Saturday was the first day it felt like I was really in Ukraine, but even still, it's all so surreal. We went to downtown Kiev and visited the Big Mama statue and the World War II museum. I've always loved learning about the second world war, so it was a dream to be able to walk through something like this. It was an indescribable experience. The whole thing was heartbreaking and unforgettable. Nearly everything in the museum was really from the war. There were only a few replicas. The war came to Kiev in 1941. Ukraine was a lot more involved in the war than I previously knew. We watched documentaries that included a film from 1941 of soldiers and victims walking the streets that we had just walked. It was such a different feeling to realize I was standing in a place where the Nazis once stood. So crazy. It is something I will never forget.
Okay, onto the stories that might be slightly more interesting to read. So, here's a story that will frighten my mother and make my dad and brothers proud. Eleven of us piled onto the bus to go to the museum and all. A Ukrainian man was speaking to us in Russian but that's not super unusual, so we just ignored him, as we should, and it was fine. Then he got up and came over to us, still going off about something in Russian, also not super unusual, so we continued to just ignore him. When he started touching us and getting a little in our faces, our coordinator started talking to him in Russian...all of us Americans completely clueless as to what was being conversed. Whatever she said to him proved to have failed, when he still stood there talking to us. After ignoring him stopped working and he got closer and touched more of our girls, a few them started smacking his hand and telling him "no" in Russian when he reached for them. Still didn't work. We just got off at the next stop, but he stood by the door of the bus and touched each one of us as we walked out. He hadn't touched me at this point because I was in the corner, but I was getting off, and he grabbed both of my shoulders, and I SHOVED this man off of me. He wasn't aggressive at all, but I'm not about to let some crazed Ukrainian man lay his hands on me. We still don't know what he was saying, but it was pretty funny.
After the museum and all we went to Independence Square and found a cafe to eat lunch at. The street was on was beautiful! Independence Square and Maidan are essentially the same place, so we saw where the recent riots occurred in 2014. Again, it's a very interesting experience to walk the same streets where such turmoil and chaos once existed. The buildings in this town were so pretty. But what most caught our attention on the way back, was the three people standing in the street holding clothed monkeys. Our head teacher, Kate, was almost giddier than I've ever seen her before (which is saying a lot). She begged our coordinator to go ask them in Russian how much it cost to hold them, and I don't think I've even seen a more excited three-year-old than her in the moment she found out it was free. The trick was, it was 50 hryvnia to take a picture. But that's a less than 2 dollars so it's way fine. I was a little confused when another man grabbed my hands without warning and put them out in front of me, but I soon understood Kate's excitement when he put a small monkey in my hands! I didn't even really know what was going on until I was holding it, but it RULED. Men handing us monkeys in the streets is not something I expected to encounter in Ukraine, but hey, I'm not complaining.
I'm really starting to love it here. We're making so many memories, trying new foods (shwarma is way better than it sounds), laughing more than is publicly acceptable, learning a lot, forgetting how to talk other than the way we do while teaching, getting really good at looking angry at everything, and loving every minute of it. Ukraine rules.
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