JUNE:
To be honest, this should actually begin with the last week of May. I once again travelled back to the USA. I was home for two weeks, dividing my time between Minnesota and California (where I attended the wedding of my cousin.) I arrived back in Ukraine on the fifth of June. On the 10th of June, I took part in the Ukrainian Little League National Tournament. Previously, I had thought that baseball did not really exist in Ukraine, that it was just a hobbyhorse belonging solely to expatriated Americans. I was wrong.
Eight teams from all corners of Ukraine took part in the tournament and competed for the opportunity to represent Ukraine in the European Little League Championships. I was to be a volunteer umpire. And, as it turns out, baseball terms in Ukrainian are almost all cognates, so calling balls and strikes required nothing more than a Slavic accent.
The boys on the teams (ages 10-12), despite their shouts in Ukrainian and Russian, could have been little leaguers from Anytown, USA. There were some boys who could play, but the majority seemed to have just put on a glove for the first time. Games were not decided on hitting, but more on the amount of overthrows that helped to turn a routine ground ball into a homerun with two RBIs. And the boys themselves had their own quirks, which only added to the fun of being part of the tournament.
One boy, on the team from Kyiv, wore two batting gloves at all times. Another boy, from Rivne, couldn’t manage to keep his pants (at least three sizes too large) from falling down as he hustled around the base path. Another boy was so chubby that he was out of breath by the time he reached first base, too bad, since he was one of the boys who could hit the ball. There were righties who probably should have been lefties, but due to lack of actual equipment were stuck with a right-handed glove. There were boys swinging bats twice their size.
But my favorite ballplayer was a boy from Simferopol, Crimea. I’ll call him Zhenya. Zhenya was maybe 80 pounds. Maybe. He wore soccer shorts and soccer shin guards (under knee-high socks, natch.) He wore two sweatbands on each wrist, and had a mesh jersey that said “America: OK 1!” He had a long mullet and was the only boy on his team without a hat. Zhenya’s stance in the batter’s box was a low crouch, almost a squat. He swung at everything. More often than not he would manage to connect, and the resulting (aforementioned) overthrows would put him on second base. Standing atop the base he would scream at the next batter. His rally cries were nothing more than “C’mon!” and “Do it!” but he screamed them with such emotion that you might have thought the fate of the universe rested on the outcome of the game.
Zhenya’s antics in the field were fun to watch also. He took every play personally, even when he had no part in it. He played shortstop for most of the game and commanded the infield with as much emotion as he had while standing on second. But when things did not go well his shouts turned to venom. He would cover his face with his glove (far too big for him) and shout at an arbitrary fielder. In one game, his team was down by four and they had just given up another run, of course he screamed at his teammates. The next batter hit a ground ball right to Zhenya’s glove. He fielded it cleanly, but was so incensed that he threw the ball as hard as he could at the other team’s dugout. We called the ball dead and no runs were scored. Zhenya’s team lost by seven.
I don’t mean to make fun of these boys. Their enthusiasm for the game, evidenced by Zhenya’s raw emotion, makes me believe that baseball, while nowhere nearly as popular as soccer, is slowly carving out its niche in Ukraine’s sporting world. Baseball is a true team sport, a sport where each player has to give a full 100 percent in order for the team to be successful. Baseball is teaching these boys teamwork, something that they don’t get enough of in their daily life. It was an honor to take part in the tournament.
JULY:
In July I did what most Ukrainians do in the summer: I went to the sea. And while I was in the Black Sea last summer, this was my first time on the Crimean Peninsula. I was there with my fellow Volunteers Nathan, Travis, and Mike. Nathan and I were there by ourselves for a few days, but then the other two joined us. We spent time in Simferopol and Sevastopol and Bakhchesaray. We slept on the beach in our sleeping bags, which was harder than it sounds. The moon was nearly full the entire time, which meant that the night was not very dark. Plus the sun came up around 4:30 each morning. Not to mention that the beaches in Crimea are mostly rock beaches and not very comfortable for sleeping. But it was free, and thus a lot cheaper than the exorbitant rates charged for apartments.
We didn’t spend our entire time on the beach though. Nathan and I ventured inland, to Bakhchesaray. Bakhchesaray is the Tatar(Tartar) capital of Ukraine. The Tatars have their own language and a rich culture that is unlike the rest of Ukraine. ==I won’t give a history lesson, but most of the Tatars were deported by Stalin and made to live in Uzbekistan and other Central Asian countries. They were allowed to return to Crimea after Ukraine won its independence in 1991. I’m sure Wikipedia could tell you more.== Bakhchesaray is also home to two historic cave cities. The city of Chufut Kalй, which is a giant network of caves carved into the cliff face of a large mountain, and Mongup Kalй, a smaller network of caves and a ruined castle on top of an even larger mountain. It is Mongup Kalй with which this story is connected.
Nathan and I caught a bus from Bakhchesaray to Mongup Kalй early in the morning. Like all other buses in Ukraine, ours was cramped and stuffy. An obese woman was sitting on my shoulder as she stood in the aisle. A man with the bloody head of a hog in a bag sat next to Nathan. It was hot. It was uncomfortable. It was nothing out of the ordinary.
With only six people on the bus when we reached our last stop, the bus driver announced that he would drive us to Mongup Kalй for another two Hryvnia. “But didn’t we already buy tickets for Mongup Kalй?” I asked.
“Yes, but you must pay me an extra two Hryvnia each. Otherwise I cannot go to Mongup Kalй,” the driver replied. (Doesn’t make sense to me either)
“Fine,” someone else in the bus said, “but we will only pay you once we reach Mongup Kalй.”
The driver grudgingly agreed and we continued on. We were dropped off and when I asked when there would be a bus back, the driver replied, “How should I know?”
Deciding to deal with a return bus when we actually wanted to return, Nathan and I began the vertical ascent up the mountain. Ok, so it wasn’t really vertical, but the grade was steeper than 45 degrees for most of the way. And Ukrainian hiking trails don’t use switchbacks, so you climb straight up the entire way. It was a long, hot climb. Finally we reached the top. At the top a pair of shirtless men stopped us. They had been lounging in the shade, but sprung up quickly when we arrived.
“Do you have your tickets?”
“What tickets?” I asked.
“The tickets you need in order to be on top of the mountain.”
I looked at Nathan, “Why would we have to buy tickets for the mountain at the top of the mountain?” Nathan laughed and shrugged.
“How much are the tickets?” I asked the man.
“It will be fifteen Hryvnia for the two of you.”
Nathan and I knew that we were being had, so we decided to rely on the trump card: the Ukrainian inability to make change (really… they hate it. They never have change and expect you to pay exactly at all times.)
“Well, I have a two hundred bill, or you can take this five Hryvnia bill.”
“You don’t have anything smaller?”
“Nope, just these two bills.”
“Fine, give me the five,” the second man then produced a small receipt calculator and printed out a receipt for five Hryvnia. We took our receipt and moved on.
Mongup Kalй was not worth the climb. There were three caves and the ruins of a castle. True, the view from the top was great, but Chufut Kalй was much better.
Of course, my real story begins after we had walked back down the mountain.
Nathan and I were presented with the problem of getting back to Bakhchesaray. We did not know the bus schedule, nor did we know if there would even be a bus. We entered a small cafй and asked the woman behind the counter when the next bus would be. She looked at a small schedule on the wall and informed us that the next bus would be leaving at 3:30. It was 3:25. We asked where the bus would leave from, and she said that it would leave from the road, of course.
Of course, the road. But which road?
Nathan and I assumed that the road in question was the main highway. We assumed correctly. Unfortunately, we reached the highway in time to watch the bus pull away. Not knowing when the next bus would be, we decided to try and hitch a ride.
We were unsuccessful.
But, eventually, a bus came through. The bus was not going to Bakhchesaray, but it was going to Zalesnoy, which was the town where our driver had demanded an extra two Hryvnia. We got on.
Five minutes later we got off in Zalesnoy.
Zalesnoy shouldn’t even be called a town. Hamlet even feels like a stretch. If I had to take a guess, I’d say that less than 200 people inhabit Zalesnoy. And it was where Nathan and I had stranded ourselves. We sat on a crumbling rock wall, near a small shop, and watched cars zoom past. We held our hands out, palms down (it’s how you flag down a ride,) but no one stopped. We were sharing the rock wall with three older men who were selling apricots and drinking vodka. They seemed to be eating more of their merchandise than they were selling. They eyed us suspiciously, but did not say anything.
After almost an hour of sitting, a road maintenance truck and trailer pulled up. The driver climbed out and went into the shop.
“Foreign comrades,” it was one of the apricot sellers.
“What?” Nathan asked.
“To where do you go?”
“Bakhchesaray.”
“They are going to Bakhchesaray,” the man pointed at the maintenance truck.
Nathan nodded and looked at me, “You want me to go and ask them for a ride?”
“Sure, why not?”
Nathan walked over to the truck’s cab and began talking to the man in the passenger seat. Moments later he looked over at me and motioned for us to go. I rubbed my fingers together in the international sign for “how much?” Nathan shook his head and made a zero with his hand. We climbed into the trailer, which was kind of like an icehouse on wheels. It had one window. Inside the trailer were five shirtless and sunburnt men. They were smoking and they looked at us suspiciously.
“Zdorov,” I said (it means “health” and serves as a greeting.) The men all grumbled a reply. After Nathan and I sat down another man climbed in. He shook hands with everyone and closed the door. We took off shortly thereafter.
Nathan and I didn’t talk for the entire hour drive.
No one else talked either.
We all sat silently in the smoky haze. Finally we reached Bakhchesaray. The truck stopped and Nathan and I climbed out. We nodded farewell and said thanks to the man in the passenger seat. They had dropped us off on the outskirts of the city. We climbed onto a city bus and rode back to the train station.
“I thought they were going to kill us,” Nathan said.
I nodded.
JULY (Part 2):
In the middle of July I hosted a shashlik for fellow volunteers Karen and Larry, Larry’s friend and his friend’s girlfriend. It was a great success. We managed to eat 2 kilograms of pork. We then roasted marshmallows. There were also plenty shots of vodka, which ensured that it was a boozy good time.
JULY (Part 3):
Peace Corps held a language refresher on the last week of July. My Ukrainian was pretty rusty (still is) from speaking mostly English all summer, and the refresher was helpful. It was held at a resort in Volynska Oblast (Northwest Ukraine.) It was a good time and I took third place in a limbo competition (true, there were many other things that happened at the refresher, but that fact is just trivial enough. Third place, who would have thought?)
AUGUST:
My dad and our friend Brian Benson (Returned PCV, Ukraine Group 25) came to visit for the first two weeks of August. We hiked around my town; we toured Kyiv, Lviv, and Vinnitsya; we even managed to have another shashlik. We watched some really dumb movies (Population 436) and had some good conversations. And while nothing too out of the ordinary happened, it was great to have them here.
No sooner had I seen my two visitors off at the train station, than I found myself coerced into joining another group of travellers. Well, coerced is not the right word, since I enlisted easily enough.
Travis and his two friends were going to tour Eastern and Central Europe. I had no other plans for August, so I went along for the ride.
And a ride it was.
The journey got off on the right foot when we were “smuggled” into Romania. While we weren’t actually smuggled ourselves, our ride was definitely a 15-passenger van smuggling goods across the border. We shared the van with a group of Polish tourists and three nylon sacks of what we assumed to have been either cigarettes and alcohol or human organs. Our driver spoke a fusion of Russian, Ukrainian, Polish, and Romanian, which made it almost impossible to understand what he was saying to us. But he had obviously been doing this smuggling route for a long time. When we reached the customs officers at the border, he pulled a wad of money from behind the visor and placed it inside his passport. He also handed our passports over. The customs official glanced in at us, smiled and waved us on. We repeated the same process at the Romanian border with one difference: The customs official leaned into the van and asked why two of the Americans had Ukrainian visas (that’s Travis and me.) Our driver simply said, “They’re professors of English.”
It seemed good enough.
Travis’s two friends caught flights out of Prague and the two of us caught a 25-hour train back to Ukraine. Our train had an eight-hour stop in Krakow, so Travis and I got off the train and went into the city center. We knew that the train would depart at 1:30, so we made sure to be back at the train station by 12:30.
Nothing, however, is ever easy in Eastern Europe.
The train we assumed to be ours arrived on the platform fifteen minutes late. Our car was not part of the train. Travis and I had left our bags on the train, so we wanted to make sure we didn’t miss our train. We thought, maybe, that our train was on a different platform, and so we went to an information window and asked about all possible trains from Prague to Lviv. She told us there was only one train, and it was leaving at 1:56 from platform one. The train on platform one didn’t have our car.
Not knowing what else to do, we returned to platform one. It was 1:54. I told Travis that maybe we should just get on this train, since it was going to the border. And once we were at the border, we might be able to find our train. Travis agreed, but it was too late. The train was taking off.
That was when we saw our train car, at the very end of the train.
==Now, our car was NOT there when we first looked. Our only explanation is that our car was coupled with the train while we were talking to information. Regardless, our car was there now, on the train that was already departing.==
Travis and I began to shout at the train, Stop! Stop! We ran the length of the platform after the train. We made eye contact with anyone we could onboard the train. We continued to yell Stop! Stop! Then our conductor (the one from our car) saw us. The train squealed to an abrupt stop. The door to our car swung open and the conductor was waving us aboard. We apologized and tried to explain that it wasn’t really our fault, and that the car hadn’t been there at first. The train started again and we continued without incident. We arrived in Lviv at one in the morning.
AUGUST (Part 2):
The last week of August was my Close of Service Conference. All of Ukraine Group 29 was present (well, all of us who are still in the country. 74 out of an initial 116.) There were people at the conference who I haven’t seen since we swore in on December 24, 2005. We were given a lot of papers to sign. We were given information about what is required of us over the next three months. We were given advice/information about what we might do after Peace Corps. It was a lot to take in at once, especially considering that it means we’re almost done.
I have just over two months left.
Where have the past twenty-five months gone?
In the coming two months I will try to put into words what these past two years have meant to me. Stay tuned.
1 comment:
this is one of your most delightful posts ever! Thanks for taking the time to let us all in on your life, Casey. I miss you and hope the last few months go by uneventfully, but memorable.
love,
mom
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