Perpetual Change

Easter

In this string of belated posts, this is the only one that is being written long after the events. This fact is truly unfortunate because although I am writing from notes, Easter is quite a special time here (not to mention 6 to 8 weeks after the American and Italian variety), and I wish I had captured my thoughts while they were fresh. Nevertheless, my memory is decent, and this entry is an epic...in length AND deed.

The events started Friday night, when we went over to grandma's and grandpa's and slaughtered the chicken. My host mom didn't want to watch because, the chickens scream sometimes. This one didn't, but it did squirt lots of blood. Grandpa stood on the wings so it couldn't run around without its head, but it tried. I was rather surprised with how easy it lost its head, and I thought back to stories of my great-grandma keeping a live turkey in the bathtub during the week leading up to Thanksgiving. When we cleaned the chicken, it had one whole egg and 6 developing ones, all at different stages. Those were carefully kept (though I don't know what for), the chicken was plucked and cleaned, all the fat was removed, and then we took it home for the next step...Holodets.

Saturday morning, on my way to our technical lesson, one of the stoop guardians was out, and he asked me if I had liked the disco (at least he said something about the disco). I said I hadn't gone. I hadn't gone out with the volunteers the night before because I was fasting for Easter, but I thought they had just gone to a bar. The disco is the only other thing to do at night, and it is full of the 14-16 year olds from our internship sites. The stoop guardian said something more about the others and the disco as I excused myself, and as I walked away, I thought, "maybe they had gone to the disco, but how would he know?" Then I realized that one of Kate's students was his grandson (a topic that had come to light at another point; in fact). I think 3 degrees of separation would be quite enough in Ukraine. They had told us we would be living in a fishbowl, but how interesting to get news about the others' evening pursuits just as if I had read it in a paper delievered to my doorstep!

At the technical session we discussed environmental law and practices in Ukraine (not a long topic), and then painted Pysanky, a type of painted egg. Egg painting holds great significance here; one can guess this fact from the importance of eggs in the diet, which if I haven't stated, is BIG! Barely a day goes by when I don't have one during at least one meal in some form (or many). There are different types of painted eggs - died, decorated, edible or wooden - but the most significant is the Pysanky; these eggs are hand painted with wax, died and then added to, and died again. The colors and patterns all hold special significances such as wealth, love, prosperity, Christ, and pagan ideas. They are very special to give as gifts. You can't eat these eggs (for religious reasons, all though these customs predate Christianity), and so the white and yolk are usually blown out of the shell (an interesting excercise for someone that has had countless hours of food handling instruction- actually I couldn't do it, salmonella fear got the best of me, but luckily the others were all to eager to oblige). Mine turned out nice, though I don't know if it will make it home. I am going to buy the tool we used to paint the wax. It is like a pen, and it is used over a candle flame. It takes quite the steady hand. When we finished that session, I headed home for the bulk of the Easter cooking.

Although it sounds like a holographic videogame or the room with the pool in a Holiday Inn, Holodets (холодець) is actually meat jello. I had heard a lot about this dish. It is a traditional dish and generally adults love it and kids don't. It used to be made by boiling down meat and bone for days until it was thickened, and then chilling it. Now people often add store bought jellatin for ease. But none the less, it is nothing more than clear jello with meat chunks. I had tried and liked many other Ukrainian dishes that volunteers often complain about, and so I wanted to see this one in process. I helped prepare it on Saturday (after the fresh chicken had boiled all night), and I thought it looked pretty good, not to forget that we were fasting. The really religious abstain from eating meat, milk and eggs for the full 6 weeks of Lent.

We went on to cook other things, the whole rest of the day - rolls with cabbage inside, pastries with cherries or poppyseeds, different salads, including "shuba" which literally means fur coat, and is herring under layers of grated, cooked vegetables. And everything with lots of mayoinase. Then we started with the potatoes, and I had had enough of the knife, so I got my peeler out of my room. I hadn't shown my family the peeler before, because I was the third volunteer they had hosted, and I figured someone else had shown them, and they would be using one if they had liked it. I had used it when we made borshcht in class, and my normally progressive teacher had thought it was no better than a knife. But low and behold this was a new toy, and my host mother was very intrigued, almost giddy, which is very unlike her. She couldn't believe how fast I peeled a pot of potatoes (being a bit out of practice, I wasn't so impressed with my speed), and the tool for removing potato eyes almost put her over the edge with glee. I thought at the time, "This is my first Peace Corps moment!" I had shown someone something that the individual freely chose to adopt instead of foisting something upon that person. For weeks after I would come in while she was peeling, at first slowly but with time faster; I was impressed with her determination. My family sells most of the potatoes they grow and keep only the small ones. Ever tried to peel a small potato? I was very happy to give it to her.

Then I got to play with HER nifty potatoe gadget, which she can use quite quickly but gave me a blister. Nevertheless, I want one; it cuts potatoes into french fries, you pick the size, and it is certainly much faster than a knife. It does take a sturdy counter though and some elbow room.

If you really want the whole picture, you need to imagine a space about 4 feet by 7 feet complete with table, counter, frig, stove, and sink, plus two people cooking. Literally. If someone is at the table, you can't get past them, and it is difficult for one person to be at the stove and one at the sink, or one at the sink and one at the counter. There aren't really very many possibilities. And add to this that men NEVER help cook. So once in a while one of them would poke their head in to marvel at the site, at which my host mom would comment to them on my surprising helpfulness. They would smile with the expression that I imagine people make when they watch a clever monkey perform at the fair, and then they would wander back to the TV room, usually after "tasting" something for which they were supposed to be fasting.

Because of the tightness of space, I knocked a pot (Castryula) of perishky on the floor at one point, and we picked them up while no one else was looking. I then told my host mom about when I knocked 12 fish filets in the water and faught the baby sharks (akula) for them (true story). She loves talking about sharks though she says she hates it. Ukrainians love to fish and inevitably sharks come up when I talk about fishing, probably because I know it is bound to get a great reaction. But anyway, we finished cooking and went to bed. Easter starts EARLY.

The really religious start the night before around 11pm. At 3:30 am we got up and were at the church by 4am with aunts and grandmas in tow. The service was finishing, and the whole town was assembling, all in a long line that wound round and round the church. In my town (20,000) there is only one church (the Communists weren't terribly fond of them), and it seemed like there was a representative from most families there that morning, all with baskets. Beautiful baskets, full of colorful eggs, homemade breads, meets, cheeses, wines, cookies and pastries, and the Easter bread with frosting. They all laid them out in a spiralling line where the priest can bless them and they all lit a candle. It was so beautiful. And the priests' procession was quite impressive complete with banners and singers, and a small broom for copiously bestowing holy water. Chris's page has a good picture but it doesn't do the whole image justice.

posted by jjs @ 4:19 AM