March-ing to my own drum

March2007

There is a dog in my apartment building that, everyday, pisses on the doorframe to my apartment. Really. Everyday. So every morning, when I leave my apartment, I step in a puddle of dog piss. Starting the day off right.

The Ukrainian word for March is pronounced Berezen (all of the e’s are flat, like eh.) Berezen refers to the birch trees that bloom in March (in theory… I’m sure there are years when winter lasts well into April and the birch trees don’t bloom.) And in Ukraine they tap the birch trees for their juice. They tap the trees much like maple trees and collect the sap/juice into plastic bottles.

I’m going somewhere with this, I promise.

I drink a lot of bottled water. And I buy most of it in 5 or 6 liter bottles. But I never know what to do with those bottles when they are empty, so I stock them up in my apartment. Well, two weeks ago, the neighbor who lives upstairs, Yura, came to my apartment and asked if he could have some of my empty bottles. I, excited at the opportunity to get rid of some of my clutter, said, “Sure, how many do you want?” He said he would take as many as I had to give.

Do the math. I have lived in this apartment for one year now. I go through, on average, one 6 liter bottle of water a week. I haven’t thrown any out. Now, I haven’t been here every week, but there were more than thirty bottles of water lying around. He took them all. In two trips.

He told me that he was going to harvest Berezovy (birch) juice and he would give me some of what he harvested.

And sure enough, the next day Yura stopped by with a 2.5 liter jar filled with a cloudy, water-like liquid. He told he that he had gathered 50 liters in one day and had many more bottles to fill up. I thanked him for the juice and he then told me that he would bring me another jar tomorrow.

Well, ladies and gentlemen, Berezovy juice tastes pretty good. Not that there’s that much taste to it. I think Yura or his wife had added lemon juice, because if tasted like watered down lemonade. I drank most of the jar after getting home from a run. It was cold refreshing. But about an hour later, my stomach was not so happy with me. I made a few trips to the toilet and was right as rain. Lesson Learned: Berezovy juice is good, but in moderation. Yura brought me another jar the next day. And the day after that.

Last weekend (the 24th) my volunteer friends threw a surprise birthday party for me. I was under the impression that several volunteers were getting together at Larry and Karen’s (fellow volunteers) apartment in L’viv. When I showed up, I was oblivious to the amount of people just hanging out in the apartment. I assumed I was the last to arrive. I noticed a picture of me on the wall and a note card that referred to one of my many hi-jinks. It confused me, but I didn’t really pay attention. Then I noticed another picture of me, and another note card quoting something I’d said. Then I noticed that there were pictures of me and note cards all over the walls of the apartment. I turned to Karen with a puzzled look on my face, at which point everyone yelled “Happy Birthday!” I was pretty stunned. I didn’t really know what to say or do. In shock, I just kind of smiled and said thanks. Then Larry told me that they had hired a stripper. I chuckled, assuming it to be a joke. But it wasn’t a joke… well, kind of. The bedroom door opened and out walked my pal Travis (who lives in the East.) Whoa. Quite a surprise. It was a great party. There was a “How Much Do You Know About Casey?” quiz (which I’ve posted on my blog). We ate chicken sandwiches and borshch. We had some drinks. We told stories and laughed. A really great surprise.

Later that week Travis, who had stuck around, and I had a big adventure about my town.
It started out with a routine trip to the lake (yeah, my town has a lake… I had no idea. I’d been swimming in a lake in a neighboring village, but this lake is in my town.) On our way to the lake we passed my town’s Museum. I asked Travis if he wanted to check it out, he didn’t see why not. So we stepped inside. In the entryway there was an old man who asked us what we wanted. I told him that we wanted to have a look around. He asked us how much time we had. Yep. We said that we had a lot of time. He smiled and proceeded to lead us on a two-hour tour of the museum. It was excellent. This old man, who was at least 70, knows everything. He told us about pre-history in Ukraine, and then moved us up, through time, to the present. The whole museum seemed like his private collection. It was great. The man is a very patriotic Ukrainian and his language is the most beautiful Ukrainian I have heard. Travis and I are sure that he was a member of the Ukrainian Partisan Army, who fought against Stalin and against the Nazis in the hopes of claiming their own country. We decided that he has never uttered a word of Russian in his life, except for the times when not speaking Russian would have cost him his life. At the end of the tour, he told us to come again and that a more informative tour would take at least a day. I might go back for the day-tour.

After the museum, we made our way to the lake. But fate intervened again, this time in the form of an old woman who was working in the garden around a grotto to the Virgin Mary. She called to us, asking for help. She offered us a pair of rusty shears and asked us to clip something for her because she was too weak to do it herself. Why not? Travis took the shears and asked her what she wanted clipped. She pointed to the large rose bushes. I said, I think she wants you to cut bushes. The rose bushes? Travis replied. Yeah, I said. I asked the woman what she wanted us to cut. She indicated the large, thorny bushes. Travis shrugged and started clipping. We clipped down all of the rose bushes in the garden. The woman thanked us and said she would pray for us. We told her it was no problem and went on our way.

We finally reached the lake. It was so nice outside that we decided to walk around the lake. But there is no trail that goes around the lake, so we found ourselves being veered into a small wood. We walked through the woods and came upon a small church. It felt sort of like a church in a horror movie, because of its location. Beyond the church was a small village. We walked through it and ended up lost. We asked an old woman how to get back to my town and she asked us how we could have gotten lost. I told her that we were Americans, but she refused to believe it. Despite her disbelief, she gave us directions and we eventually made it back to my town. It was at least a 10 mile walk.
The next day, when we told my colleagues at school, we were ridiculed for getting lost so close to home.

I don’t mind though. I might even do the walk again.