Women's Day

Well, International Women's Day came and went with the drunken debauchery that I've come to expect from any and all Ukrainian holidays. Though March 8th was on Wednesday, the celebrating started on Tuesday. I taught lessons on Tuesday but they were a joke. The kids were completely out to lunch. They were excited about the holiday, they knew they had the next day off from school and all they could think about were the class parties they would be having after the fourth lesson. The school day was cut short so that the kids could have their parties and the teachers could enjoy a concert put on by a few kids from each grade.

The kids were cute. They spent their breaks between classes running around congratulating the women teachers on, well, being female I suppose. I got half a dozen carnations and a couple boxes of chocolates from my kids. I also got a number of cute little cards in the shape of the number eight.

After the fourth lesson, the teachers gathered in the teacher's room and enjoyed a concert by a handful of kids. The concert involved singing, poetry reading and dancing. The kids danced in the most elablorate costumes. They waltzed, they tangoed, the mamboed and "cha-cha-chaed" (please excuse my ignorance when it comes to dance). With their elaborate (and often uncomfortably sexy) constumes, the kids looked as if they should be performing in a pageant or something, not dancing for the female teachers. After I got over the uncomfortably sexy outfits, the dancing was nice.

After the concert, the male teachers invited us female teachers to the physics room. There they had prepared two long tables of food and drink. We sat down and ate and drank. We drank 4 or 5 shots of vodka, I don't really remember. We drank enough so that all the males could toast us women. After the drinking, the teachers all started singing. I like it when they break into song. It's not something that we do in America. After the singing, we were invited into the hallway where the music teacher had set up his keyboard and speakers.

We danced in the hallway for awhile. Mostly we danced in a circle holding hands. Of course this led to the horrid "scarf dance" where one person has to dance alone in the middle of the circle with a scarf and choose someone to pull into the circle with them. They then have to dance together and then kiss (ON THE LIPS!!) and then the first person joins the circle and the poor sap who was pulled in has to dance and then choose someone else to yank in and kiss. I hate the scarf dance. The teachers did it at our New Year's party too so I should have expected it.

I danced the scarf dance twice before making up an excuse to leave the party. I'd had enough to drink and I'd certainly had enough of the scarf dance. The teacher's ended up partying long after I left at 4:30. My coordinator told me she didn't get home until midnight. She also told me that she was so sick on Women's Day that all she could do was sip hot tea. Yeah, I wasn't sorry that I left early.

Wednesday the sun was out and I walked around and enjoyed it. I then went over to Jennifer's and enjoyed a nice dinner with her family. Yulia invited me out to celebrate with her friends in the evening and so I went. We went to the cafe/club. We drank vodka and danced. I left around 11:30. The party was in full swing but I had to get to bed since I had lessons to teach on Thursday.

All in all, Women's Day was fun. I think we should make more of it in America. It's nice to be able to honor women who don't happen to be mothers. And as one, I must say, it's nice to get so many flowers.