Filling 21 days is a daunting task, but I’ve been doing my best to stay entertained. The reopening of the best wireless café in town has helped exponentially. While this is far from a holiday for many people, for those of us who are still healthy, it oscillates from feeling like prison to one big party. With 25 national holidays, Ukrainians rarely need to invent reasons for celebration. But I can’t tell you how many times I’ve raised my glass to the quarantine in the past 14 days. It’s never meant to be offensive. We are genuinely thankful for another day of health, another day of rest, and of course another excuse to crack open a spirited beverage.

I’ve never written a post about a Ukrainian holiday. This is not for a lack of them. It’s exactly the opposite. There are so many and the celebrations are so elaborate and exhausting that I don’t think writing about it can do them justice. But with another unscheduled week on my docket, I thought I’d give it a shot (pun intended).

Should you find yourself with about eight to 12 hours to kill and at least ten of your closest friends, then you would have the beginnings of a Ukrainian party. The entire party takes place around the table, guests seated and dishes rotating. The host spends the morning/day/night shuffling back and forth from the kitchen to the dinning area. The number of dishes served is generally seen more important than the quantity of any one dish. For example, your serving size of each salad is only a few spoonfuls because there are four or five of them. The host will rotate around, rinsing off plates between courses. The table is blanketed in salads, soups, and bread items first, then meat dishes, more salads, and other vegetables and fruits. Finally, after about six hours of this, you are ready for dessert, which will be several cakes, ice cream and chocolate, served with tea or coffee.

During all of this, you will be toasting the holiday, your host, your country, your favorite soccer team, etc with shots of liquor, preferably vodka or cognac. This must promptly be washed down with a choice of items including homemade juice, carbonated water, pickles, brown bread, or, a crowd favorite, pig’s fat, salted, peppered and sliced, called “salo.” Everyone is allowed and encouraged to make toasts, but only one person can pour the drinks all night. It is custom for it to be the man of the house, but any old Y chromosome will do. There are a few breaks throughout the party for which you are permitted to leave the table: dancing is always encouraged, and answering your cell phone is not considered rude. The men take several smoke breaks throughout the party, and the women often rearrange the plates or help in the kitchen when this happens. The rare man who doesn’t smoke becomes the darling of the night, getting more attention and time with the women than any of the others.

One of my more memorable Ukrainian party experiences was on New Year’s Eve 2008. In my experience, NYE is pretty overrated. The excitement builds until midnight and about half an hour later people start heading for the door. I think Ukraine is possibly the only place NYE celebrations are bigger than the hype. I was wholly unprepared for this level of festivity. At about 2 a.m. I noticed everyone getting coats and shoes on. I had been dosing in my seat and was thankful for the exit opening. I gathered my things and headed outside with all the other guests. But to my surprise instead of leaving, we were grilling shish kabobs in the snow. Nothing like a nice marinated stick of meat before you hit the hay. Had I known the party would continue until 2 p.m. the next day, I probably wouldn’t have considered it a bedtime snack.

While all other parties pale in comparison to an 18-hour bash, the last night in my training village where the owner of the local bar opened a case of champagne and turned on a strobe light as we were trying to exit certainly makes my list, as do all the in-school celebrations that still shock my western sensibilities. My favorite quarantine bash had a four-course dessert that I will not soon forget. With my vacation to America coming up next month, I wonder how our celebrations will stack up. For one thing, I know I’ll be shocked when the meal ends after only an hour or two.

It’s been a year of borshch and bucket baths, Ukrainian and Russian, snow, flowers, sun, and falling leaves. It’s been a year of independence, serious and often painful growth, increased confidence, and grit. It’s also been 365 days since I hugged my parents, ate an enchilada, drove a car, went shopping with my sister, or stepped foot on American soil. I know I’ve experienced a lot in the past year, but I’ve also missed so much, like the births of a new little cousin and Riley’s niece, my dad’s knee surgery, and my sister’s baptism. Although I’m thankful for the ways I can stay connected, there’s still a huge feeling of distance from my family, my friends, and my country. It’s almost like there are oceans between us. Oh wait….

Of course, I know it is inevitable that when I return to America I will find myself missing parts of Ukraine. My school, my neighbors, my friends, and my community are so much a part of my life now that it’s hard to imagine not seeing them everyday. Volunteers have a tendency to go one of two ways—they either love everything about Ukraine and are really critical of the US, or it’s the complete opposite. But there is no perfect country. America gets some things wrong, as does Ukraine. So in a nod to honesty and fairness, I made a Top 10 List of the “Best of Both Worlds” to commemorate this auspicious occasion.

1. Organic Food—in Ukraine this is just called “food.” Everybody has their own garden roughly the size of football field and after work as a teacher, a doctor, a lawyer, a hairdresser, or a grocer; they go home and harvest their crop. My friend Svitlana is always amused with my lack of farming knowledge. “Do you know what that plant is?” she asks, hoping I will come through for once. I go for a Ukrainian staple, “Beets?” I was wrong. “It’s potatoes!” she says laughing. That would’ve been my next guess.

I never learned what food looks like coming up out of the ground. Besides corn, I’m totally inept at identifying stalks. While I was initially skeptical of the wonder of natural food products, I’m officially a believer. You know that when you eat a slice of bread in America, it sticks together where you bit out of it, leaving a sort of seal? Bread’s not supposed to that. And it also shouldn’t last for weeks. We put a good deal of chemicals in the dough to make it do all those things. It’s kind of a hassle to buy bread every other day, but it’s a small sacrifice to make considering the difference in taste and texture. Don’t even get me started on organic eggs. The yolk is orange. It stains stuff. And it is amazing.

The list goes on, homemade juice from nothing more than apples, plums and a dash of sugar (which, by the way, could never be confused with salt here, as the granules are totally different in size and shape), milk that turns into sour cream and later butter, ketchup and mayonnaise that put our versions to shame—even their condiments taste better. I do miss the convenience of the American kitchen (and the American life, for the matter), but the quality and freshness of Ukrainian food is something we could—and should—take a cue from. No, we can’t all become farmers, but we can make more of an effort to know what’s in our food and where it came from.

2. Patience—This has definitely been one of the most painful lessons in Ukraine. Waiting. On practically everything. Nothing happens overnight here. Or at least nothing that you want to happen does. I wake up to the water or the gas turned off, but not to a repairman at the door. Although at first every unknown detail set my heart aflutter, I think with each uncertainty I’m becoming less anxious. After having no water in June, I keep about 80 liters of water stored in bottle and jars in my apartment now, a fifty percent increase from my previous reservoir. So when the water was switched off all last week, I was still able to wash dishes, clothes, and my own body. Getting anxious doesn’t make anything happen more quickly, however being prepared makes it more bearable.

Ukrainians have plenty of practice at being patient. But this virtue is not uniquely theirs. In “Three Cups of Tea,” co-author Greg Mortenson calls patience “the most important lesson I’ve ever learned.” Mortenson builds schools in Pakistan and Afghanistan to educate children, especially girls, in rural areas. “We Americans think you have to accomplish everything so quickly. We’re the country of thirty-minute power lunches and two-minute football drills. Our leaders thought their ‘shock and awe’ campaign could end the war in Iraq before it even started,” (p150). There’s no telling what calamities, personal or professional, we could avoid with a little more patience.

3. A Healthy Dependence on Family—What strikes me most about the difference between how Americans and Ukrainians relate to their families is the complete lack of stigma in Ukraine of being too attached to your mom. Case in point, a ring-tone that sings, “My mom is calling.” I am not even kidding. It says that in a tiny child’s voice. Loudly, over and over again. “Who’s calling? It’s your mom, your wonderful mom is calling, answer, answer, because your mom is calling.” Can you imagine this tone selling once in America? Yet it is a crowd favorite here. I’ve heard it on everyone ranging from 10 years old to 35. I couldn’t believe when I heard it go off in an 8th grade class and no one laughed.

They aren’t ashamed that their moms call them. And they call often. They announce it to the world, with pride. “Yeah, that’s right, Mom’s calling. Jealous?” they seem to say as the smugly take the call. It’s a running joke in America when someone gets a call that it’s probably just their mom. This is one of the many cases where American humor doesn’t translate to Ukraine. While I think the idea of everyone talking to their mom five or six times a day is a bit much, I do believe that Ukrainians understand more about what it means to be a family than Americans do sometimes. There shouldn’t be shame in taking care of each other, of knowing when you need any kind of help, and when you are in a position to give it to do so willingly and sacrificially. I think American families could stand to trust each other more, to depend on each other for more.

A key difference in Ukrainian culture is that children are raised to be dependent on their parents. A good child is one who returns home after college and takes care of the house, the garden, and the aging parents. I’m not suggesting that American society stop raising its children to be independent, but I do think there is a middle ground our lives would be richer for finding.

4. The European Workweek—OK, if I’m honest with myself and you, faithful reader, I must admit that I’d take the European Workweek over organic food for the rest of my life. The amount of free time you have while still working “fulltime” is nothing short of magical. Granted, life processes take a lot longer here. I can easily spend a whole day washing one load of laundry and cooking three square meals. But I can do that in my pajamas listening to Coldplay. A full schedule for a secondary school teacher in Ukraine is 18 hours, with one day a week completely free. You are also only at school for your lessons, if you don’t have a class until 3rd period, you stroll in the door at 10:30 a.m.

While I only have firsthand knowledge of an educator’s schedule, my friends here in other professions have a good bit of free time as well. Instead of a tipped scale, there’s an actual work-life balance. I still can’t get my mind around the fact that if you work 40 hours a week in America, that’s considered a really good schedule. And only two weeks for vacation? The whole year? Yikes. You get 31 days here, standard, and some professions get more. This doesn’t include the 25 national holidays.

5. Toasts—I don’t think I’ve ever shared just how different the drinking culture is in Ukraine. It’s quite the production. Like most aspects of life here, it’s a group activity. And merely being together doesn’t cut it. You have to drink every sip together, and with a toast no less. There are rules though, and it isn’t as arduous as it might seem.

The first toast is always to “the meeting” whether it’s friends meeting after work, or to celebrate a birthday or one of many holidays, the first toast goes to the occasion. The second toast is to “us” or to friends in general. It’s a play on words in Ukrainian and doesn’t translate in English. The third toast is always to women and love. There are several anecdotes shared the men usually stand while they are told and as they toast the women. I won’t translate the anecdotes here as I consider this a family show. The fourth toast is supposed to be to men, but by your fourth shot of vodka it become less important what the toasts are for exactly.From then on it’s pretty much a free-for-all of glass raising. I’ve heard toasts to America, to Borshch, and to vodka itself. The important thing is not to forget to make a toast, never mind the reason. And of course never to drink alone.

The fun part about this group mentality is that everyone gets the same amount of tipsy at the same time. There’s not the one guy who pounded the bottle and is making everyone else uncomfortable, nor is there the guy who doesn’t drink and is making everyone else a different kind of uncomfortable. Everyone’s in it together. While I don’t want to take the tradition back entirely, (I am looking forward to vacation from vodka) I do like the idea of making toasts to mark holidays and as a show of appreciation for friends.

6. Trust—No matter what isolated complaints you may have about government or law enforcement in the US, overall we trust them to do their jobs. Corruption, bribes, extortion, these are things we are shocked to discover, things that are publically shamed. In Ukraine, they are sadly still a way of doing business. To find an honest politician or police officer is the exception, not the rule.

One of my friends is in the process of “buying” her house. Even though they built it themselves and own it, they don’t technically have an address or official papers from the local government. In order to receive mail and have official standing in the community, they have to go through a process of forms and signatures. And bribes. Sitting on her kitchen table there was a pile of goodies including chocolates, cognac, vodka, gourmet coffee, and lace napkins. “Whoa,” I said smiling, “What’s all this for?” It was really an innocent question. I assumed she had a party or a friend’s birthday coming up. She pursed her lips. “What is it called when you give someone something for doing something for you?” she asked. “ A payment?” I offered. “No, no,” she said. “When it isn’t legal. Something below the table.” It hit me, “Oh, you mean a bribe,” I said a little embarrassed. “Yes! That’s it. How do you spell it,” she asked as she grabbed paper from the cabinet, and proceeded to label the stash in perfect cursive penmanship “Bribes.”

There is a recent advertising campaign with billboards proclaiming, “Don’t take bribes.” This moral directive goes without saying in America. It’s not that people don’t still use bribes. They most certainly do. But at least they are forced behind closed doors and live in fear of being caught. It’s not something you’d say, leave out labeled on the kitchen table.

7. Unnecessarily large beds—Yeah, I said it. They are unnecessary. That doesn’t mean they are any less enjoyable. Beds are like practically everything else in the former Soviet Union: space efficient and utilitarian. Low to the ground, slightly smaller than a regulation double bed, with no springboards or pillow-top mattresses. There aren’t even fitted sheets. The package with my T-shirt sheets remains my favorite and most-used.

While we’re on the topic of largess, how about the plate size in America? It is HUGE. My friend Natalya has family in New York and they mailed her some fancy paper plates that she brought to a summer picnic. We thought they were platters. We seriously started piling all the fruit on one and the bread on another until she told us they were our plates. It was bigger than my face, and none of my food touched. If you think our shock at the size is funny, you should have seen us when she tried to throw them away after the meal…

8. Chairs with backs—Oh, how I miss the back. Stools and benches reign supreme here, especially in the kitchen. If you are lucky enough to own chairs with backs, you only break them out for special occasions when you are eating in the living room. Daily furniture is almost always backless, and the few chairs that might have backs and are in regular use are often turned at an angle to fit in a small space, rendering the back useless. Maybe this and the bed thing contributed to my slipped disc…

9. Reliability—I think this is the ying to the patience yang. I am glad for the patience I have acquired here, but I miss the reliability of American life. Not just in running water or electricity, but in every sphere of life: business meetings, social gatherings and politics. If we set a date for an election, it will take place on that day. If you have a meeting that’s going to start at 10, it does. There’s a calming power in the predictable, one that allows you to plan for the future, to set goals and meet them, and to improve your quality of life. Flexibility is still important, even when you have the well-oiled wheels of America turning right on schedule, but having predictability will be a welcomed change of pace when I return home.

10. Individualism—I miss this most of all. Individualism exists in Ukraine, only it’s highly suspect and often shunned. Parents don’t question their children, “If your whole class jumps off a bridge, are you going to follow them?” The conversation is more likely to go, “Your class jumped off a bridge today, and just where were you?”

Doing what everyone else does was a survival mechanism in the Soviet Union. All being a creative artist, a critical writer, or an original thinker got you back then was a one-way ticket to Siberia. One of my older colleagues passed me a tattered English handbook of grammar during a meeting. It had been her father’s, before he was sent to Siberia under suspicion of being an intellectual. She wanted to share it with me, and tell me what kind of man he was. “He said the only place you can really be yourself is in your mind. They can take everything else away, they can hold everything else against you, but what you keep inside is really yours, it’s really free,” she said through teary eyes.

So this is the legacy of Ukraine, centuries of war and subjugation, leaving its citizenry understandably hesitant to stand out from the crowd. And here I am, the girl who for years wore clothes inside out, refused to comb the back of her hair, and carried bird bones in her pocket. I felt the need to be an individual in America, so you can only imagine how here I long to wear my tennis shoes to run errands, smile at strangers, and encourage my students to speak freely in class and help me pick topics for our lessons. All of these practices break the Soviet mold and make people nervous.

I go through spells where I get all gussied up before I leave the house even if I’m only running to the post office across the street, or I walk through town with a stone-cold expression that matches the stare of my peers. But more often than not, I hate myself for playing along. More than fitted sheets, large plates and chairs that aren’t stools, I miss the wealth of encouragement to be myself that is ingrained in the American psyche.

As a writer, I admittedly have a limited knowledge of science, math, and business principles. But, as a writer, I get the benefit of everyone else’s knowledge. I love sitting across accomplished individuals in fields I could never begin to work in and taking away the gems of their experience. They may have spent the last twenty years working on a new theory but by the time I leave, I can explain it in 500 words or less. Journalists are full of little talking points about politics, natural disasters, scientific discoveries, and yes, even economics.

If I could pick any field to understand perfectly it would be economics.  This, by the way, was true before the whole global financial crisis. I’m not a bandwagon economist. I’ve always been curious.  And pretty much out of my league. Knowing my own weaknesses, I am always happy to consult greater minds. One of my favorite sources when I worked for The Baylor Lariat was an economics professor, a wiry man of about 95 lbs and infinite patience. I liked him so much I even used my last three hours of elective credit to take a class at the Business School: The Economics of Poverty and Discrimination. Really, I’m not that person who takes one psychology class and starts diagnosing people as passive aggressive or having issues with their mothers. I know my understanding of economics is limited but that doesn’t stop me from participating in the conversation.

“I’d like to bring a watermelon home to Nazar,” my friend Svitlana said on our vacation in Crimea. “He loves melons.”  While I personally have seen her son devour delicious fruit on a number of occasions, her statement shocked me.  We were about 500 km away from home, without a car. We were about to walk several kilometers with our luggage, get on a crowded bus for two hours, then walk some more and board a train for 30 hours. Adding a five-pound fruit to the equation didn’t add up to me. “But it’s so heavy.” I said. “And we can buy watermelons at home.” Her look of incredulity matched mine, “But they are cheaper here,” she said. “And it will be a present from Crimea.” Sound bytes of my college economics class came flooding back, the opportunity cost of not having to carry a watermelon for the next two days surely outweighs the five percent discount. By using her energy to carry that watermelon for 300 miles, she is forfeiting some pretty valuable rest time in my opinion. Ultimately she decided against it. It was a rare victory for the opportunity cost of time in Ukraine.

Buying notebooks in Ivano-Frankivsk, my friend smirked and pointed to the price, “6 UAH,” she said, “It’s 11 UAH in Tysmenytsya.” Ever the bargain hunter, I bought two. But as we were walking out of the store, a thought came to me. When you factor in the 5 UAH bus faire and the 30 minutes of traveling roundtrip, it’s at least the same price, if not more expensive.  I tried this thought on for size with my friend in a less matter-of-fact-way.

ME: It’s great that we got the notebooks so much cheaper here.

HER: Yes, it is great.

ME: But what about the bus faire? Doesn’t that even things out?

HER: But Frankivsk is prettier than Tymenytsya, and we can go the big bazaar here.

ME: True, it is more interesting in Frankivsk, and the time it takes us to get here is worth it.

HER: I never thought about the time.

Time isn’t money in Ukraine. The whole model of economics that assigns a monetary value to free time is irrelevant in Ukraine. It’s quite the luxury to see life that way.  This principle is center stage in the Ukrainian kitchen. It takes about three hours to make veriniky from scratch. This meal is a staple here, especially in winter. It’s akin to ravioli but has a taste and texture all its own. First, you mix ingredients for the dough, then you knead it for about five minutes. Then you flatten it with a rolling pan, tear it into little strips and stuff it with cheese, meat, potatoes, or fruit, all of which you have probably personally grown, seasoned, and grinded. Or, you can go to the store and buy a package of verinky for 8 UAH.

After cooking veriniky once on my own, I was completely surprised that I am the only one of my friends who buys it at the store. To them, it’s basically free to make it. Three hours is absolutely worth 8 UAH to me, despite the fact that I won’t make any money in that time spent reading, watching TV, or going for a jog.  I get paid in relaxation. I never thought of this idea as “American” or “Capitalist,” I just thought of it as economic common sense, the basic motivation behind all the decisions we make: What does it cost me? What do I lose when I chose one option over another? It’s not that Ukrainians don’t operate under the idea of opportunity cost; they do. Only time isn’t even in the equation.

I get more than my usual dose of stares from moms pushing newborns in strollers and kids playing cards on the bleachers, but I also have—without fail—been flagged down on the track every single day since I started this little ritual. I’m talking hands-waving-blocking-my-path-flagged-down. Usually, it’s an older man telling me that I’m a woman and shouldn’t be sweating so much. I am not kidding. They are very concerned. However, I have had a couple of more interesting callers. There was the man on a bicycle who questioned my form, (I like to run with my thumb tucked under my pointer finger. I don’t know why, it just feels good to tuck), and another older gentleman who stopped fishing to tell me that it’s better for my health to run in the morning, specifically 6 a.m. I’ll take my chances with evening runs. A sweaty, nervous young man named Oleg ran up from the bleachers one day and stated in English “Stop, please, You are an American, yes?” He wanted information on the English Club. And, finally, there was Oksana, my favorite flag-down to date.

In belabored English she told me to come to the school gym. “Now?” I asked. “Now,” she answered as she took my arm and led me off the track. I was halfway through my workout and stopping mid-stride left me breathing heavily and dripping sweat all over her. She released my arm. “This way,” she said. “Gym. Monday, Wednesday, Friday. 25 hryvnia. All month.” With my interest growing, I asked her what we would be doing. “I lived in New York. Two years,” she said beaming. “I lived in USA.” I congratulated her, and repeated my question. “One hour,” she said. “People come,” then stopping for emphasis, she said “Women. Women come.”

We made it upstairs to a small room with wooden floors and mirrors on one side. She removed a workout mat and 4 lb weights from her bag. “Next time,” she said. “You bring.” She looked at her watch. “6 o’clock,” she said shaking her head. “Ukraine.” For the next ten minutes I couldn’t really understand her. She angrily made calls on her cell phone and often hung up mid-sentence. Finally, two women came in the door. “Aha” she said judgmentally, and we started.

With music blasting over a crackling radio, four women embarked on an aerobics class of sorts. To be fair, I’ve never been to an aerobics class in the states. So perhaps my presence there would feel as foreign as mine did here. But I respectfully doubt that. We started with a simple warm-up of stepping and arm-circles, this quickly escalated into something resembling kick-boxing, and the next thing I know I’m being handed a large wooden stick. This is where the workout gets a little more, well let’s say provocative. After doing untold things to the stick, we picked up makeshift weights in the form of Sprite bottles filled with sand. Enter Tae-Bo. Right hook, left hook, kick! Repeat. We continued this pattern with few variations for about five minutes. Then she pulled out her mat. The other women had towels. I had my Ipod. I run light. Oksana frowned and laid her jacket on the floor beside me. I really think I would have been better off just straight-up on the floor. The jacket was quite slippery. And the zipper hurt. But Ukrainians have this thing about not ever, ever, sitting on the bare ground.

The same goes for not having open windows. Fear of the draft and cold surfaces is stronger than a fear of fire or heights here. So I slipped and slid all over the place as I attempted to honor the culture and keep pace with the class. It was a constant struggle. While holding poses and pulsing our abs, Oksana would ask questions in English. “What does my shirt say?” she asked. “I love making waves,” I read with amusement in between reps. After an hour, this combination workout-English lesson came to an end, and I was exhausted.

I wonder who will flag me down tomorrow.

Parts of the intensely shared life that is my reality are endearing.  Sitting at a table that would be uncomfortable for six in America, there are at least 10 people, elbows touching, plates wedged in at all angles. There’s never a question of enough space. Entire families live in single rooms, people sleep in armchairs, you eat standing up, but you never consider inviting less people over.  In a teacher’s meeting at school, I searched for where the English faculty had congregated. I shuffled over to the back corner, stepping over the physics department, and giving a cordial nod to the geography teachers. I slipped in next to my three friends.  It was halfway through the meeting before I realized we were only using two chairs. Personal space is as scarce as a tortilla chip in Ukraine. But it’s  not only the physical that’s compacted, it’s mental and spiritual spaces as well.

Coming home from my favorite corner store, my neighbor called out to me from her balcony. “I have mail for you,” she said. “From Aaaa-merica.”  She always sings America, giving it a mystical, cheerful quality that I’ve come to revere.  I scamper up the steps, drop off my eggs and bread, and walk into her apartment. “It’s a lot this time,” she says excitedly. “Dance! Dance!” I do a little jig and hand her a souvenir magnet from Crimea. She holds it in her hands like treasure and passes over my stack of mail.

“That one is pictures,” she says pointing to the biggest package which was bulky and heavy. Her grandson Vadik speaks English and read the customs declaration, which was partially honest but purposefully vague. “This one’s from your Riley,” she says winking at me, “and the last one’s not interesting, it’s just work stuff from Washington.” While I’m truly grateful that she picks up my mail when I’m out of town, the unbelievable part is that she not only scrutinizes every envelope, she expects me to open my mail in front of her. If I start to leave or hesitate to rip into them under her watchful eye, she makes small talk about the stamps or the address labels and guesses what she thinks is inside. Despite the fact that opening someone else’s mailbox is a felony back home, I can’t deny her.  Although practically blind and completely illiterate in English, she’s just too earnestly interested in my personal correspondence. I give in. She claps her hands together and hums as I tear across the seal. I translate partial phrases, summarize main ideas, and describe the pictures. She holds the letters in her hands and squints with a magnifying glass for any familiar word. “Ukraine!” she cries at a letter from my friend Janice in the package reportedly containing photographs.

I reveal two large bags of contraband Swedish Fish. My absolute favorite candy. I immediately open one and give her a handful. She squeezes one between her thumb and pointer finger. She smells it. She plops it in her mouth. Chew, chew, chew, chew. Swallow. Gasp! “Was that gum?” she asked with concern pointing to her intestines and making an X with her arms. I assure her it is safe to consume, but she goes back to the kitchen and shows me a pack of gum. She shakes her head and points to her stomach. Even though I have a pretty decent Ukrainian vocab, there are still words like digestion and water soluble that I  don’t know. I pop four fish into my mouth and chew them up. “Mmmm,” I say. “It’s okay, really. You’re supposed to eat them.” Suspicious yet intrigued, a common emotional combo for her, she extends a small coffee cup for me to fill. “For Vadik,” she says.

My two weeks in the Black Sea came complete with an advanced course in group mentality. Traveling in a group of four, I assumed we would have two rooms of two. Instead we pulled two extra beds into one room. It didn’t save any money. The rate was per person. They just wanted to all be together. All the time. We woke up at the same time and ate the same meals at the same time. If someone bought a bottle of water, the first thing she did was offer it sacrificially to the group.  Regardless of the inevitable culture clash of traveling as the solo-American, it was a unforgettable trip. Over wine one night, my 33-year-old friend, a mother and wife, who traveled for the first time without her husband or son told me something I can’t stop smiling about. “I feel that I’m different since you came here” she said. “I feel that I became stronger.” That one comment was worth every shared seat, letter, and drink in Ukraine.

In stream-of-consciouness-order, the Top 10 Things I didn’t know about the world until I moved halfway across it : 

10. Grapes have seeds. And they’re not the only ones. Those tiny oranges, aka tangerines have ‘em too. Throw in cherries, blueberries, and just about every fruit save the banana and you’ll get the picture. Granted I probably knew this at one point in my life, like before we started genetically modifying our fruits and veggies. But it’s hard to remember what things were like back in the day, which brings me to my next point…

9. You can adjust to almost anything. I went from living in Texas, a hotbed of conservatism, evangelism, Spanglish, country music, and well, heat and humidity, to living in the frozen tundra of Greek Orthodox Ukraine. Pumping water from a well, using an outhouse, hiking 20 minutes in the snow to work, and frequently working without heat and electricity became my norm in just a matter of months. I actually think I prefer a turkish toilet now. Weird. 

8. English is really hard to learn. We have like a million words that mean all basically mean “good.” As a native speaker and lover of language, this is grand–a virtual playground of prose. But for the aspiring English student, it can be quite frustrating. I once tried to comfort a colleague by saying that I keep a dictionary at the ready to look up words while reading. She was not encouraged. Besides sheer volume, there are all the irregular conjugations and a whopping 18 tenses. Plus, we have a bunch of silent letters, foreign words that we steal, and the ever-confusing use of prepositions. Oh yeah, and we employ more figures of speech in colloquial language than you can shake a stick at. So thank your lucky stars you were born with an English spoon in your mouth. 

7. There are four distinct seasons. In Texas, we have two: Summer and Christmas. Summers in the lone star state are greedy, enviously eying the months from September onward. Rarely, a day or two will escape the sweaty clutches of August and her smoldering sisters to bring forth a cool breeze and perhaps even warrant a hot chocolate or two in December. Rarely. But in Ukraine, I arrived in October to hues of red, orange and yellow. Then, I watched with bated breath as the first snow drifted out and changed the landscape until, well, this week. Spring is here, and I couldn’t be more energized. Every room in my apartment has a window propped open right now, the sunlight beaming in as the birds chirp from still barren, but hopeful, tree branches. The flowers on my window sill are a touch ahead of the game, and are blooming with abandon. Neighbors are out tilling the soil in their kitchen gardens, and the sun doesn’t set until 8 p.m. A full four hours later than in Winter. If the degree of change from Winter to Summer is any indication, I think I’ll be able to wear shorts one day. Sweet. 

6. Change, like nickels and dimes, is a luxury. It’s a common occurrence at the store here to be met with a blank stare when you don’t have exact change. And the amount of change on your bill makes no difference. “You don’t have 87 cents?” They ask incredulously. Because they don’t have the 13 either. So, in lieu of the money properly owed to you, a small handful of candy is given in its place. Sometimes just a piece, if  the amount is 10 cents or below. Today I was given the equivalence of 65 cents (6 pieces of candy). But it was ice-cream flavored and quite delightful so I didn’t really mind. 

5. Hot, running water is the greatest thing in the world. Say what you will about the cotton gin, the printing press, or even the internet. But I’m siding with steaming showers and the round-the-clock capability to wash your hands without wincing in pain. I didn’t know cold could hurt until I turned on the tap in January in Ukraine. I feel so confident in my opinion not only because I live at a high latitude, but because my friend and fellow PCV in Nicaragua recently said  the same thing. She lives basically on the equator and her biggest complaint was a lack of hot water. And back sweat. But still. 

4. American culture is the most pervasive thing on the planet. Sadly, this doesn’t mean democracy, free enterprise, and individualism reign globally. It just means I hear Britney Spears on the radio, see Nike and Adidas logos everywhere, eat Nestle Chocolate, and hear people use words like “Super” and “OK” even though they don’t speak English. Inexplicably, I also witness at least one person wearing something that says  “Miami Dolphins,” “Arizona State University,” or something else as seemingly random daily. I’ve even seen a “Golden State Warriors” starter jacket. There are really no words. 

3. Simplicity goes a long way. Most people have heard the joke about how NASA spent millions of dollars formulating a pen that could write in space without the aid of gravity to allow the ink to flow. And the Russians? They used a pencil. I’ve been using a lot of pencils lately. Like instead of making powerpoint slides or showing video-clips in classes that are less than friendly toward technology, we play charades, hangman, and vocabulary tic-tac-toe. As opposed to dryers or dishwashers, I hang my clothes in the bathroom or on my balcony and I rinse plates and use a drying rack. “Why would you pay for air?” I’ve often heard when I explain that we have machines that blow hot air on our shirts and cups, thus rendering clothes lines and dish racks virtually obsolete. 

2. People are people. I gotta give a shout-out to PCV Kristi Goldade on this one, for she was the one who coined this phrase, in my lexicon at least. As “other” as everyone seems at first glance in Ukraine, and many times, on the second and fifty-second glance, there are good and bad people everywhere you go. So maybe the old women here wear bonnets and fur boots, rising temperatures be dammed, and they don’t smile at strangers but feel free to stare. When you sit down with them, have a cup of tea, and talk about life, there are too many intrinsic commonalities to get caught up in the differences of language, dress, culture, and social mores. As Obama is fond of saying about people, “The burdens of global citizenship continue to bind is together…those aspirations are bigger than anything that drives us apart.” That’s applicable to people from California to Louisiana to Maine and for humanity as a whole. Decent people in America can get along with decent people in Ukraine, Iraq, Afghanistan, North Korea or anywhere else. There are angry, rude, evil people in every country in the world, but the trick is not to characterize a nation by their worst representatives, even when they are sometimes the loudest, or the most accessible examples. 

1. Flexibility. I feel like this list has plateaued. And while a “Top 9 List” isn’t exactly conventional, I think I’m going to go with. Sometimes, I walk into class and expect to teach 10th grade and end up with 6th. Sometimes, I end up with no class at all. But, I find a way to make it work, and I’m learning not to let it ruffle my feathers too much. Maybe I’ll go to the gym or the playground and strike up conversations, or plan lessons for tomorrow that are adaptable to a variety of ages and skill levels. Or I’ll just have an early lunch. It always works out, as cliche as it sounds, and the world doesn’t come to an end just because my schedule isn’t set in stone. I’m on a cliche roll. I better stop while I’m ahead. Looks like I’ve got a Top 10 list after all.

OK, up until my trip to Prague last week, that was a true statement.

Immersing myself in local culture, eating foreign cuisine, and speaking as little English as possible are all checkpoints of a good overseas adventure in my book. Besides the pure enjoyment I get from doing something totally new and different, I’ve always felt like it’s a morally upstanding way to travel. You know, the whole “When in Rome”
aphorism.

Well, six months in Ukraine teaches you a lot of things. How much I love America is just one of them. That isn’t to say I don’t also love Ukraine. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t still be here. I’ve given props to borshch on more than one occasion, and I won’t rehash my affinity for babusyas and open-air markets. Yet there is something so wonderful about the familiar.

I’ve never been a big fan of huge chain restaurants, but I nearly wept at the sight of Starbucks. And I don’t even drink coffee. Walking up the steps, smelling the fresh grounds, hearing Starbuck-speak of “tall, grande, and venti,” was just good for my soul. Not to mention the free, high-speed wireless.

One of the many unexpected fruits of my travels has been a heightened sense of home. The more places I go, and the more varied friends I make, the more I value where I came from and the people I’ve known all my life. Not because they are superior circumstances or citizenry, but because they are mine. I was always one of those people who was quick to say the U.S. had no real “culture.” No national dress, no defining food, and overall very little that was actually “ours.” We have German Christmas Trees, a British Language, and cuisine from all over the globe. Although we may not have the traditional hallmark national customs, we certainly have our own culture, albeit a difficult one to define.

I’m still not quite sure what it is, but I can nearly always spot an American in Ukraine, or in Prague for the matter. Before they open their mouths, my US-Radar is alerted. Sometimes, it’s the tennis shoes, worn with jeans. Other times, it’s a particularly affable expression, a whistle on the lips or a bounce in their step, that exudes Americanness. Want another tell? Americans generally text with two hands, Ukrainians with only one. Granted, anyone from any walk of life could act like this, they just usually don’t. And even when they do, they don’t pull it off like an American. It’s probably how I look, stomping around in the snow in my knee-high boots, carrying plastic bags and all in all “looking the part” of a Ukrainian. But not really.

I still get higher cab rates, and clerks still speak to me in English, before I even have a chance to butcher the language.

As the world gets smaller, cultures blend and with it the concept of a “foreigner” becomes less black and white. I like that. I also like the idea of having my own identity, my own country, and my own culture.

The fact that America is a hodgepodge of European, Asian, Latin, and African traditions enriches our culture. It doesn’t diminish it.

After many failed attempts and half-starts, I had my very first English Club.

I had tried several times to arrange meetings through the chain of command: principal, vice principal, head english teacher, my counterpart. It was a long process. And, it had finally come to a foreseeable conclusion when the Flu Quarantine was declared, and the school was chained shut for two weeks. This was followed by a Monday holiday for “International Women’s Day.”

Suddenly I found myself halfway through the Spring semester with nary a meeting to my name. And it wasn’t for lack of interest. Students in general are pretty fascinated by American culture. They wear American brands, listen to American pop music, watch Hollywood movies, and snap pictures of me in class with their cell phones. I wasn’t really worried about students showing up to my club.  I was more concerned with getting the proper permission and following protocol. I was trying to respect the Ukrainian emphasis on authority and obedience.

Note my use of past tense.

Yesterday it just hit me. If I don’t get this club rolling, it might never happen. With a key to the English Teacher’s Cabinet in hand, I announced to all my high-school age students that there would be an English Club Wednesday at 3 p.m. “Another lesson?” they asked skeptically. I assured them it would not be a lesson. “I want to talk about American culture, show pictures, and play music,” I said trying to lure them in.

Now what I really envision for this club down the road is more akin to a debate club or a writer’s circle, but that would scare them away.  And I intend to start small and entertainingly. My school doesn’t really have a “club” concept. They have a lot of plays and drama presentations, but other types of enrichment clubs are nonexistent. In the Soviet Union, students were required to do a certain number of after-school activities. Ukraine rebels against this idea in much the same way that they rebel against drab colors.

In the Soviet Union, the only colors students could wear to school were brown, black, and navy blue. Knowing this history helps explain the tangerine orange jackets, purple pants, and lime-green sweaters I see peering at me from behind desks. The club phenomenon is another verse of the same song. Activity overload gave way to a dearth of clubs and organizations. And students and teachers alike are understandably skeptical of such ideas. After all, it sounds like more work, but without grades or pay. This is not entirely untrue, but clubs can also be a place of discovery, authentic learning, cultural exchange, and fun. A more controlled, academic sort of fun, but still a valid entertainment source, I think.

Well, one meeting down and I’m feeling pretty positive about the possibilities. Ten students, all female, were waiting for me outside the English Cabinet today at 3 p.m. sharp. I was encouraged to say the least. I was also a bit confused. Some of the students who attended aren’t even in my classes. And the ones who are always coming up to me after lessons (and sometimes during them) and asking to take a picture with me, or hear about my tastes in music, movies, and food, were notably absent. Logic tells me that those over-eager students would jump at the chance to spend an extra hour with me, but logic doesn’t get me too far these days.

I started the club by playing pop music (Justin Timberlake, Kelly Clarkson, Michael Jackson, etc), and showing a slideshow of pictures from various American cities. I had prepared a good bit of flashy entertainment as well as a slightly dry worksheet on the differences between American and Ukrainian cultures. After about 20 minutes of pictures and generic lyrical ballads, I posed a question. “Do you want to see more pictures, or do you want to talk about American and Ukrainian values?” I fully expected them to choose the mindless work of picture browsing. After a full day of lessns, I could hardly judge them. But, once again, I was wrong.

“We want to talk about America,” one girl said. I pulled out a large sheet of white paper with “Ukraine” on one side and “America” on the other. I had about twenty slips of paper with opposing world views on them, such as “formal” and “informal” or “group-oriented” and “individualistic.” It was a good old-fashioned Venn Diagram , with some of the values like “freedom” and “hospitality” going in the middle column. The ensuing conversation surprised me, not only because it was so robust, but because we so frequently disagreed.

At first, the girls put the slips where they belonged for them. Words like “authoritative,” “reserved” and “flexible” were on the American side, while “loud,” “private,” and “ambitious” were on the Ukrainian side. Their categorization was interesting to me, especially considering that I had done this exercise with Ukrainians before during training and they hadn’t put the puzzle together this way. In that group, we had nearly unanimously agreed that privacy was an American concept, Ukrainians were far more flexible than those across the pond, and authority was much more respected in the East. But as we began to discuss their choices, it appeared our disagreements stemmed from different definitions of the words themselves.

The girls described privacy as “fences and gates around our homes,” and “not talking or greeting people they didn’t know.” I had to admit they were correct. We (I speak for the South at least) frequently greet everyone we meet with a smile and hello, regardless of friendship or acquaintance, and sit out on our front and back porches.

But the privacy I was thinking of was of a different stripe. Our children have locks on their doors, and parents are generally expected to knock before entering. We like to live alone at some point in our lives, and value time to ourselves. Two different definitions of privacy, but both very accurate.

Our definitions of ambition also differed dramatically. The girls defined it as “getting married and having a family,” but this was an ambition not just for girls, but for boys as well. Family here is everything. When I explained that in America, when you meet someone for the first time they will inevitably ask you, “What do you do?” not “What’s your family like?” they snickered. But it’s true. And I’ve found the reverse to be quite shocking in Ukraine.

As I went through the ritual of meeting new people, I couldn’t believe the number of questions they asked about my family. “Do you have a brother or a sister? Are they married? How old are they? Where do they live?” were all asked frequently, but what I did for a living rarely made the cut. I think many people whom I consider friends in this country still don’t know I worked as journalist in the states. But they know that I’m the youngest child of three and that my mom had a kidney transplant last year.

When it was my turn to arrange the values, I did a 180 on the aforementioned ones. We had a really fruitful discussion not only of the characteristics themselves, but on how we defined them, which really told a lot about our cultures as well. At the end of our non-lesson, I posed a very Ukrainian question. “When do you want to meet again?” In America, we would meet on the same day, at the same time, in the same place. But in Ukraine, life and plans are always subject to change (hence my categorization of flexible).

They decided to meet Monday at 2:30 p.m. Why not. I’ve learned enough in the nearly six months (wow! i can’t believe it’s been that long) to know not to ask why this Wednesday was good and the next one is not.

I’m sure they have their reasons. All I really care about is seeing them again and having more conversations like this as often as possible.

My training site was in a village of less than 5,000 in the Northeast of Ukraine. My permanent site is a city about twice that size in the Southwest. Instead of predominately Russian, I have Ukrainian. Instead of the plains, I have the Carpathian Mountains. Instead of having a host family, I live alone,although that’s a relative term when you’re the first American in town.

Yesterday no less than five neighbors dropped by to see if I needed anything and to bring me food, curtains, and a teapot. My apartment was sparsely furnished when I arrived a week ago, but it has been steadily gaining bits and pieces of home décor. I’m a television set and a kitchen sink away from the lap of luxury.

The good think about joining the Peace Corps right after college is that you don’t have a lot of luxury in your memory bank. Not only is my apartment the biggest place I’ve ever had to myself, it’s also the first time I’ve ever lived “downtown.” Granted, downtown in a city of 10,000 isn’t exactly NYC, but it beats the dorms and the suburbs.

From my bedroom window I can see the beginning of the Carpathian Mountains, and from my kitchen I can see the golden domes of a traditional Eastern Orthodox Church. I’m a five-minute walk away from my school, and just about anywhere else I need to go. If I have a craving for peanut butter or avocadoes, I’m only a fifteen-minute bus-ride from Ivano-Frankievski, an Oblast Center (the Ukrainian word for biggest city in the region).

I’m the first volunteer in my city, and I’ve been welcomed like a celebrity. The principal of the school met me at the train station and drove me to town in her car. After settling in and meeting my neighbors, I was fed a delicious breakfast at school and introduced to everyone as “Our American.” Although the names and faces are a little jumbled in my head right now, I have never felt more appreciated of cared for by such a large group of strangers before.

No matter who I speak with, young or old, male of female, they all inevitably ask the same question: What are you doing here? My landlord is completely boggled by the fact that I have left my family, friends, and country for two years to live in the former Soviet Union. My favorite version of the question was phrased this way over dinner: I know why Ukrainians go to America, but why do Americans come to Ukraine?

When the daylight is short, the wind is cold, and the electricity functioning intermittently at best, it’s sometimes hard to answer. But, when a neighbor invites me over for borshch, or a child stops to greet me in the street, I remember what the mission of the Peace Corps is all about. I’m not here as a political figure, or to try to change Ukraine. I’m here to be a friend, to spread a message of peace and understanding, and to teach English to the next generation of Ukrainians. To many of the people in my city, I am the first American they have met. The fact that I’m here, learning Ukrainian and having a cultural exchange with them is invaluable in their eyes and mine.

At our Swearing-In Ceremony in Kyiv, the U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine, William Taylor, spoke to us about the history and future of Ukraine. He talked about how the whole world is watching this new democracy develop, and that we all have a stake in how it turns out. Proficiency in English is just one way that Ukrainians can become a bigger player in the world market.

My training site was in a village of less than 5,000 in the Northeast of Ukraine. My permanent site is a city about twice that size in the Southwest. Instead of predominately Russian, I have Ukrainian. Instead of the plains, I have the Carpathian Mountains. Instead of having a host family, I live alone,although that’s a relative term when you’re the first American in town.

Yesterday no less than five neighbors dropped by to see if I needed anything and to bring me food, curtains, and a teapot. My apartment was sparsely furnished when I arrived a week ago, but it has been steadily gaining bits and pieces of home décor. I’m a television set and a kitchen sink away from the lap of luxury.

The good think about joining the Peace Corps right after college is that you don’t have a lot of luxury in your memory bank. Not only is my apartment the biggest place I’ve ever had to myself, it’s also the first time I’ve ever lived “downtown.” Granted, downtown in a city of 10,000 isn’t exactly NYC, but it beats the dorms and the suburbs.

From my bedroom window I can see the beginning of the Carpathian Mountains, and from my kitchen I can see the golden domes of a traditional Eastern Orthodox Church. I’m a five-minute walk away from my school, and just about anywhere else I need to go. If I have a craving for peanut butter or avocadoes, I’m only a fifteen-minute bus-ride from Ivano-Frankievski, an Oblast Center (the Ukrainian word for biggest city in the region).

I’m the first volunteer in my city, and I’ve been welcomed like a celebrity. The principal of the school met me at the train station and drove me to town in her car. After settling in and meeting my neighbors, I was fed a delicious breakfast at school and introduced to everyone as “Our American.” Although the names and faces are a little jumbled in my head right now, I have never felt more appreciated of cared for by such a large group of strangers before.

No matter who I speak with, young or old, male of female, they all inevitably ask the same question: What are you doing here? My landlord is completely boggled by the fact that I have left my family, friends, and country for two years to live in the former Soviet Union. My favorite version of the question was phrased this way over dinner: I know why Ukrainians go to America, but why do Americans come to Ukraine?

When the daylight is short, the wind is cold, and the electricity functioning intermittently at best, it’s sometimes hard to answer. But, when a neighbor invites me over for borshch, or a child stops to greet me in the street, I remember what the mission of the Peace Corps is all about. I’m not here as a political figure, or to try to change Ukraine. I’m here to be a friend, to spread a message of peace and understanding, and to teach English to the next generation of Ukrainians. To many of the people in my city, I am the first American they have met. The fact that I’m here, learning Ukrainian and having a cultural exchange with them is invaluable in their eyes and mine.

At our Swearing-In Ceremony in Kyiv, the U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine, William Taylor, spoke to us about the history and future of Ukraine. He talked about how the whole world is watching this new democracy develop, and that we all have a stake in how it turns out. Proficiency in English is just one way that Ukrainians can become a bigger player in the world market.

After learning I would be serving for two years in this part of the world, I tried to learn as much as I could about Ukraine. I read anything I could get my hands on about this part of the world, including children’s books from the library, and I talked to anyone who had ever been to the former Soviet Union.  I heard many interesting tidbits, some about the strength of Ukrainian Cossacks, the national heroes and founders, and many more about food, laughter, and songs.

While I have discovered Ukrainians do indeed love fur hats, vodka, potatoes, futbol and hockey, there was one characteristic missing in all the descriptions I heard: intense volleyball players. 

It makes sense actually, considering snow and ice cover the ground for nearly half the year, that indoor sports would be a popular pastime. But to me, volleyball had distinct correlations to spandex shorts, schoolgirls, and the beach. Not exactly the picture of Ukrainian life.

So after hearing the gym was open on Thursday afternoon for “volleyball,” I was intrigued. I figured there would be mostly girls, and, as my understanding of “open gym” implied, that it would be fairly low-key. I entered the gym with the aforementioned expectations intact.

As I looked out on the brightly-colored court, I saw a hodge-podge of ages and genders. There were 10-year-old boys, young teenage girls, and guys who looked about 19 all out there together. The age range reinforced my feelings of informality, and I hopped right into a passing game with a couple of the young ones.

I like a lot of sports, but volleyball has never really been my thing. You can’t run around enough for my tastes, or steal the ball from anyone, and I usually end up standing around a lot. I’m also not very good at volleyball. I don’t understand how people can hit the ball without injuring themselves.

However, as a lover of competition and exercise in almost all forms, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to work up a sweat. With snow covering the ground and daylight hours in short supply, volleyball sounded like my best option for physical activity. And I thought once I got in the gym, there was always the chance I could just play basketball instead.    

After a couple of particularly painful hits bounced off my forearm, I decided to use the volleyball like a basketball. I dribbled, drove down the lane, and shot a lay-up. I was generally enjoying myself when the coach came over to greet me.

Now I must digress for a moment to say our meeting was a pretty big deal to me because he shook my hand. Men do not shake women’s hands in Ukraine. Actually, women do not even shake each other’s hands. Somehow, my presence in the gym bridged the cultural divide. After enthusiastically returning the gesture, I was feeling pretty comfortable with my choice of activity for the evening. It almost seemed like I was back home, in a gym, working out and shaking hands.

 I was brought back to reality when the coach told me I couldn’t play basketball anymore. It was time for volleyball. Although I was confused by what seemed to be a free-for-all gym extravaganza and what I understood in Ukrainian as a structured directive, I said, “Ok, let’s play.”  

He flashed a big grin and blew his whistle. Suddenly, the chaos dissipated and everyone huddled up. He split us into two teams, and the next thing I know, I was lined up at the net opposite a very skilled Ukrainian player.

I’m not even clear on the rules of Volleyball in English, so having them shouted at me in Ukrainian while dodging Vladik’s jump serve was no walk in the park. I had no idea Ukrainians took their volleyball so seriously. I had stumbled right into the middle of a full-fledged match.

The coach whistled players on and off the court, and paused the game to offer technical tips—most often to me and the other shell-shocked American with minimal volleyball experience, Kristi. It was an intense game far unlike the pick-up scenario I’m used to in America. Players who missed a shot were scolded and made to do push-ups or run laps. Kristi and I looked on with a healthy combination of amusement and fear.

We were by far the worst players on our respective teams. And they were all so into it. We tried on several occasions to take ourselves out of the game, but we were waved back on. Some of the players tried to coach us, and we pretended to understand, only to duck and cover the next time a ball came flying in our direction at break-neck speed. In a moment of panic, I actually forgot to run for cover and took a ball directly to the chest, soccer-style. I signaled a thumbs-up to reassure my concerned teammates. Finally, the game was over, and Kristi and I quickly—and sheepishly—headed for the door.

Living in a foreign country is kind of like playing a new sport. Everyone else knows how to act and what to wear, and you spend most of the time with your mouth open trying to understand what’s going on and how to dodge uncomfortable situations. It’s also pretty invigorating. You might get smacked around every once in a while, but if you look hard enough, you can find a friendly face and advice on what to do differently next time.