COS Conference and Host Family Visit

August 28, 2011 at 8:50 pm (The Category-less Category)

I’m at a point in my service that once seemed impossible to even think about: my COS conference–COS meaning Close of Service. Yes, that’s right, I’m almost done.

This has been the longest 2 years of my life, but as I look back at it, it has somehow flown by. More than any other time in my life, I can look at who I was 2 years ago and see how I have changed, and I’ll just say it, I’m proud of myself. There was a point when I sincerely couldn’t imagine getting this far. If I had to pick only one thing I’ve learned from this experience it’d be not to doubt myself: my instincts, my strength, and all that other mushy gushy stuff that crawls to the surface when you’re about to hit a momentous point in your life.

The weirdest part of the conference was seeing people I’ve never seen in my life. Our group swore-in something like 116 volunteers, but we were pretty much split even before we left America. In many other PC countries, this conference is probably an occasion to celebrate with the people who have been with you throughout 2 years in the Peace Corps, but at Group 37′s COS many of us were introducing ourselves to each other for the first time.

There were 98 of us at the conference, which is still a pretty big number for a Peace Corps group. Some countries don’t even have that many volunteers in the whole country.

We stayed in the ski resort town of Slavske in the Carpathian mountains (where I went skiing last winter), and the PC went all out, serving us the bacon-wrapped steak that past volunteers had bragged of. A kind of award for spending the past 2 years buying the cheapest chicken possible  only when our budgets could afford it, I guess.

Maybe one of the saddest parts of the conference was watching other clusters get together for group photos. My cluster from the village Kyinka that started with 5 people has only 2 left, me and Katelyn.

I left the conference and headed to Kyinka for one last visit with my host family. Another moment for reflection about where I had been 2 years ago. I’ll admit, I was apprehensive about this visit. The last time I visited Kyinka was last summer, and as fun as the weekend was, I also remember feeling very stressed and overwhelmed. (It probably had something to do with being stranded at a river with a bunch of drunk, Russian-speaking Ukrainians for 2 days.)

Some things have changed in my host family since I was last here. Ihor, my host brother, has moved to a city in the East to work. He’s got a girlfriend, a job, an apartment. All grown up. My host sister Natasha has bangs and is as  mature beyond her years as she always was. She will be in the 9th grade this year, and it looks like this will be her last year of school. Both Natasha and her mom want her to study music after she finishes the 9th grade. I’m not sure how I feel about that. Tanya tells me that Natasha doesn’t like school, doesn’t like to study, and Tanya is ok with that. But I’m worried that  the choice to follow music might be more influenced by shows like Ukraine’s Got Talent then Natasha’s true talents. But who am I to judge. Maybe things will work out for her. Tanya seems to think that it isn’t of too much importance, as Natasha will someday get married and won’t need school anyways. Natasha is 14, and I see a lot more teen angst in her than was there 2 years ago. I can’t tell you how many times she rolled her eyes at her mom when they took me to the grocery store, telling me that she hated shopping with her mother, etc, etc. She has a new laptop and wireless internet, and according to Natasha she stays up late every night on the internet and then her mom tries to wake her up at 9 every morning and she really hates it. I had to hold back a laugh. Some things are universal.

And speaking of Tanya, I am always amazed at how well I understand her. Maybe it has a lot to do with her being one of the first people who taught me Russian, but her pronunciation and cadence are what I wish all Ukrainians possessed. I’m able to sit at the kitchen table with her for half an hour and gossip about life in the village, politics in Ukraine or changes back in America with very little awkwardness or miscommunication. Really, there are no other Ukrainians I could do this with in Russian. But, maybe more important than me understanding her is her ability to understand my special brand of childish Russian. At a table of Ukrainians,she translates my poor Russian into full thoughts, but still boosts my confidence with tales of how well I picked up Russian when I first moved into her home.

I left the village with a bag full of homegrown peppers and onions and warm and fuzzy feelings about Ukrainians, so my guard was down when I got on the mashrutka to head back to Kiev. I was the last person on the van, and I was very excited about my seat, because it was one of the ones where I could stretch out my legs. The man who was to sit next to me squeezed in next to the window, and I, feeling friendly towards all Ukrainians, told him that if he needed more space he could put his bag at my feet. He said thank you then offered me one of the 2 ice creams he was holding. I said yes, because like I said, my guard was down. As soon as I did it I regretted it. I looked at the ice cream trying to figure out if it was possible to give it back. I wasn’t in the least bit hungry. In fact, I was very full from my going-away meal in Kyinka, and I also felt uncomfortable accepting a treat from a stranger. (It was in a wrapper, Mom. I’ve trick-or-treated enough to know not to accept unwrapped sweets from strangers.) I couldn’t go throw it away, because the van had just pulled out of the parking lot. Despite my worries, I ate the ice cream and thought things would be ok when the man did not continue to talk to me. He went about a full 2 minutes without saying anything to me, and I began to think that I had really just received an ice cream with no strings attached.

Then the strings attached themselves.

The guy leaned very close to my ear, like he wanted to whisper, then basically shouted to the whole van that he didn’t have a job and that finding a job was difficult in Ukraine. He kept saying something about the KGB that I didn’t understand, but then seemed to settle back into his seat a few seconds later. At this point I still thought I was ok.

Then he decided to ask me more questions about myself. The questions were accompanied by strokes along my shoulder. Eventually the strokes on my shoulder let to attempts to grab my hand, at which point I pulled out my bitch face.

If there is another way for a lone female to make a drunk man leave her alone, I don’t know it. My 2 years here has taught me that the bitch face is the only thing that gets the job done, because you see, drunk men don’t get offended. Well, occasionally they do, but more often this is the only way to make them really understand that you no longer want to be touched or spoken to.

I spent the next minute or so adamantly insisting that I didn’t understand anything he was saying, even though I did, and a few times had to very vehemently pull my hand away from him and tell him I wanted him to stop.

Just as usual in these situations, not a single person in the van even turned to see what was going on. We were the only 2 people talking, and everyone had to have understood the frustration in my voice, but it wasn’t anyone else’s business.

I lost it a bit when the drunk man insisted on pulling my earbuds out of my ears to tell me something else. For about 2 seconds there involved some swatting in front of my face between his hands and mine as he tried to hold my hands down and pull out the earbuds. A few very bad words in English might have escaped my mouth. Still, no one else budged. I leaned forward to the edge of my seat debating if I wanted to spend the next 2 hours standing at the front of the van or sitting next to this guy, but LUCKILY for me, he almost immediately fell asleep after our confrontation. For the rest of the ride his B.O. and horrible cell phone music kept me stewing about the miserable state of drunk, unemployed men in Ukraine. By hour number 2 I cooled down enough think again with kindly reflections of my host family, but today was a practice in both patience and perspective.

You win some, you lose some in Ukraine.