This morning, after a yummy breakfast or undercooked runny eggs and salty cheese and onion leaves, we--the three Americans plus Andre our beloved non-tempermental guard-- he really is a doll. We try to communicate in broken English/Russian/Sign Language, but sometimes nothing works so we just say "Nyet Problyenka," which probably means absolutely nothing in Russian, but we all smile and laugh together. Andre (not to be confused with our driver, Andre) always has his door open and when one of us steps out into the hallway, he comes out and stands there against the back-lit window. Rather reminiscent of KGB, Big Brother. But really he is nice and protective, etc. Miriam and I are trying real hard not to fall in love with him, in the manner of Whitney Houston and Kevin Costner in The Bodyguard. Would be bad for Jewish image. So after breakfast we set out to see the Town Square and all the old buildings within it. Numerous photo ops. This is what we saw:
- Two churches, one with a lovely boys' choir. Both had lots of skinny dead Jesuses hanging from crosses. I don't know, but if I were Christian, I wouldn't want to see my good Lord impaled on a cross every time I went to pray.
- Statues/busts of Mr. Pushkin, Mr. Ternopol, and some other nice guy but we couldn't figure out who he was due to communication problems with Andre.
- The department store. Very 1930s. Ukraine is waaaaay behind the times. They were using abacuses to add.
- Other Town Square fixtures such as the theatre, the little boy throwing things at the pigeons, and the accordion player.
We had a seder in the little village of Chortkov. (This is where Rabbi Levi Hirsch Horowitz is from.) The seder was in a restaurant complex of many rooms, each decorated in a different ugly theme. There were about eight old people and no food. NONE. I don't know if it was because they had no food, or they just didn't organize the seder with food. There was also no heating. So we sat there with our coats and hats on. We had brought up grape juice and matza, so we were able to do Kiddish and Motzi Matza. We went through the entire seder just omitting the eating part. They knew some of the Pesach and Israel songs and some Hebrew words, but they didn't seem to know any of the reasons. Or maybe they did but they just didn't volunteer. I noticed an overabundance of gold teeth in the room. The cutest little woman sitting in the corner was at least 800 years old. Her little wrinkly face was poking out of her blue puffy jacket and gray babushka scarf, big eyes peering out behind enormous round pink glasses. I don't think she said one word the entire seder, but sat in the corner staring and opening and closing her mouth. She was like a little raisin head.
Another guy (actually the only guy) was wearing a felt cap and sitting across from me. He had those Russian bright blue eyes. His face was so wrinkly, as if he grew another wrinkle for every birthday he had. He barely spoke or sang during the seder. Turns out that he was born in that little town and had lived there his entire life-- minus the time he served in the army during the war. We asked him to give us a little tour of the town. When the Ukrainians translated our request for a tour he turned to us and smiled and threw up his hands and cried out "Pajalsta!" (Of Course!), as if he was waiting his whole life to show off his little town. For sure we made his day. Probably his week.
On our tour we saw the Jewish cemetery and the old synagogue. We also saw this poor little pathetic dog that had pink gift-wrap bows stuck to all of its legs and ears. We stopped at a very dirty bathroom, but Miriam didn"t go because "her squatting days are behind her."
Then while we were driving back to our hotel, Scary KGB Chesed guy made us pull over to the side road so that we could admire the first buds of spring poking through the forest undergrowth. GROAN. We thought this was the lamest thing EVER, plus we were already annoyed because we were met with such opposition from our counterparts when we wanted to tour Chortkov. BUT. It turned out to be really cool. I know this is really corny, but it was kind of symbolic how we were celebrating Pesach and renewal and rebirth etc, and we were picking new baby spring flowers. Plus I got a really funny picture of Andre the guard and Scary KGB Chesed guy picking flowers.
We ate dinner at Europa restaurant. Very Euro/Israeli. Ie: nice. This caused us to, of course, be late for our next seder.
The seder/Shabbat dinner was for the Ternopol Chesed youth group. 15 kids aged 15-22. They are very similar to a USY chapter. When we came to Magid, the telling of the exodus from Egypt, we spiced it up a bit by making the story into a musical. (Turns out we are good at spicing things up.) We sang "Pharaoh Pharaoh" numerous times. We threw styrofoam balls at them (hail) and stuck pink stickers on their (and their dog's) faces (boils) during the ten plagues. After the seder we discovered the maximum capacity of our van-- 13 people and one dog-- when we took a bunch of the kids back to our hotel. WE stopped on the way home to say hi to Misha's mom (Misha is the president of the youth group) and her ivy wallpaper and kitchen completely furnished in wood. Us Americans bonded with Andre the guard over tea and chocolate in the hotel restaurant. We discovered that he knows English.
quote of the day: "If we're good, we get to go to the cemetery!
horse and stick cart count: 12
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