Perpetual Change

Summer Random Thoughts

Theses are a collection of thoughts off scraps of papers and torn corners of notebooks; I couldn�t keep up with them throughout my travels. They are actually from last summer.

One day I went to visit the museums in my town. I was reminded of Soviet service. I had to go get change across the street for a 5 bill. The cost was 1 and she couldn�t make change for a 5. She then followed me around locking doors to different exhibits behind me (a little unsettling), and she didn�t know something; I forget if it was about the building or an artist, but it was a pretty basic question for a docent in a rather small museum.

Ironically I met my appointment for the next day where I got change that day, but I didn�t know that then. She wants to study English and is a cousin of a teacher at school. Sometimes people want to leave Ukraine so badly that it hurts. It hurts me that they see me as nothing except a means to this end, and then if I don�t provide, they lose all interest in what I am doing here. It can be really frustrating. One woman is rude to me now, because I couldn�t help her; another more or less offered me money to find her a paper marriage. I considered it a small victory to talk her out of this plan and to watch out for trafficking rackets. Human trafficking from and through Ukraine is a big problem, and very scary.

In Ukraine, Little Red Riding Hood doesn�t wear a riding hood but something of a cross between a derby and a scarf.

We went camping and repelling with a friend. The friends had supreme trust in the one guy�s knot and handiwork. I checked everything before I threw my life off a 40 foot cliff (don�t worry, Mom.) I was rather surprised how trusting they were, especially when Ukrainians are scared of dieing from a cross breeze in a bus.

On this trip we went mushrooming. I am very good at finding them, but usually I find the not good types. They have so many here, and they get really big, but the most amazing is one special type. You have all seen the classic toad stool depictions - red caps with white polka dots�well, those aren�t make believe, and they look JUST like that in real life!

There is a difference between soul and spirit in Ukrainian. Soul is higher, I think, though it is a confusing distinction that Ukrainians have trouble explaining. Do any of you think similarly in English?

I finger fenced with a Ukrainian who knew the game before me. We were quite a match. I was awed and thrilled. I also did the gator line dance with cub scouts here; they to knew it before I taught them. How do some unpublicized things get passed around the world? Mafia is an international game as well and very popular here with a few creative variations. It amazes me when I find little corners of my culture tucked away in a far distant culture.

Speaking of us all being of the same race, when I was little, there was a techno song on the radio that I found mesmerizing. I was convinced that if we taped the song, and played it through the cracked ends of my best friend�s, Tommy�s, play set, which acted something like a megaphone, the whole town would be captivated by the song and come mindlessly to the play set, and we could rule the world. It would have been a great �Pinky and the Brain� plot; I was before my time, and now I think that cannot be more true because a remake of the same song, called Crazy Frog, is insanely popular here.

They think of Diaspora with a unique, fiercely defensive opinion toward them, but not really respecting them as real Ukrainians, they get no credit for spreading Ukrainian culture to the world. Or for maintaining many traditions that have come back to Ukraine after the fall of the Soviet Union, which had tried to stamp them out.

Several church camps that I was at had what I would call �Middle school dance parties�. It was really interesting, with all the girls on one side and boys on the other. They were all of very different ages (editor�s note: I now know that it was pretty much a middle school dance party, because the different ages compounds the awkwardness effect of getting together but does not preclude it.

At a Scout Sea Camp, I learned that they don�t call it SCUBA here. They were also using an old tank, of questionable sturdiness, to let everyone try. Of course, they were only swimming in less than 5 feet of dark tea colored water. I passed when they offered me.

I ate more p�t� than I ever have in my life over the course of the summer. I think I have only had it once since. I am wondering if I should start training for this summer.

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posted by jjs @ 9:18 AM