Peace Corps Volunteer Andrea writes: Thanksgiving, The Ukrainian Way



"We returned to the house tired, but refreshed, and were welcomed by a very strange sizzling sound. “It has been doing this ever since I put it in the oven” Caroline said not sure whether to laugh or give up. The Turkey was a-sizzlin’ it was making all sorts of sounds, like the sound of pop rocks when they are in your mouth and it sounds so loud in your own head! The bad news was that the sizzling never stopped, but the good news was that it ended up tasting really good, well that’s what other people said since I didn’t eat any (I’m vegetarian you know). "

Peace Corps Volunteer Andrea writes: Thanksgiving, The Ukrainian Way

Thanksgiving, The Ukrainian Way

Saturday, Nov 25, 2006

As Peace Corps Volunteers living in Ukraine, there is no way to celebrate Thanksgiving unless we all get together and create our own celebration. My family was never huge on thanksgiving, a fact I was not aware of until I visited my friend Amy for an all-out traditional East Coast Cape Cod Thanksgiving, so I assumed that missing thanksgiving for a few years wouldn’t be too big of a deal. Despite all this I was elated to be invited to a big thanksgiving celebration that centered around the most important of things: football! Now we’re talking! This was thanksgiving celebrated in a more familiar way. Most people play football in a field or other square grassy playing area, safe from the observation of most people. This was not the case in Lutsk, Ukraine where our game of pigskin was played in nothing other than a TRAFFIC CIRCLE! Oh yes. As most of you are aware, being American and walking down the street in Ukraine is something of a rarity, and as a result you are stared at. Constantly. Sometimes it really bugs me and in my head I think, “Welcome to sideshow Andrea, just stare away!” Most of the time, however, I take this opportunity to play it up and I think, “Wow! I must look great today with so many people looking at me! Yeah baby!” I digress.

Back to football. Now that you know how much I get stared at for being an American in general, you can imagine the stares of hundreds (if not thousands!) of people who drove or walked by in the hour that we played football in the middle of the traffic circle. It was like being in the NFL, but not quite as cool because all the people were not watching us at once, and they weren’t watching us because we were awesome, they were watching us because we were strange looking. Oh, did I mention there was a dead rat in the middle of the field, who I am sure I stepped on at least several times when trying to catch the ball. Gross. But true. In the end I had two awesome plays, a running play that would make TD want to come out of retirement and a touchdown that barely made it in bounds, I imagined moving my toes in bounds just in time to make the big play like you see in the big leagues. Maybe it wasn’t that awesome, but I remember it being something close to that.

We returned to the house tired, but refreshed, and were welcomed by a very strange sizzling sound. “It has been doing this ever since I put it in the oven” Caroline said not sure whether to laugh or give up. The Turkey was a-sizzlin’ it was making all sorts of sounds, like the sound of pop rocks when they are in your mouth and it sounds so loud in your own head! The bad news was that the sizzling never stopped, but the good news was that it ended up tasting really good, well that’s what other people said since I didn’t eat any (I’m vegetarian you know).

When desert came around and we were all drinking wine or beer this guy Ryan pulls out some homemade wine. Hesitant to try it, I avoided it for a while, but eventually tasted a sip. It was grape juice on crack! Not a lot of crack, just a little. Well, maybe it was more like grape juice on pop rocks. Or just grape juice that has been sitting around un-refrigerated for a month. Hmmm. I am just about done doing experimental tasting of homemade alcohol (and in Ukraine, there is a LOT of that, so it is actually harder than it sounds)


Overall thanksgiving was a huge hit! I missed my family, but making a few new Peace Corps friends more than made up for it.


Gobble Gobble (sizzle) Gobbles!

Links to Related Topics (Tags):

Headlines: November, 2006; Peace Corps Ukraine; Directory of Ukraine RPCVs; Messages and Announcements for Ukraine RPCVs; Blogs - Ukraine; Thanksgiving; Holidays

When this story was posted in December 2006, this was on the front page of PCOL:




Peace Corps Online The Independent News Forum serving Returned Peace Corps Volunteers

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All Volunteers Safe in Fiji All Volunteers in Fiji are safe and accounted for. The Peace Corps is monitoring the situation very closely. Volunteers are on standfast but there are no plans for evacuation at this time. Peace Corps is working closely with the US embassy and with host country partners to monitor the situation. Peace Corps is confident that volunteers are not in harm's way. The military seized control of Fiji on December 5 after weeks of threats. Subscribe to our news feed to read the latest breaking news.

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