Dumpster Diving in Kiev

Imagine an entire family–-father, mother, little girl and little boy–– in long, yellow gloves scouring through a big dumpster behind a famous park restaurant. Well, that’s exactly what we were doing Wednesday.

After seeing a wonderful photo exhibit we went to the park with the great monument to Taras Sheschentko, Ukraine’s most important poet and artist, to have lunch at a restaurant in the park (much like Tavern on the Green in New York’s Central Park).

We were starving and ordered a typical Ukrainian big lunch of many courses for only $7 a piece. At the beginning of the meal, Olya as usual, took out her very expensive (tooth) retainer before she ate. Even though we had cautioned her not to cover it up (the retainer had been accidentally tossed in a trashcan at an airport cafe in NYC and Ron fortunately found it) Olya ignored our caution and put the retainer “into” the paper napkin so she would not have to look at the “gross” thing while she ate.

Of course, you can guess what happened. We left the restaurant, got into the car and into a terrible traffic jam on the way to the Zoopark. Then: “Mom, Mom! My retainer!”

I can’t say we rushed back because it is impossible to rush anywhere in Kiev’s traffic which is rush hour about six hours out of every eight. But we snail-drove to the restaurant, then rushed in. The waiter, a soviet-throwback in temperament even though he looked to be about twelve years old, burr-cut hairstyle, who was angry at us during the meal, was even angrier now, insisted there was no way the retainer could be found. All the tables had been cleaned long ago and everything thrown in the big trash dumpster behind the restaurant.

We offered him a reward and he stormed off with a great display of arm and shoulder tossing he probably learned from watching Soviet war films. In twenty minutes he returned to say it was impossible. A woman had looked and looked and could not find anything. Too bad. More shoulder rolling. We asked if we could go back and look for ourselves. Big shoulder roll, then a session with the manager who matched the waiter’s shoulder rolling but he agreed to let us try.

In the back of the restaurant, a helpful woman gave us a couple of pair of long yellow rubber gloves. Ron had a pair and Pippa and Andry split a pair.

In fifteen minutes of organized piece-by-piece garbage sifting, Andry’s sharp eyes found a soggy paper napkin complete with Olya’s undamaged blue plastic and stainless wire, very, expensive teeth retainer.

We took a victory photo of the family with arms raised high and big smiles (including Olya who, feeling overwhelmingly guilty, hadn’t spoken for a long time).

We washed our hands in the restaurant and and celebrated with Ukrainian (very thin, like a crepe) pancakes, coffee and kvas (the same drink sold from big yellow tanks all over Kiev, but safer to drink at the restaurant).

We made it to the Zoopark about two hours before closing time. It’s a dreadful zoo to begin with, but for some reason almost all the rides were not working. Thank goodness! We were frightened to ride the small roller-coaster and Ferris wheel three years ago because they looked so decrepit. Many of the animal exhibits had no animals. It looked like they may be redoing some of the enclosures. The single elephant and the single rhino were sadly still there. These herd animals were each alone in their too-small spaces. The rhino had worn a knee-high circular trench from walking in circles day-in and day-out for all of her life at this zoo. Really, really sad. I had seen this before when we took Olya there years ago and I didn’t want to see it again. But the kids didn’t seem to recognize the signs of depression in the animals and did all the things kids do at a zoo: ate popcorn, ice cream, bought crappy plastic trinkets, ran in and out of buildings and enjoyed being together.

On the way home we stopped at a supermarket, bought ready-to-boil vereneky for this night and the ingredients for borscht which Yelana will use tomorrow night to teach us how to make an authentic Ukrainan version. All of us love borscht.

We ate meat vereneky follwed by vereneky with cherries for dessert while we watched “Superman” on the big screen TV from our iPod which we finally figured out how to work with Carlos’ help. The two kids lay side by side on the sofa. Olya’s retainer was back in her mouth after being Cloroxed––altogether, another good day.