Just the Four of Us

Pippa’s parents were picked up at 7:30 am by Yelana and Vassily and Pippa went with them as far as the airport; I stayed with the kids at the apartment while they slept.

Pippa’s parents were reluctant to go I think. When we asked them to come along with us to Ukraine we knew there would be several important benefits from their visit. They would get an opportunity to bond with Andry even before the comes to the USA; they would have a better appreciation of Olya’s heritage as well; from Andry’s viewpoint he would see he’s joining a large loving family and lastly we would enjoy sharing this experience with them.

All these things happened just as we predicted. What we did not predict was the remarkably rare opportunity to visit the birthplace of both Andry and Olya, to meet the birth parents and all the villagers who were so excited to see Olya again after seven years. To sit down under a cherry tree to a meal prepared by a group of babushkas, complete with vodka toasts, was an unimaginable experience that Pippa’s parents (and we as well) will never, ever forget. I would not want to be the friends of Pippa’s parents. They will never hear the end of the Boyd’s trip to Telizynci.

When Pippa, Vassiily and Yelana returned, we woke the kids and I made a Ukrainian version of the German pancakes that Olya wants me to make for her every morning in Miami Beach. To make these pancakes more Ukrainian, you just add cherries. Now that we’ve seen Olya’s birthplace with cherry trees all around the house, we understand her obsession with cherries.

On weekends, all Kiev residents with the means to head out of town. The enormous traffic jams in the city are gone. With this in mind, we decided to go to one of the city parks and do stuff the kids would like in the morning and then go downtown to do some shopping, mostly at the Mac store and make some color copies of Ukrainian egg designs that we intend to share with Maria. (We are still thinking about buying decorated eggs from Maria as a way to give her money that she earns herself, rather than just a handout from us. As we said previously, we don’t expect to sell her eggs. We’ll try of course, but that’s unimportant. The real objective is to give her something that will earn her more money than the one very part-time job she has feeding pigs for a neighbor.)

We started at a charming park on the edge of the city. This park is obviously a relic of the Soviet days. There is a lake with small pedal pontoon boats, which still work, but just barely; there are a variety of simple mechanical rides for children that are dubious at best, but still used. However, for a beautiful Saturday, the park itself seems to attract very few people. A smattering of kids, a few people in their twenties with the girls all wearing spike high heels (not at all what American girls would wear for a short hike), but mostly there are old people reading a book or walking on the pathway. One squarish older woman was sun bathing in her bra and panties.

While we did all the activities, for Olya and Andry the big thing was the go-cart track. This was far less serious than the one we had gone to before. There were only four old go-carts. The track was in a grove of trees lined by old tires, painted blue on one side and and yellow on the other side. Maybe old, but still charming.

The go-cart track was serviced by four young Ukrainians who appeared “red neck” to us. Tough and quick to yell if we did anything wrong; the “boss” seemed to be about twenty, a burly guy, burr head, wearing only short shorts. Showing off his big chest, I suppose. Why four young men? Back home this would be a one-man job.

On the track Olya was conservative, far from her usual “hell bent for leather” style she uses on her own go-cart back home. Andry went “rapido” as he says to us in Spanish. Pippa drove close to Olya and I followed taking photos from my car. We made all of our laps and then encouraged Yelana to give it a shot.

Now Yelena is 31 years old, but looks around sixteen. She doesn’t know how to drive a car. Even so she was happy we pressured her to hop in the go-cart. What followed was very funny. Of course she didn’t know brake or accelerate or steer. She traveled at a speed to put her last in a snail marathon. Once in a while her foot, by mistake, hit the accelerator and she would crash into the tire barrier. But she was determined and methodically and oh so carefully completed her five laps. We thought several times she would cry but she never did. In fact she hugged and thanked Pippa when it was all over. We all laughed to think what a disaster the rest of the day would be if Yelana and Vassily switched places and Yelana was our driver and Vassily our translator!

So far, we have given Yelana: frisbee lessons; taught her to catch and throw a softball; play tag, bowl and drive a go-cart. We’ve even included her in the games we play with the kids in the car: counting every third person who passes by the car window and the “named” person must wear that person’s clothes, and another game of counting car makes, giving points for certain makes until someone reaches 100 points. We’ve played these car games and others like them with Olya forever. She’s very competitive and it really passes driving time very quickly. All these activities, Yelana tells us, has changed her mind about Americans. She had thought all Americans were fat and lazy, but says we are all so “sporty”.

At the same time we’re changing our mind about Ukraine or at least Kiev. Three and a half years ago we left with Olya thinking the place was very backwards, not cool, frumpy. That’s not the case. You can still see vestiges of the Soviet days but actually Kiev is a classy, modern city. The shops are plentiful and stocked with everything. Supermarkets are no different than ours except that the sausage, fish and dairy sections are about three times larger and loaded with things we have no idea what you do with. I have not had a bad meal yet since we’ve been here. The meals vary from working man’s lunch to elegant restaurants but always with fresh ingredients.

In fact we ended the day by walking through a new section of apartments still under construction near our place to a very nice Japanese restaurant, “Yakitoriya”. Andry didn’t want to eat there at first. After looking at the menu posted outside he clearly told us he wanted to go back to the apartment and eat tomatoes. He said he had never been to a Japanese restaurant. To his credit he let us convince him to go in. He and Olya ate everything on their plates and wanted more. We’ll go back there again, for sure.

The evening ended with the children moving into the vacated room of Pippa’s parents. They liked having their own room and said we must knock before entering. We’ll see. They went to bed watching a movie in Russian on Olya’s computer.