Perpetual Change

Opening Dinner

We Had our opening night dinner tonight - with all our host families together (4 of them). In our cluster they all work together at one school (2 teachers and 2 administrators) adn the dinner was at the principals house. It was true Ukranian style and I did FSU proud. I drank with the best of them and the other volunteers were surprised. Ukraine is a toasting culture, which means they only really drink when the toast and that is how they start the meal. They toast a lot though, and always in threes. The third toast is always to women or to love. I was very nervous about how much of a drinking culture Ukraine is - very nervous. But if that is the best they got, FSU trained me well...especially in making people think you are drinking more than you are.

PS. We had Salo, which is a regular drinking treat here, it can be raw or fried or soft and it is basically pig lard. It wasn't so bad; volunteers talk about it a lot. The one this night was like raw, very fatty bacon that they eat on bread with pepper. I also had a soft kind mixed with garlic. It is commonly referred to by Ukrainians as "Ukrainian Snickers." Bon appetit.

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posted by jjs @ 11:35 AM