Week One

Landing in Dnepropetrovsk airport last week I felt a rush of energy, the kind of “here we go…” feeling that one experiences when beginning a journey (a combination of excitement and anxiety about experiences to come). The landing of the small jet on the asphalt-covered lot marked the beginning of my time in Ukraine. The airport bus drove us  a short 100 feet from the plane to the one building that houses the only terminal (this building is the airport, essentially). Getting through customs without proficient Russian and without a local address in Dnepropetrovsk was an interesting experience, and not suggested, as I  mumbled some sentences in broken Russian and hoped to catch a break from the not-so-happy guard (seeing that I did not understand much Russian, he decided that it would be best to speak even faster).

Driving into the city from the airport, I glimpsed the far reaching flat plains of Eastern Ukraine. As the city begins, the serpentine rails of the trambai (trolley) cross over the paved roads, and the trolley cars stop every few blocks to collect the waiting passengers who sit under the graffiti-ed shelters. The city is big; buildings with beautifully crafted facades face the central avenue, Karla Marxa, a tree-lined boulevard with cobble stone walkways.

At the time of writing, I feel situated and comfortable. Each day has been spent among welcoming people. Most days I walk around the city of Dnepropetrovsk with the current volunteer, running errands in different shops and walking to the JCC, Hillel, or Chesed for meetings with directors and representatives of Jewish community programs. Some  of my most enjoyable moments were among the clients of Chesed programs (Chesed provides services to at-risk children and the elderly) during home visits and when observing activities at the center. I was urged to sing and dance with old ladies and was given a lesson on Ukrainian politics by a ten year old boy with a heart condition.

There is so much to comment on, but I will mention only a few things that I feel give a good sense of the city and the poeple.

At the Jewish school in Dnepropetrovsk I watched the “bell ringing ceremony” on the morning of the  first day of classes,  a Soviet tradition that remains to this day as a merker of a new school year. The oldest students give small bells to the first year students, a sign of their completion of their school career. The Ukrainian flag was marched towards the flagpole by four young boys, and the national anthem played as the blue and yellow flag flew above the crowd. Next, the Israeli national anthem played through the sound system as yeshiva boys sang the hebrew words “a nation 2000 years old.” The intersection of Soviet history, Ukrainian nationalism, and Jewish identity that can be witnessed duirng such rituals makes this region fascinating for an anthro major such as myself.

On another note, after the recent economic crisis, the Ukrainian currency (Griven) dropped extremely low, making the dollar relatively strong in Ukraine. A few days ago I walked to the public market in Dnepropetrovsk, a kind of shuk with people of all ages (from old ladies in floral head coverings weighing cabbage to Azerbaijani men making pomegranate juice) selling fruits, vegetables, meats, clothes and pirated dvds. Unlike Jersey tomatoes which are priced at $2.99/lb, tomatoes are sold here for around 3 Griven/kilo (the exchange rate is 8.5 Gvn/$1). 8 tomatoes ended up costing 6 or 7 gvn which is about 0.85 c. Walking back from the market towards my apartment, we passed through a large park created during the Soviet Union. This is the second park I have seen within a 1 mile radius that not only has a playground and benches (familiar), but has amusement park rides (unfamiliar) that screetch and shake as they move around the rusty rails. Some of the rides were not operating, and I asked if they no longer worked, to which my Ukrainian companion replied: “if you find someone to turn it on for you, then it works,” which seems to be the general attitude to most things here.

Another day in DP, after a night well spent meeting new people and walking through the city, we were on our way back to the apartment when I almost fell into a sewer. The sidewalks are badly paved, as are most streets, which are pot-holed (up to 3 feet deep like the pot-hole outside my apartment) and uneven due to the trolley tracks that weave through the avenues. Assuming that sewers are the same everywhere, I stepped on the cover of the sewer in my path thinking nothing of such an act. Yet, as I put my foot on the lid, it slowly slid away, leaving exposed the giant pipe leading down to the sewer system. I fortunately reacted in time, jumped away and caught my balance. I was told by a local that he had three friends that fell into  sewers by stepping on the coverings.  A friend explained to me that this is one of the first things you learn as a child, never to step on sewer lids. It’s only fitting that I, an outsider with little comprehension of Russian, should learn the rules of the town as does a kid.

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~ by mirmood on September 4, 2009.