PET A DOG, GET SOME TRIPE

Thursday, 25 November, 2010

This morning we woke up, had breakfast and planned on leaving early to explore the city of Kyiv. We wanted to hit the Lovre (an ancient monastery), St. Sophia Chapel and the Chornobyl Museum.  We received a call from our agency contact in Kyiv, saying he wanted to meet at 11:00 so we couldn’t get an early start. It’s OK, that’s what we’re here for. To kill some time in the morning, we went exploring an open air market near our apartment. It was much like a farmer’s market but with everything from boots to toilets to fruit (of course we brought some cheese with us in case we spotted the street dogs we had seen yesterday). You DO see some people with dogs as pets here. Pet dogs are mainly purebreds (lots of German Shepherds, a few King Charles Cavaliers and some Westies). The street dogs actually look amazingly healthy. I believe Darwinism is at play here and the sick ones simply don’t make it. These two dogs often wandered around near our building. I was able to feed the brown one by hand but the black/white one wouldn’t come near us (especially Gavin). He acted like he’s had rocks thrown at him in the past.

Walking through the open air market was very interesting! There were many meat stands – it was cold enough that you didn’t need refrigeration (note sparrows). I felt like I was back in anatomy lab, identifying livers, hearts, kidneys, intestines & tongues.

There were many old women in heavy coats with scarves surrounding their withered faces, selling a few vegetables, pickles or chickens with the feet still on.  I had heard that the younger generation in Ukraine has embraced the break from Russia and is benefitting from the new democracy than the older generation, who tend to suffer more due to cuts in social services they received under the communist regime.  I felt bad for these women.  As we approached the metro station, we came across a sight that warmed my heart!! Some vendors had placed flattened cardboard boxes in the shape of a square about 15’X15’ on the concrete. On top of the cardboard were open cardboard boxes that had dogs had curled up inside. They were sleeping peacefully in the middle of the bustling metro station! Cardboard is such a good insulator – they all looked very content! Nobody bothered them at all.

 I also noticed dogs curled up, sleeping next to store fronts, with leftovers placed near them by some dear soul.  As we wondered back through the market to meet our agency contact at our apartment, I noticed a woman pushing a cart who evidently worked somewhere in the marketplace. She called one of the street dogs to her and tore off a piece of cardboard from a nearby box and fashioned a comb out of it. The dog trotted right up to her, wagging its tail happily. She began scratching it with the cardboard and cooing to it. Of course I had to join in since no Ukrainian dog had ever let me pet it before! I approached and said “Kara-show sabaka!” (good dog). The woman looked at me smiling and said something in Russian and laughed. Once she knew I had no idea what she was talking about, she called over another woman from a nearby booth to translate. The only thing the other woman knew how to say in English was “What is your name?” So we exchanged names and I told her (with my broken Russian) that we were tourists (duh, anybody could see that), staying about 3 weeks with friends in the apartments (I pointed). She had a friendly smile and was very gregarious about trying to tell us something…..I couldn’t tell what. I think I got that she was a school teacher but lives on some type of farm with cows (dairy or beef?). She kept mooing and we were both laughing! I told her I’m a veterinarian and she was so impressed.  Using the “veterinarian card” doesn’t get you too far in the Ukraine but it sure did with this animal lover! She looked to be about 50, was wearing bright pink lipstick which was juxtaposed against her dirty rubber boots for slogging through mud…….. or something. What attracted me most to her was her quick smile and effervescent personality…….you don’t see this in many people in the Ukraine.  She then grabbed my arm and signaled for all of us to follow. She ran us through a maze of small stands into a large, covered meat market. Here you could by any part of the cow. Gavin was quite concerned..…he had never seen skinned pig and cow heads for sale before. She led me up to a stand owned by someone she obviously knew and asked for some tripe. It was quickly bagged up and presented to me as a gift. Scott tried desperately to give her some grivnas (Ukraine money) but she flatly refused. Then she lead us further back, behind the meat tent, through another  maze of boxes and narrow hallways, to an area where she stayed.  In this room she had a small bed, a tea pot and a small desk. Evidently she would come in from her farm a few days per month, live behind the meat tent then return home. She offered us tea (“chai” in Russian). We exchanged addresses and phone numbers at her insistence. I’m pretty sure she wants us to come visit her at the cattle ranch, which I’m up for!

 We returned to our meeting with our agency contact, Dmytro, a nice guy who speaks perfect English. He explained what we would be doing next and that he was now assigned to our case, since our particular case may prove to be difficult. After hearing this, my heart sunk but I tried to remain positive, knowing this trip would have a number of ups and downs. We all agreed to meet this afternoon to sign more papers then take the train to Donetsk, in the southeast portion of Ukraine.

We took the metro into town but only had time for the Chornobyl Museum. It was very interesting but sad. The main theme was NEVER to allow such a thing to happen again. You talk to any Ukrainian and they’ll tell you exactly where they were the minute it happened. One entire wall in the museum is dedicated to all the children who died of acute radiation poisoning (see their pictures on the back wall of this photo). It’s heartbreaking. They also do a god job of describing exactly how the reactor blew up and the heroism of the men that stayed behind to try and cool it – knowing they’d eventually die due to the HUGE amounts of radiation they were exposed to.

We were picked up by our driver and taken to the train station with Dmytro. I eagerly told him of our activities during the day and ask if he could please translate the address the lady from the meat market had written down. I handed him the piece of paper - he looked at it and handed it back to me. He then stated, we are too friendly and talk too much to locals (who me?!). We shouldn’t do it since some people seem friendly, but we do not know the language or culture, and they actually may be a bit “off”.  He explained how we don’t understand just how poor this country is and that is it VERY different from the U.S. We need to always lock our door at night and NEVER OPEN IT TO ANYONE.  PERIOD. We need to talk softer too. Basically, we need to keep a lower profile.

…but the dog lover-meat market lady who bought me tripe can’t be all that bad now, can she?! I absolutely love travelling and meeting people from around the world. But yes, this is different.  Alright, we will follow his orders and tone it down a bit.

We got to the train station early so decided to have pizza since it would make Gavin happy. We walked to a pizza parlor which was on the third story of a building next to the station and ordered our pizza. We were almost finished when we noticed two young men at a table near us had begun slapping each other in the face. At first I thought they were just kidding around but this quickly escalated to punches and beer, food and furniture began to fly. I pushed Gavin off his stool and told him to get out, since the fight was dangerously close to us. Dymtro ordered us out too so we grabbed our stuff and ran out the door as the security was coming up.  Well, I guess Gavin experienced his first bar brawl early in life.

We boarded the train and took off for our overnight ride shortly thereafter. We had traded up to first class (which I highly recommend to all of you coming after us), so had 2 plush twin beds to relax upon. Scott set up the DVD player for Gavin and we all fell asleep to the movie “Jumangi” and the smooth rock of the train.

6 AM is too early!!