Going Away Lunch

Today was a great day. At 1:00, I met Mykola in his office to go to my going away lunch. Three other faculty joined us, including Valentina, my language teacher. Before we left, Mykola told us that so many of his friends in the US are Mormon, bc Chernivtsi’s sister city is Salt Lake, and therefore don’t drink. I think he was wondering if all Americans refrain from alcohol. He asked if I liked horilka. He then pulled out a bottle of Jean-Jacques cognac and asked if I could carry it in my purse. Uh oh!

Here are the steps leading to my classroom:

Here is the American Studies Center, complete with an American flag, a copy of the Declaration of Independence,  two maps of the US, and photos from the US.

Lots of copies of David Shi's US History textbook, and thanks to Norton, who sent a full box of books and other materials to me via the Embassy's diplomatic pouch. Now American Studies has a lot more!

Mykola's desk:

I will miss Mykola, my "big brother." He always greets me with enthusiasm and constantly asks if he can do anything to help me. It has meant a lot every time he has said, "I am here to help you."

The restaurant we went to was traditional Ukrainian and had traditional tunes playing. They started off with dark bread (hlib) and salo, onions, sliced tomatoes, cucumbers, and homemade horilka (honey and horseradish flavored). I ordered deruny (potato pancakes) and potato varynky for lunch. Other people had mammilga (a sort of polenta), and trout.

The chair of the International Relations Department, which has jurisdiction over the American and Canadian Studies Centers, sat beside me. He is more comfortable with French than with English, resulting in a situation in which I used 3 (4 if you count my demonstration of all 10 Russian words that I know) languages during lunch. Combined with the many toasts, this got sort of interesting. At one point I started mixing them up, using the Ukrainian word for the number 4 instead of the French word in the middle of a French sentence. It was funny.

There were many toasts, including one from Mykola to my Mom. Mykola and I toasted each other, which was sweet. He has taken to calling me his little sister. I told them how much I appreciated his efforts, and their efforts, to make me feel at home here, and how much I have gleaned from the time I have spent in Ukraine and especially with their students.

Everyone had a great time, and Mykola seemed to take pride in this outing. I was pleased to see that. He was the one who secured the Fulbright and has handled nearly all the logistics regarding my trip.  We talked about how I am the first Fulbrighter to come to Chernivtsi’s American Studies Department (there was one woman from the University of Maine who was here last year when the university and basically the whole city was closed for a month bc of the outbreak of swine flu…this area was hit REALLY badly…she was here for 4 days and then Fulbright and the State Dept decided she should return to the US). So I was the guinea pig. American Studies was awarded another Fulbright Scholar for this fall, so hopefully they will continue to be successful with their bids to host Fulbrighters.

On the way back, we passed the Youth Culture Palace. I was told that during Soviet times, this was the Political Education building, or political indoctrination building, more appropriately. They mentioned that the political education consisted of learning only about the communist party. Ha!

I also found out our building, the green building, was built between 1870 and 1873. It served as the Bukovina Government HQ. During the wars it served as the seat of the Romanian Land Parliament, and from 1944 to 1991 it served as the Communist Party Headquarters. As a child of the Cold War, I get a sick thrill from teaching US History here. The irony of it...