By the 4th day of camping, my hair was absolutely beyond disgusting. We were not supposed to wash our hair in the river because it would pollute it…however, I’m pretty sure some of the high school age girls on the trip washed their hair. They told me that I could but not to let the director see me do it. HA. I wasn’t about to be the American girl who gets in trouble because she has to wash her hair. So, I French braided my hair in two braids in my tent and put on my baseball hat. I helped make borsht on the fourth day of the camping trip…which also happened to be the 4th of July! I didn’t even realize it until that evening when the director congratulated me on America’s independence. I explained that there would be TONS of fireworks going off all over the United States that night.
We’re going to take a little pause and I’ll tell you a funny thing about fireworks here in Ukraine. People shoot off fireworks ALL THE TIME here in Ukraine. It happened in Oster and it happens here in Kirovograd. I don’t understand it…and I’ve asked locals why they do it. No one seems to have an answer. I will never forget the first time I heard fireworks in Ukraine though. It was probably within the first month of me being in Ukraine. I was doing homework in my bedroom at my host family’s house. Both of my host parents were working that day, so it was my host sister, Christy, and I at home. It was at least 9:30 or 10 pm. Cats had been fighting outside (this is a normal occurrence here as well…when they have a fight right outside your window, it truly sounds like a baby is screaming) and the neighborhood dogs were going nuts. It was a typical night. And then, I heard 3 bangs. My first thought was gunshots. I don’t know whether it was the new element of living in a foreign city, because my host parents were gone, or what, but I thought gunshots. My heart was RACING. I stood up in my bedroom and wondered what in the world I should do. I grabbed my Ukrainian cell phone and called my cluster mate Jamie, who probably thought I was nuts. I kept wondering why my host sister wasn’t doing anything. Freaking out. Calling the cops. What do you do in a situation like this in Ukraine? Jamie picked up and I explained what I thought was happening…and then more of the sounds occurred. I went out to the laundry room and saw the source of the noises: fireworks. Jamie could actually see them from his room too all the way across town. They were literally on the next street over from me…which would explain why they were SO LOUD. Since then, I have probably heard fireworks at least 20+ times and I can assure you that now I simply look out my window and see if I see anything lighting up the sky. Just another day in Ukraine... :)
So, on this fourth of July, we went to a rocket museum!
It happened to be about a 45 minute windy bus ride away, which made me incredibly nauseous by the time we got there. One of the buses that brought us camping turned around and went back to k-grad the first day of the trip and would come pick us back up on the last day of the trip. So we had to split the group in two and go to the museum in two shifts. I chose the latter shift when it would be a little bit cooler. Let me explain something to you about Lydia and museums. I find museums interesting, as long as I can go at my pace through them…which is usually fast. However, when everything is in Russian (or Ukrainian…which I really can’t read), I can go through a museum at record pace.
We had a tour guide who kept asking if the American girl was understanding everything. A few of the older girls who could translate well would tell me parts about different rockets and where they were from, etc., but overall, I was pretty lost. They had a ton of neat artifacts to look at which is what I spent the majority of my time doing. And then…we actually got to go look at where some rockets were launched (I think…). I will post some of the pics from the museum below...I would be making stuff up if I told you what I thought things were, so just use your imagination!
The best part about going on the fieldtrip to the rocket museum was getting to stop at the ATB (supermarket!) on the way home. I was able to buy a big 6 liter bottle of water which one of the boys carried for me. With it being the 4th day of the trip and only 3 days left, the kids gawked at the fact that I could drink that much water. I assured them that I could and actually spaced it out so that I had 2 liters each day. You don’t realize how much you miss having water accessible all the time until you no longer have it readily available. I also bought 2 bottles of drinkable yogurt that I downed on the ride back to the site. My body was craving fruit and healthy food of any kind and the yogurt did just the trick. I also got some cereal that resembles corn flakes that I eat as a snack here in Ukraine. Mmm…and that’s the end of day 4!
The sun coming through the clouds at the end of the day :)
1 comment:
Fireworks and rockets, now this is my kind of blog post!
I thought it was the strangest thing when I moved to Derry and found that there was a fireworks store on the town line that stayed open year round. We hear fireworks pretty much any time of the year too. I can definitely see how you might have thought they were gunshots.
And, yes, it appears you did visit a rocket museum. What it appears to be to me, though, is a defunct Soviet-era nuclear missle silo! No wonder they wanted to make sure the American girl was understanding everything--that used to be pointed at you! I bet the truck was a mobile missile launcher of some sort, and the smaller ones were probably anti-aircraft missles. Very interesting. I would have loved to visit.
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