Every Stone

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Okay, so, Day 3 through 6 – let me see if I can remember what I even did.

In general terms, I can certainly offer a bit in the way of what an adventure it is to go to Ukranian restaurants. Step 1, and don’t underestimate the difficulty, locate a restaurant that is neither simply a glass counter below which ubiquitous and mysterious meats loll against one another, sweating in the imitation of air conditioning the ancient machine beneath is mustering, nor a café serving the strict diet of cigarettes, vodka, coffee, and pastries followed by most Ukranians. (Take that, Atkins.)

The night of June 17 and early morning of June 18 were a whirlwind of meetings, insomnia, and itinerary negotiation. First itinerary finalized by 10 am on June 18. Then Monday was another flurry of jetlag and itinerary negotiation that led to a weakening of my resolve and subsequent return to caffeinated coffee. We finalized the itinerary for the third time only to have it fall apart again just before I found myself writing this, June 20. (Expect strikeouts and revisions.)

So, jumping back to Saturday, did I mention we had a formal meeting at TGIF? We’re not sure if Ukranians really love TGIF – the location might support this conclusion – or if it was an attempt to make us feel at home, with the tacky splendor and half-English menus. Bless the interior decorator or entrepreneur who thought to use road signs and license plates as décor. And who shipped that to Kiev, anyway? Really? I might almost rather have gone to the McDonald’s in the Maidan, which, much to our amusement, is boycotted by Ukranians, who, from their perch atop the flawlessly healthy diet of Parliaments and horse-radish vodka, deem it terribly unhealthy.

Saturday night was the Elton John concert. A quick shout for advocacy and activism: “In 2002, Ukraine registered the highest, and among the fastest-growing, rates of HIV infection in all of Eastern Europe. The spread of HIV is being driven by injecting drug use and, to a lesser but growing extent, unsafe sex among young people.” Officially the number is 104,000, but realistically it’s closer to 377,000. The concert was fantastic. Not only was it Elton John, and not only was it HIV/AIDS activism and advocacy, it was very successful despite substantial religious controversy. I posted some photos at my Flickr site.

It was fascinating, and even a bit jarring, to see Elton John, with full stage, sound, and lights, perform in the Square of Independence as Ukranians refer to the Maidan where the Orange Revolution took place. The backdrop was a series of old Soviet buildings and more of the beautiful architecture that is commonplace around Kiev. Even walking around here, I feel privileged to see and experience such culture and history. My usual tone-deafness arose and, when asked, I was unable to tell whether or not John had played “Rocket Man.” (It’s a running joke how bad I am at parsing out lyrics, stemming from an auditory mishap listening to a Sixpence None the Richer song with my sister a few years ago.) Admitted I wasn’t sure, but bet foolishly that he had based on another auditory mishap. I thought he’d opened with it. As of right now, I still have no clue what he opened with on Saturday. In any case, when John actually did play “Rocket Man” a few songs later, and I was listening for it, it was spectacular and very memorable. Bold new landscapes and space appropriately cued by a starry electric background.

Back to work. Research is going well, as I found out at TGIF, but translation from Ukranian to English is slow and takes place primarily ad hoc and verbally. We call the best English speakers most proximate to the person we need to contact as a general rule and, comically, use a lot of gesticulation and speak very slowly. Of course, it’s a good way to feel like an ass when someone does speak English. Not many do here, and, interestingly, there’s not much in the middle between bare minimum English and foreign-level fluency. I haven’t even heard many other European languages, although there is a lot of Russian going on – in addition to and in the midst of the Ukranian. Depending on where you are in Ukraine, the Ukranian is more or less pure measured by the amount of Russian that is mixed in with the original Ukranian.

Sunday we ventured out, to the Pechersk Lavra. (I count my blessings that I am able to type this and don’t have to mangle it aloud yet again, as we did first with one another, then in the taxi, and again as we were trying to explain what our first outing in Kiev had been.) As the site of an Orthodox church, it required I cover my head. As it’s 90 degrees in Kiev, I hadn’t thought to bring hat or burqa. My colleague offered me a hat, and I gratefully accepted, my gratitude only somewhat mitigated by the sight of the white hat dragged from a back pocket. Totally clashed with my really chic plain black tank and skirt. (Right.)

The compound was enormous. Although originally built atop a set of caves in which one monk lived for nearly 50 years, and in which many monks came to reside, creating a subterranean monastery, it grew to incredible and beautiful proportions in the form of what seemed to be several churches and numerous walkways, gardens, and buildings. The funniest part of the venture was the difficulty of finding the caves. Wandering yielded nothing. The pamphlet did include a top-bottom split of Ukranian and English miraculously, so I finally came up with accosting an attendant – not only not covering her head but not much of the rest of her either, incidentally, but I’m not bitter – with a finger pointing to what I was pretty sure was the Ukranian translation of a sentence mentioning the caves and making the international “Where?” gesture of exaggerated bent arms and confused expression. She took pity on us and pointed downhill, making several twisty motions with her fingers and offering some exited Ukranian.

We went downhill, down slick cobblestone with a few cursory footgrips, and followed the guide’s directions as best as possible, encountering several older women with covered heads whom my colleague took it upon himself to loudly label “babushkas.” I pretended not to know him and considered lifting my skirt a foot and a half and tucking the straps of my tank top in so as to fit in among the Ukranian women. Unfortunately there was no way to turn my much abused black flip-flops into any variation on the brilliant four inch heels that I’ve seen on the feet every woman from the age of 13 to 60.

So, resigned to my fate, I trudged alongside my friend with a minimum of stumbling and slipping. For me that is. Meaning I almost fell on my butt at least twice per 10 feet, or maybe three meters if we’re being both generous and European. We made it down to what we thought was the entrance to the cave and after several abortive efforts and a few confused interactions realized it was, in fact, the exit. We began trying to find the entrance. Up the hill, through a gently upward sloping open stairway with a beautiful view, we ended up at the top of a hill. It didn’t seem right that the caves would begin there. And it was raining. These two very logical conditions of the visit conspired to convince me that there was no way the entrance was there. Determined to find the opening to the caves at the bottom of the hill, I led the way back down. It was pouring when we got there. Sheltering in the bottom of the passage, we started discussing where the entrance was.

“That couldn’t be the entrance.”
“No, way too narrow with people headed the wrong way.”
“I wish these Ukranians spoke English.”
“Nobody speaks English.”
“I’m going to start asking –“

With that threat still hanging in the air, a Ukranian girl beside me asked us which English-speaking country we had escaped from to terrorize her. Okay, she left off the last part, but given the conversation we’d just had – we’re in the bad habit of assuming people don’t speak English, which is 98 percent true – it was not unlikely. He answered as he always does, that we are from, not the US or the United States or America, but the United States of America. Say it out loud. Takes way too long. Just awkward. We talked for a bit. I explained that Texas does not qualify as the United States. Finally I asked where the entrance to the caves is. Uphill.

Gamely my companion followed me back up the hill. When the direction of the entrance was still unclear in the small maze of buildings and entryways at the end of the passageway and the rain wasn’t abating, I conceded that perhaps I could come back with our third Muskateer consultant when he got to Kiev the coming weekend. (Wisely, my friend was having none of this cave business himself.) Always the gentleman, he offered again to wait for me at the end, but given the proximity of the Pechersk Lavra to Kiev and the beauty of it, I didn’t mind the prospect of coming back another weekend.

The rain let up as we left, and we decided to explore the neighborhood a bit more. Walking to the left we found a tiny Italian restaurant with great people-watching. I had yet another latte. The coffee here is wonderful, even the weakened version that I order to Ukranians’ disgust. Side note. A friend here who studied in the States said that he and the other Eastern Europeans he studied abroad with on the East Coast of the US, bemoaning the “coffee” served at Starbucks, finally came up with a summarizing statement for the US, why it is we’re a free country: “Everything is free. It’s fat-free, caffeine-free, sugar-free, toll-free, and so on.”

Dinner Sunday was at a pizza place a few blocks of the Maidan, which, for centrality and for ease of verbal reference for cab drivers, is a good place to meet up for food, and it was terrific. We met up with a few guys from the campaign, including a very gifted translator who speaks a few more languages than Ukranian and English and has great conversation. As usual I was the only woman at the table. Not terribly unusual either, we ended up in a conversation about Hollywood. It’s a pretty safe topic. Unlike religion or politics, pretty much the only two other conversation topics for which people with basic language skills (Ukranian or English) can make themselves understood, no one gets too worked up about it, unless you come down on the wrong side of the Jen-Angelina conflict, and it makes for an entertaining time of it. It’s also, I think, pretty revealing of people’s character and interests. (The Jen-Angelina conflict in particular. Really.)

A long-held theory about men and Hollywood was proven to hold true internationally when a light conversation about popular culture in both countries quickly turned, as most such conservations with men will, into a top-five ranking of actresses and models. The critierion was international fame for the purposes of making it work for everyone at the table. That and the addition of Ukranian standards of beauty made it slightly more interesting a variation on the typical testosterone-driven drool-fest. Keira Knightley wasn’t really a hit. Angelina Jolie was too weird-looking. Then Monica Bellucci, Laetitia Casta, and Sophie Marceau were suddenly on the table alongside Meg Ryan and Julia Roberts. Catherine Zeta-Jones and Penelope Cruz were heartily approved of, but didn’t make any of the top-five lists.

Sadly my vegetable pizza that night disappointed. Mushrooms may be the only bad produce I’ve had here. Vegetables are terrific as a rule. Sunday I had eggplant for lunch. Yesterday I had a bunch of salad. Today I had caprese salad twice – and with two very different spellings, naturally. All of it was fantastic. The dishes are not altogether good by measure of my US-ified palate, but the basic fruits and vegetables, and coffee, are great. There’s something in the soil – Ukraine was the breadbasket of the USSR, after all. (And, as we argue, it’s all either entirely organic or not even close to a semblance of organic.)

We do joke that every dish with more than two ingredients generally turns out almost terrific. There’s always just one weird ingredient that throws everything off. It’s usually shrimp. Or prawns. Like a salad with chicken and vegetables with honey mustard sauce accompanied by mayonnaise and shrimp. Or the pepperoni pizza with an inexplicable additional topping of shrimp. I almost expect to find shrimp in my milk and cereal. Or maybe bobbing helplessly in my coffee next time I order.

There’s also very little opportunity to modify orders, though whether it be due to the stubbornness of a chef and wait staff or to the language barrier I couldn’t tell you. My erstwhile colleague is perpetually in search of good red-sauce pasta. (We eat a lot of Italian. Plenty of Italian restaurants here.) There’s almost never tomato and pasta. When he asks about the combination, it induces winces and fervent head shaking. Sacrilege. Today at lunch he tried to get spaghetti with the red sauce from another pasta dish, and it backfired terribly. Out of what I suspect to be spite, he received some oily mixture of pesto and red sauce that did not seem at all to complement the dispirited spaghetti piled – much less substantially than on a US plate, more on that later – in his bowl. Furthering my suspicion was the fact that my food was delicious. More vegetables – the “Canadian” appetizer, meaning raw vegetables and Ukranian dip, and the aforementioned caprese salad. All portions are pretty small, but then, so are Ukranians, so it makes sense.

Have I mentioned the bread? It’s all fabulous. Let me know when a Ukranian bakery opens in Virginia. I’m there and buying a controlling share so I can retire at 30. Bread and pastries here are phenomenal, although I still balk at rye bread. Although vastly better than its US counterpart, which I detest, the rye bread still really doesn’t taste good to me.

Right now I’m sitting here thinking about the really nutty, grainy great loaf of bread sitting in my fridge. The same one the bread lady at the supermarket scolded me for trying to wrap myself. I’m making it last so I don’t have to go run the rapids at the store again. I really hate being chided in foreign languages.

While I think about my bread I’m also carefully gauging my internet use. Having exhausted my bandwidth limit twice since arriving on Thursday – a limit my colleague has yet to reach – I am finally on a limit 7 times that which I’ve been on and happily taking advantage of it to download “Under the Tuscan Sun” from iTunes and relieve the overload of music videos on what seems like every channel and in every restaurant. Don’t spoil it. I love Diane Lane. The major consequences of the music videos so far is that I have a really good Ukranian rock song stuck in my head, where it became rooted sometime between the five thousandth replay of Rihanna’s horrific “Umbrella” music video and Justin Timberlake’s “Cry Me a River” masterpiece. (Yes, I love that song.) It’s very strange to see them playing in even the nicest restaurants and really elegant cafes, but I’m not complaining. I might begin to moan a bit, though, if I continue to have problems getting distracted by them during key meetings conducted at various venues.

Today we had one such meeting, which, as these meetings tend to be, was consumed by several language-based miscommunications that once straightened out were minor issues and shouldn’t have merited more than five minutes of discussion. Following the meeting, we made it to the crazy Italian pirate lunch – did I mention that today’s vegetables and salad for lunch were served in what appeared to be a pirate-themed café at which I could have purchased a hookah if I’d liked? Waiters and waitresses were wearing some form of sailor pants and a vaguely Middle Eastern billowy vest. The inside of the café was lined with wood, like the bilge of an old ship, maybe, and its walls were decorated with, wait for it, a mixture of pirate artifacts and assorted African tchotchkes. Yes. That’s right. A map of Africa made of gold beans and a couple of wood statues presumably of African origin. Sadly Captain Jack Sparrow did not make an appearance.

After lunch, up the hill “three blocks” that turned out to be three-quarters of a mile and to focus groups where I observed from a room of bone-chilling, blessed cold. The translation of focus group commentary was nearly instantaneous but, like much of our translation, probably not terribly accurate. The same ad and the same translator in the same combination a few hours apart produced two different translations, a possible crisis in something as delicate and precise as messaging work. There’s a lot of paraphrasing and cultural interpretation going on – some of it helpful, some of it not.

As always everyone I have met in the past few days has been extraordinarily interesting, kind, and enjoyable.

Back to the grind and to my lingering insomnia. Hopefully I can sleep before 5 am this morning. Ninety minutes to go to improve on my record so far. Tomorrow brings a four-hour car ride for two more focus groups out in the countryside. Hopefully no repeat of the Nigeria experience — “put down the child, put away your breast, and answer our questions!”