A big update

So this is a blog entry I wrote on Tuesday, but due to some snow, I havn't been able to post it until tonight when the stars came out in all their magnificents:

Following suite with my hopes, I had a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend.

Saturday was absolutely gorgeous – one of those days where it’s sunny and warm with a light wind. It was almost ideal for an ultimate Frisbee game as well, so that’s how our group spent our morning. Literally everyone came out. Not everyone played and none of the Ukrainian girls would play, but that’s pretty typical in Ukraine – girls don’t play sports or do physical labour if there is a boy around. This is pretty odd for me as a girl whose always in shorts and runners, but it’s a culture difference that doesn’t change my cultural background and behaviour. After an intense, equal and fun ultimate game on the ‘School 1’ field a group of us split a watermelon before the Candians started to prep for Thanksgiving dinner. Then Sarah, Lucretia and I trekked home to plan out pies. Svitlana came home shortly after and offered to help us pick out ingredients – this was the first of her hospitality that just continued throughout our preparation for dinner.

We went to the grocery store and bought everything for pies and stuffing, plus a couple extras. Our bill was 103 rph – approximately $13. We headed to Sarah’s host family’s house to bake where I met Sarah’s host mom and dad (Ilona’s actual parents (a Ukrainian participant in our group)). Ilona’s mom reminded me so much of my own, just I couldn’t understand a word she said. I finally got to experience “Trish” from the friend’s point of view – quite an experience! After she made us eat, we started pie preparation and since they don’t have pies I’m pretty sure they thought we were mad.

Sunday was our first CAD. It was wet and cool – Vancouver kind of weather for an ultimate tournament. The 20 of us arrived at the field at 8:00 am to set-up for the tournament. Setting up proved to be a time of thorough frustration with cultural differences for me – the Ukrainian girls ignored our first attempts to get them to help get bulletin boards from the other building and move goal posts off the fields. Half of them had worn high heels to the stadium as well. It just didn’t make sense to me! My feeling was shared with the other Canadians and after complaining ( as Canadians do ) to each other while doing these jobs, Ilsa was finally the one who had the guts to go tell them how we felt. Within a couple minutes they were all up to help - I actually don’t think they saw our frustration until we told them. But they understood and we were good to go!

The tournament only brought in around 25 participants – half of those being from our group. Ultimate was a blast. I hope we play it more because the game is like no other and I love it! I limped my way through the first one, but the second I just couldn’t do with my ailments. The event went well, and everyone enjoyed it, small but still a success. As we later discussed, the small turn out could be for a number of reason, but the main one was clearly because of our poor planning sessions. After a talk about it today, I got to bring our the planning wheel. I hope it will do the trick!

After the tournament, it was back to Ilona’s house with Sarah to prepare those pies! We raided their kitchen again and were fed again and again, and were even invited over to her Aunt’s house for tea. I ended up spending the whole day inside this charismatic family’s home, and I thoroughly enjoys the rest of pie prep! On a whim, Sarah and I decided to make the family chocolate chip cookies as a thank-you for their help. They’d never had them before, and boy did their eyes light up as they indulged in these chocolate speckled treats. In fact, they recognized these cookies from Shrek and thought they were pretty ‘cool’. Sarah and I felt like some crazy baking sensations – they didn’t know we’d been working on these skills since we were five. I brought them home to Svitlana’s family that night and they were equally thrilled.

Monday the Canadians made the best turkey dinner I’ve ever had! We rented out the canteen and lived in its kitchen from 9:00 am – 7:00 pm, making many things for the first time. I wouldn’t be surprised if half the creations we cooked were first time endeavors with partially made up recipes. Many of the ingredients in Ukraine are different and all the packages are in Ukrainian. We were lucky though, because Svitlana basically spent the whole day in the kitchen with us. She made life a whole lots easier for us and I am so thankful she was there. By the end, we were friends with all the cooks, even the grumpy old lady who collected money. Communicating with Ukrainians is so amusing to do and to watch – it’s like a charade scramble where you end up agreeing with the other person because you give up trying to communicate what you want to say! By the end, we knew what ‘yeesh!’ meant (eat) as all the cooks were trying to feed us and we were trying to feed them. In the end, everything worked out better than expected. The food was unbelievable. Turkey was so tender, stuffing was unbelievable, and the pies stole the show. Our pumpkin pies from scratch were like nothing I’ve ever tasted before and half the people there asked us for the recipe – Sarah and I have been offered about 4 pumpkins in hopes that we would make them pies! I kept thinking of Eva and how she may have exploded if she’d been there – I nearly did! After a John, Ilsa, Yvone, Sarah and I walked around outside to let our stomach’s settle and later played the most confusing Ukrainian card game. The Canadians swore Yvone was making up the rules as we went.

That was my weekend of Thanksgiving. It also marked the one month mark in Ukraine – Wow! To show a little corny show, I can’t believe how much I’ve learned from being here so far – so much to be thankful for! I’m starting to understand how CWY is truly a life changing experience.