(English below)

Casi siempre uno compra boletos “redondos”, de ida y vuelta. Pero hay esas ocasiones especiales en que se compra un boleto de ida nada más. Como cuando te vas a vivir a otra ciudad, o a otro país.

Si las experiencias de la vida pueden compararse a los viajes, lo mismo ocurre en la vida. Hay experiencias que terminan y te dejan prácticamente donde estabas, marginalmente más sabio, o más bruto; escasamente más viejo, o rejuvenecido; apenas más satisfecho, o ansioso. Me refiero a experiencias como que se te descomponga el coche, o como tomar clases de otro idioma por unos meses, o como tomar unas vacaciones.

Pero hay otras experiencias que no tienen fecha final, ni itinerario definido. Como casarse. Como tener un hijo.

Hace unos meses, Olesya y yo compramos un boleto de ida al país de la paternidad. El viaje inicia a finales de junio. Estamos ya aprendiendo el idioma que hablan en ese país, y consiguiendo artefactos que, dicen los que viven allí, nos harán la vida más fácil. Y esperando a nuestro compañero de viaje, de quien solo tenemos unas fotos borrosas tomadas con una cámara muy sofisticada; a quien no le hemos oído la voz, pero sí el corazón; cuya mano no hemos estrechado, pero cuyos pasos (o patadas, más bien) constatamos día con día.

Y vaya que es un boleto de ida nada más. De vez en cuando, ya volveremos aquí, a la ciudad de las parejas, pero solo de visita, brevemente. Dicen que muchos regresan a vivir aquí, años después, pero que encuentran la ciudad muy cambiada. Eso dicen.

***

Almost always, one buys round-trip tickets. But there are those special occasions when one gets a one-way ticket only —for example, when moving to another city, or to another country.

If life experiences can be compared to trips, the same happens in life. There are experiences that end and leave you practically back where you were, maybe marginally wiser, or stupider; maybe a bit older, or rejuvenated; maybe slightly more satisfied, or anxious. I’m talking about experiences such as having a car breakdown, or learning a new language for a few months, or going on vacations.

But there are other experiences that have no end in sight, and no predefined itinerary —like getting married, like having a child.

A few months back, Olesya and I bought a one-way ticket to the land of parenthood. The trip starts at the end of June. We’re already learning the language they speak there, and getting some items that, they say, will make our lives easier over there. And we’re waiting for our trip companion. We only have a blurry picture of him, taken with a sophisticated camera. We haven’t heard his voice, but we have heard his heart. We haven’t shaken his hand, but we witness his steps (or kicks, rather) every day.

Sure this is a one-way ticket. From time to time, we may come back here, to the city of couples, but only to visit, briefly. They say many come back to live here, many years later, but they find the city quite changed. So they say.

They say that “tourists don’t know where they’ve been, and travelers don’t know where they’re going.” (I heard this from Anthony Bourdain; I personally like Andrew Zimmern’s show better, if I may add, but that’s another story.) And if you are a tourist married to a traveler, you are not sure where you’ve been, and you don’t know where you’re going (next), but you know you will be going somewhere (soon).

The good news is, after a while, you may become more of a traveler yourself. Although I tend to be a stay-home person, I am learning to let go and follow my traveling wife. Before, there were always these discussions about how much driving would there be to get there, or whether we would have at least a weekend in between trips to stay at home and rest, or whether a “hiking break” in the middle of a 6-hour road trip could really be called a “break” (considering that the hiking itself would be at least two hours long… yeah, the “unnamed traveler” in this note turns out to be an avid hiker, too). Recently, though, there are fewer rules and more action. In just one month, it’s been Vermont, Maine, NY, Montreal (and more Vermont on the way back, any excuse is good to spend some time in Vermont), all by car, sometimes just for a day, sometimes with a very tight budget that mostly allowed us to simply walk and look around —but if that’s what you do when you hike, and it works just fine, why not doing it also in a city? That’s without counting the bike rides near home, which at moments were as effective as longer trips to get our minds and souls off of the daily routine.

I think I’m getting used to this “traveler’s life.” Not sure I would do it alone, all on my own, but together, well… Let’s hit the road.

De micros, puestitos y taxis

Hay que preguntar dónde para el micro. En la parada, la gente espera, en bola, algunos fumando. El micro llega y se para casi en doble fila. Sabes que es tu micro gracias a los letreritos colgados en el parabrisas, del lado derecho. Se le paga al chofer directamente, al subir, en efectivo. Arriba del espejo retrovisor hay una imagen de la virgen. Y colgando del espejo, una foto de una muchacha en bikini. En el asiento de hasta adelante, casi junto al chofer, un letrero: “El asiento de adelante es para la más guapa”. El micro se llena pronto, pero siguen subiendo pasajeros. Algunos suben por la puerta de atrás, y desde allí pagan, con un billete que pasa de mano en mano hasta el chofer, y el cambio pasa de mano en mano en dirección contraria hasta llegar a su dueño. En algunas paradas, los pasajeros gritan desde atrás “bajan”, porque el chofer no se ha dado cuenta que van a bajar y no ha abierto la puerta.

Afuera de la estación del metro está lleno de puestitos. Venden desde verduras hasta aparatos electrónicos. La gente regatea. Si alguien está comprando fruta, pregunta: “¿Y está buena?” Si compras un adaptador de corriente, cuando llegas a casa descubres que no funciona (nos pasó). Estaba bien barato, pero no funciona. Ni modo, ni pensar en ir a reclamar.

Y los taxistas esperan en las afueras de la estación, diciendo simplemente “taxi, taxi” y tratando de mirar a los ojos a los pasajeros, con la esperanza de encontrar alguna debilidad en la mirada de su presa para abordarle. Hay que regatear también con los taxistas. El taxi también tiene una imagen de la virgen, en el tablero. El taxista jala el cinturón de seguridad con la mano derecha, lo pasa sobre su hombro izquierdo, y deja reposar la hebilla en sus piernas. Se voltea con el pasajero del asiento delantero y le pide no que se ponga el cinturón, sino que se lo pase sobre su hombro: “No, no, no. No hace falta que se lo ponga, nada más páseselo sobre el hombro para que no nos multen.”

No, no es México. Es Kíev.

Churches

I grew up in a city, Puebla, whose downtown has more churches than many of you have probably seen in their life. You can find two churches, and I mean big churches, with towers and everything, in the same block. Two blocks down, there is another one. Two blocks down in another direction, another one… You get the idea. And Cholula, 10 minutes from Puebla (nowadays more like a suburb) has the reputation of having “one church for each day of the year”, which I don’t think is true, but there are definitely tons of churches there, too. These are all Catholic churches. Some of them beautiful, I must say.

You would think there is no reason for me to be impressed by churches anymore. Yet, the churches in Kiev caught my attention right away. These are Orthodox churches, and I think that explains the novelty for me. Most churches in Kiev have either round or pear-shaped cupolas, covered in gold. There are no benches inside (Catholic churches have tons of benches), and every wall is painted with frescoes (the majority of churches I know don’t have frescoes). The altar area also feels different, there is a retable, separated from the wall by several meters, that feels like a fence, with a closed gate in the center that don’t let you see what’s behind —presumably all the stuff that Catholic churches have in the altar area is back there, otherwise what a waste of space, but who knows, it may be empty. These churches feel medieval, and they also have stencils that look middle-eastern, or Indian. In many cases the frescoes are very dark, even hard to see. Many of these buildings are reconstructed, but apparently made just like (or close enough to) the originals. We saw a recently built church, though, near the train station next to us. It is very new, probably from the 1990’s, post-modern looking, paying tribute to the traditional motives, beautiful, with wonderful, contemporary-looking stained glass windows. Churches in Kiev are definitely worth seeing —unless you grew up in Kiev or Moscow, in which case you may be interested in seeing Puebla’s churches

Fonda Le Pozole

Caminando por el centro, nos topamos con un “Restoranchik Le Borsch”. ‘Restoranchik’ es diminutivo de ‘restaurant’, “restaurancito”. Traduzcámolo como ‘fonda’. Borsch es una sopa típica ucraniana; hay una versión rusa también, un poco distinta. Siguiendo con las libertades del lenguaje, y manteniendo la consistencia del contexto cultural, traduzcamos ‘borsch’ como ‘pozole’. Entonces el nombre del changarro viene siendo algo así como “Fonda Le Pozole”. ¡Ja!

Grandmas’ Quotes

There is babushka or grandma Lina (BL) from the father’s side, babushka Olga (BO) from the mother’s side, and babushka Anya (BA), great-aunt, Olga’s sister, who for geographical reasons played the role of grandma much more than the other two.

On Yushchenko and Yanukovych

“Things are better with Yanukovych. You see, Yushchenko was too polarizing, everything was intense, everyone was arguing all the time. Plus, he really liked money, they say everything in his airplane was made of gold.” (BL)

“Yushchenko got so much money out of the country. You saw how he had a swimming pool in his airplane.” (BA)

“Yanukovych told my doctor to treat me well, and give me all these medications and vitamins for free.” (BA)

On Gravestones

With a big smile, proud of what she’s saying: “I already have my gravestone in place, next to your grandpa. Yes, yes, it’s already there. And it is the real thing, real marble, not like the ones they sell these days that are just marble pieces stuck together with plastic. No, this one is real. And it has my picture on it already, and my name, and the year I was born. All it’s missing is the year of my death.” (BO)

On Food

“They dumped all this food into the river then, so that the enemy wouldn’t get that food. Yes, it was better to waste the food, even though there were so many people hungry, than to leave it there for the enemy, who were going to take the city for sure, there were just not enough soldiers to defend us. Grains, flour, meat, everything into the river. A year later, though, fishermen were very happy. They caught fishes this big, huge —the fishes had eaten all that food.” (BO)

“—They say the water is all polluted now, that it’s not safe to eat fish anymore. That’s what they say.
—Yes, grandma, unfortunately that’s what they say, and not only for fish, many other products may be contaminated as well. You can’t buy anything with a piece of mind anymore, no food seems safe these days.
—Only ice cream.” (BA)

Ruso

Entiendo que en ruso al teléfono le digan ‘tieliefón’, y al motor ‘mator’. ¿Pero que le digan ‘yáblaca’ a lo que se está viendo que es una manzana…?

(Éste “me lo fusilé”. El original dice: “Entiendo que los franceses al pan le digan ‘pain’, y al vino ‘vin’. ¿Pero que le digan ‘fromage’ a lo que se está viendo que es queso…?”)

Coming Back

The flight attendant says something incomprehensible to me. “I’m afraid I no longer understand Ukrainian,” says Olesya, kind of apprehensive. We’ve talked about this, and had commented that it would come back, that she just needs to be exposed to the language again. Still, she couldn’t understand the first message. Two hours later, though, after five or six messages, she’s able to tell me what the flight attendant said, though she still misses some parts. It’s coming back.

***

The people, the cars, the berries and vegetables sold in the supermarket and on the street markets, soviet-looking tiny cars, … Somehow this is home again for Olesya, and we’ve been here for less than a day. She comments on the grandma’s outside our building, sitting there, gossiping, for hours apparently (we go in and out and they’re always there). And when we wake up, she talks about the sound of grandmas sweeping the sidewalks early in the morning, a sound she had not heard in years. It’s been one day only, and it feels like we left Boston a week ago.

***

Every summer solstice there is a big celebration, Ivan Kupala, in Pirogovo’s park / open air museum. To get there, we, that is Olesya, Olesya’s mom, and I, take the subway, and then a small bus. The bus is full of people also going to the festival. Not a single foreigner in the bus, as far as I can tell. Are we really tourist? I no longer know.

The park is beautiful, it’s like a visit to Ukraine’s country side. Olesya’s eyes and smile start to look slightly different. It’s hard to describe. It’s like a mix of surprise, memories, pride, happiness. Things are less shocking for her mom, because she’s been back in the Ukraine before, many times. But for Olesya this is the first time since she left, fifteen years ago.

We have ice cream, the kind she used to eat when she was a kid, very simple, the only one back then, but very flavorful and tasty. We enter the museum shop, and I convince her (with her mom’s help) to buy a Ukrainian wreath, colorful. The flowers are artificial, but still, the wreath is nice, and when Olesya puts it on, it really suits her. From there on, it’s like an avalanche. More local people are arriving in the park by the minute. There are traditional music bands walking around, singing traditional Ukrainian songs, and Olesya realizes she can sing along. We buy a traditional Ukrainian blouse for her, and with her wreath and blouse, she looks so Ukrainian, and so beautiful. By then she’s speaking Ukrainian whenever someone speaks Ukrainian to us. I buy a traditional shirt for myself, and Olesya’s mom buys a less traditional, but similar style blouse, to fit in. Then more candy from Olesya’s childhood. Then a “treat” for adults, the stuff she saw as a kid but never tried because “she was a kid” then, a shot of home-made vodka from these Ukrainian ladies who are walking around, in traditional dresses, singing folk songs a cappella, getting as many people as possible to drink their vodka (yeah, from the same glass) and to eat pickles and delicious bread slices covered with a fat and garlic spread. Nearby, in a small pond, there are people throwing wreaths (natural ones) to find their luck. (There are some fertility related symbols in this festival, that I don’t know, to be honest.) We run into more Ukrainian music and dancing next, and Olesya joins in —she’s a natural, she danced this as a kid. And we wrap all this up by jumping together over the flames of a small bonfire, another luck-related symbol. And all of these under a beautiful rainbow, a gift brought by the rain, which paid us a short visit that evening.

***

We are walking back from the subway station, after the festival. Olesya is no longer wearing her wreath. Yet, I seem to see some colors around us. It’s night time, but somehow it feels like the rainbow is still there.

I guess this is what they call “coming back home.”

The War

Babushka Lina lived through the war, World War II. She was a kid. She remembers the rationing of food, and remembers how some German soldiers would eat less, and give their food to the kids. And she also remembers the story of a relative who was forced to be a translator for the Germans. Her “choice” was either to do it, or to die, but nationalism considers her choice shameful. After the war, she didn’t want to tell anybody. But she married a Ukrainian guy, and decided to tell him how she survived. He told the police. She spent the rest of her life in prison.

Sometimes your enemy may be compassionate enough to help your people. Sometimes your own people won’t forgive you for something you did.

First Impressions

Interestingly, surprisingly, Kiev reminds me of Mexico. It may be that I am not a regular tourist here, this is a mainly a family trip. First time for Olesya back in the Ukraine in fifteen years; first time ever for me.

From the highway, the landscape looks kind of dry, the trees in the highway are sparse, and the grass on the side of the highway is kind of yellowish, thirsty, just like home. In the city, you find a modern looking office building, across the street from an older apartment building, that due to the lack of maintenance looks even older, and across the street, on the other side, there is an empty lot. Contrasts, a very familiar feeling. There are cars parked on the sidewalks, and planters and posts in the middle of the sidewalks as well, blocking the way to pedestrians —a side effect of a remedy aimed to block the way to cars, so they don’t park or even drive on the sidewalk. There are these small buses, with signs on the right hand side of the windshield, just like the “micros” back home.

Yet, the billboards, the street signs, the ads in the bus stops are all written in Cyrillic, which immediately disconnect you from your fake “memories” and remind you that you are actually in a new place. And the people look as different to us as their letters are different to ours. Olesya says she thinks Mexican people are very attractive, and Ukrainians are just normal. I think exactly the opposite. Good thing we found each other.