest stuff every day and with the bazaar only a block from work, and my hour long lunch, this gives me enough time to stop and shop. I’m already finding my favorite vendors- the ones that throw an extra piece or 2 in the bag after you’ve paid, or have you taste before you buy (although there’s something about a cuke with a wad of dirt on it that makes me just want to take his word for it).

After some community mapping today, it became painfully obvious that this is a small town in the middle of nowhere. I have already discovered that there are no local buses here. The kind that take you from one end of town or the other on a route. None. There are buses that bring people from the outlying villages (which scares me to think I live near someone who is actually more rural than me!), but no marshrutkas. I found the bus station today, and for example, my friend lives in one of the closest towns to me and there are only 2 buses per week to that town. One on Monday and one on Friday. Both at 5:35am. That’s it. The library is closed Monday and Tuesday for holiday, so I will go visit Anne on Monday (hope I don’t miss the one return trip at 5:15pm).

Lastly, a minor annoyance. First, an example…I had to go to the police station today to introduce myself and get their phone numbers and address for my Peace Corps locator form. I walked into the squad room with Lenara next to me and said what I have said 100 times (in Russian)…”my name is Sim Morrell and I am a Peace Corps volunteer” to which the police man looked at Lenara and asked if she was going to translate for me. She snapped, “why would I translate?? He’s speaking to you in Russian! Don’t you speak Russian??” The thing is that when I am alone I seem to get what I ask for. I can go to a store and say “please give me one of those” or a kilo of that. I do fine at the bazaar and at restaurants. But when people hear Lenara and I together, they act like they can’t understand a thing I say. Now, I know my pronunciation is not perfect, but I have gotten positive results enough to know it is close enough. So today, after the police station we went to a grocery store where she bought something and then I said (in Russian) “please give me a large bottle of carbonated water”. Again, I order this all the time. But, the clerk just stood there looking at Lenara to translate. She gets frustrated with this too because she sees me trying to speak and to have people act like they don’t know what I am asking for is just very annoying. I’m sure it will work itself out…but knowing myself as I do, I bet I will soon have a list of places I don’t want to shop at (right, El?), although that could be a little problematic in a town with only one hardware store.