A day of firsts. . .

Friday Aug 8, 2008                                                           (post by Lee)

The last 24 hours has been characterized by some firsts

The list:

• Daniel won the first ever Chubarya Street "Authors" (card game) tournament.
• Lee's Blackberry started working again - just as quickly as it stopped 12 days ago.
• Daniel & Andrew ate octopus, mussel, and squid on spaghetti.
• Vika wanted to be held by Lee
• We were called "gypsies" (story #1)
• Lee visited the Kharkov beauty salon for a haircut (story #2).
• Lee got his eyebrows trimmed (also see story #2)

Story #1:  Related to our adoption, we have to find out what citizenship Nastyas' parents were.   Without this knowledge we can't obtain her passport. This has been a bit of a challenge; part of the process is to get authorization to get approval to ask for addresses.  The addresses can be taken to the police station and passport files retrieved.   Anyway - midway through this process - our fearless facilitator had to go to a govt. office building.    She quickly told us to wait in the lobby area and she would attend to her business.   The lobby was circa 1950's including all the Soviet propaganda information on the walls . . .   The clerk didn't see our facilitator come in and was trying to figure out who these people (foreigners) were in her lobby.   She was an older lady and definitely would have fit the Soviet bureaucrat profile.  Karen bravely took out her dictionary and tried "wait".    That got her a little more agitated, then she tried wait again. . . same result.  Meanwhile, there were not enough chairs for all - so I sat on the floor.   This also seemed to get her more riled up - Karen continued with "wait friend".    Nothing.   She was not happy and kept going in and out of the office, looking at us and then back to her desk.    Finally, our facilitator came back and explained who she was and what she was doing; and consequently who we were - and that we were harmless.    The lady sheepishly smiled and told her - I thought they were gypsies and had come into my office to sit.    We all had a good laugh.   Lesson #201 in Ukrainian Culture:  NO-ONE sits on the ground or floor here - always on furniture.   The gypsies used to sit on the floor.   To avoid being considered a gypsy - use a chair or stand.

Story #2:  We have been here long enough - that I need a haircut.   I have experience with foreign haircuts.   When we lived in Spain - I went to an alley barber shop, probably 6' wide and a single bulb hanging down from the wire.  The barber was advanced in years and cut with a manual clipper.  I have since seen these at auctions - squeeze the handle and the blades move together and cut.  They are probably 75 years old - my guess anyway.    As that cold steel blade went up against the back of my head - I was pretty sure I was being scalped.     So that is my background  on haircuts outside of the USA.

      Our driver here is a bit of an entrepreneur.   He has recently purchased a spa/beauty salon - so we headed off  to his shop (immediately following the gypsy incident and a lunch of squid & octopus spaghetti).   The salon was very nice - I had more attention paid to my hair in that hour than I have done in the past year!   It was washed, clipped, washed again, conditioned. . . blow dried .  .  . all while my family was in the lobby area being served refreshments.   One funny aspect - the stylist spoke no English - so she asked the owners daughter to translate something - which she didn't know how to translate -so in comes our facilitator again.   I was informed that I had a few very long elbows - and my stylist would really like to trim and balance my elbows.  It took me a second to realize that if you translate elbows as eyebrows - it would make sense.    So - I had my eyebrows trimmed today.    All this for the low, low price of 70 grivnas - about $16 and a generous tip to my new Ukrainian stylist.