5th day! Dacha

Saturday, Day 5

Let me begin by stating that I peed in an outhouse in rural Ukraine today.

Actually, no, lets never mention that again ever. Today we woke up and Sasha picked us up and we went to the beach. We split a beer in the car at 10 am. The dacha is far away from the city, and we are in the country now. Sasha was a very good driver and so knowledgeable of history; it was a really interesting ride. I saw a goat on the way through but I could have sworn it was an antelope and I said this out loud and everyone laughed and laughed.

Then Valia said, “No, it’s not an antelope, it’s a JERK!” and Dad and I cracked up, and he translated what a jerk was and then she said “I meant goat!” and Sasha laughed so hard I thought he should have pulled the car over.

We passed countryside where Germans lived in their own villages when they essentially just plopped themselves down here. I am having spider anxiety as I type so I cannot recall a lot of facts at the moment. The spiders here are huge, and plentiful, and all over the ceiling, over the bed, and they sure as hell look like Black Widows but Sasha assures me they are not. Super.

Anyways, the dacha is very very old, about the size of a 1 or 2 bedroom house, but two stories, no AC, hardly any lights or electricity (one bathroom, and no, I don’t think there are lights in there, or if there are, I am pointlessly doing everything in the dark) but in that way it’s pretty fun to stay in for a night. The patio and backyard is gorgeous, essentially just flowers and vegetables and fruits (pumpkins, grapes, apples, plums, cucumbers, zucchini, etc etc) and we have been eating all of them.

The sea meets a Limone here, so we’re a few minutes walk from either freshwater or saltwater beaches. I don’t think we have a word for Limone, and I am entirely creating this spelling phonetically. A Limone is like a small sea that has freshwater, and it meets the real sea. The trick is it’s not a river or a lake…it’s just not. I was there today but didn’t bring my camera, so I’ll try tomorrow.

Sasha’s older sister lives next door, and her granddaughter lives with her. I don’t know where her mother is, but she speaks of her father a lot. She’s 11, her name is Nastia, and she is learning English in school and is very interested in trading languages.

This was the coolest day ever, and if you ever want to learn another language later in life I strongly suggest keeping an 11 yr old around at all times. She’s not intimidating at all, has a lot of patience, and really ingeniously finds ways of communicating with me. It helps that I think she has no female contact anywhere near her age and I’m the next best thing to a fairy princess. Her very own American, which to this rural Russian girl is pretty equivalent with alien. As in ET.

Proof of genius: she knew I knew the word car, but not train, and when trying to teach me the Russian word I had no clue what she was talking about. So she used her hands to show that she was talking about something in succession, and in Russian said, “car, car, car,” until it was obvious she meant train car, and we exchanged words. So fun.

Plus she’s a girl after my own heart; poured herself beer after everyone in the table said no, swam to the sandbar way out at the beach after everyone said no, and about a million other things that have me totally enchanted. I want to take her home with us! We went fishing, she took me, caught her own bait in the shallows and launched her own line, a total pro. She’s absolutely gorgeous, waist-length hair, sun bleached, tan, and one of those adolescents that’s kind of provocative in her gestures and expressions way too young, and totally unaware of it.

In the course of the day she shyly came up to me and said “hi,” took my hand and led me into the sea, and promptly told me she thought I was beautiful between swallowing seawater while getting bashed around by waves. Not a bad start. Not only did she take me fishing, but picked me wildflowers, asked me a million questions, collected seashells and feathers from the beach too. She looked positively grief-stricken when dad told her we were leaving tomorrow. She painted me a picture and decorated it with flower petals, before teaching me a card game (which is really good, I hope I remember) and confessing that she writes poetry, too.

She asked me, I love this, not if I was married, but if I had a husband. Its really not weird for 22 year olds to be married here, and when I thoughtlessly said, “I’m too young!” when I told her I had no husband, she said that her parents married at 18. My dad translated for her that I just wanted to be really really sure I was with the right person before marrying, and that’s when she told us that her mom left she and her dad for someone with more money. I really want to keep in touch with her, and I hope if I give her my address she can craft me some letters in English, or maybe I can get them translated from Russian.

Sasha and Valia are also entertaining other guests, and they are very nice, and we all have essentially been eating and drinking and going to the beach all day. Dad is a hit with everyone (something of an alien himself, having been gone so long, and I think in a way Sasha never expected to see him again. How funny that Dad didn’t call him until we were already here. I don’t know the degree to which they kept in touch when Dad was in the US, but clearly he had at least phone numbers. I can’t imagine dropping in on high school friends almost 40 years after graduating with them. Well, Al, now that I think about it.)

Dad has very seamlessly integrated himself in conversation and I can tell he feels pretty comfortable, which is so nice! Our family has always been pretty quiet, and I never really even witnessed big loud crazy family parties until maybe getting close to high school friends and their families, and I will admit I was always somewhat jealous, despite feeling overwhelmed.

It’s very comforting to see Dad have friends and look so engaged and in his element with his peers. It’s not something we get to see our parents do very often, and it’s surprisingly not weird for either of us to experience together. I could say so much more but I feel myself falling asleep at the computer and there’s nothing stopping me from continuing this in the morning. Dobry noche.

Words (can you tell I’m in the country?):
noche: night
snailshell: olietka
napkin: salfietka
wave: vulna
pumpkin: tekvah
grapes: vinegras
apple: yableka
cow: korova
train: poyest