Son of a Bus

So I tried to outsmart the village bus, but I failed…miserably.

On Saturday, the volunteers in my oblast met up in Zhmerynka to celebrate Patrick’s 23rd birthday and cheer on the U.S. soccer team. Patrick invited us to come to his apartment around eleven. I expected to arrive between eleven and twelve. I’m pretty comfortable traveling to and fro now, and I didn’t think it would be particularly hard to get myself to Zhmerynka.

There is a bus that goes from Bar to Zhmerynka. It’s a village bus though, and it snakes through the small villages scattered between the “big” cities. It’s a windy, bumpy, slow ride that takes nearly two hours. The bus is old and rickety and always crammed full of people. I didn’t particularly want to take the village bus, and I figured it would be more comfortable and convenient to simply take a marshrutka to Vinnystia and proceed from there to Zhmerynka. I would save about 30 minutes in travel time and I would stick to the main road so it would be fast without the frequent stops.

I left Bar at nine o’clock in the morning. I was feeling good and looking forward to spending the day with other volunteers. When I got to the bus station in Vinnystia, I bought a ticket to Zhmerynka. The final destination of the bus was a smaller city 30 minutes beyond where I wanted to go, but the lady assured me that it stopped in Zhmerynka. I had about 45 minutes to kill before my bus, so I ran across the street to the supermarket to stock up on cat food. I also found the perfect birthday present for Patrick in the toy section of the store. I bought him a toy police set with a badge, handcuffs, a headset, a walkie-talkie and a dart gun. The packaging said, “Police vs. the Bad Guyz”. I knew it was ridiculous enough for Patrick to appreciate, and probably use in the classroom.

After purchasing my goods, I scampered back across the street to catch my bus. I was a little disappointed to find that my bus was old and rickety. I thought for sure I’d be on a newer, fast bus. This should have been my first red flag. My second red flag should have been when the bus left 15 minutes late. Trains and buses leave with breathtaking punctuality in this country. It’s rare for a bus to leave late. Still, I didn’t think about it too much. I’d double-checked the sign in the front window as I got on, and it said Shogorod, the final destination of the bus on my ticket. I relaxed in my seat, absorbed myself in my I-Pod, and planned on taking a little nap. I fully expected to be in Zhmerynka in 30 minutes.

The bus finally left at 11:20. As it pulled away, the clutch made horrible, grinding noises. Sweet, I thought to myself. Nice bus. I glanced out the window one last time long enough to see a marshrutka parked to the side of the station with a sign in it’s window that said Shogorod thru Zhmerynka. Huh, I thought to myself.

With much lurching and clutch grinding, my bus pulled out of the station and proceeded down the main road. A few kilometers outside of Vinnystia, it turned right down a smaller, more obscure road. Sweet, I thought to myself, I’m on a village bus—the very thing I drove an hour out of my way to avoid.

It was slow going as we lurched and grinded along. I text messaged Sandy to let her know that I was going to be a little late to the party, as I was stuck on a damn village bus and it was leisurely winding through the countryside, in no particular hurry to reach Zhmerynka.

An hour and half later, about the time my I-Pod died, I started to get a sinking feeling that this bus was not going thru Zhmerynka at all. I still had no proof at that point, but in my gut, I knew. With no small amount of self-hatred, I admitted that I was on the wrong bus, and there was nothing I could do about it. I had to ride it to the end, because at least in Shogorod, I’d be able to catch something to Zhmerynka. There was no point in getting off. The villages we were going thru were so small and obscure that I couldn’t even guarantee that a bus would come in the other direction to take me back to Vinnystia. I had no idea how far away from Shogorod we even were, nor really, how far Shogorod was from Zhmerynka. I was stuck.

The countryside was beautiful. We drove through farmlands and woods, past lakes and rivers, stopping to let people on and off at random. I felt helpless and hopeless and I really had to pee. Time crept by at roughly the same pace that the village bus lurched, grinded and crawled along.

At 2:00, two and a half hours into the ride, the bus started smoking out the back end. The driver pulled it to the side of the road and told everyone on board to get off. Thankfully, we were passing thru a village at the time. Passengers got of the bus and scattered to different homes asking for buckets of water. For the next 30 minutes, the driver doused water underneath the bus, near the back tire, where the smoke was billowing out thick. As I was standing off to the side, contemplating whether I had to go to the bathroom enough to ask the old lady standing in her yard watching if I could use her toilet, I looked at the sign on the front of the bus. It was different than when I boarded at eleven o’clock.

The sign had changed from Shogorod, to Shogorod thru Trypin. My suspicions were confirmed. I would not be passing thru Zhmerynka. I tried to call to the party, but I had no cell phone service out in the middle of nowhere. My morale was, to the say least, low.

As soon as the bus stopped smoking, we boarded again and continued on our way. With each hill we climbed, the lady sitting across from the aisle from me crossed herself. I wanted to lean over and tell her, I know what you mean.
At three o’clock, the bus finally rumbled into Shogorod. I got off as fast as I could and bought a ticket to Zhmerynka. I called the party to tell them I was finally on my way. They promised me a white Russian upon my arrival.

I waited around for another hour before the marshrutka showed up. As I boarded, I triple-checked the destination with the driver. My day of traveling was exhausting. The older woman sitting facing me on the marshrutka kept staring at me, at my shoes (definitely not Ukrainian) and at my bag of cat food and police toys. I kept staring at her bag of green onions and her impressively huge hands. We didn’t speak.
I finally made it to Zhmerynka at five o’clock. The party was pretty much over. Half the people left an hour after I got there. I stayed the night. I wasn’t particularly eager to climb back on the bus.

The U.S. world cup game didn’t start until ten that night. I only made to half time before falling asleep on the couch. It was a combination of the white Russians and my day of slow, mindless travel. It really took it out of me.

I head out to a summer camp in the Carpathian Mountains this week. The camp is seven days of camping and teaching survival skills, whatever that means. I’m excited. It should be fun, and as we’re traveling in a big group, I think the chances of another village bus situation occurring are rather slim.

24-hours in Kiev

Dancing has never really been my thing. With a few notable exceptions – two-stepping at The Little Red Hen with a mustached cowboy on my 22nd birthday, tearing up the dance floor in a bridesmaid dress at my sister’s wedding, lifting coconuts on the outdoor patio with Josh at the Kingshead – I usually need to have a number of drinks under my belt to hit the dance floor. Since coming to Ukraine though, I’ve found that my thing or not, a good night out is going to involve dancing. And so yes, these days I dance, rather often in fact.

On Saturday, I met up with Dave in Kiev to see Paul Van Dyk, an American DJ with an international resume, play at the International Convention Center. It was, by far, the most serious dance undertaking of my life; and as I was attending with the dance king himself, I knew going into it that we would literally be, dancing until dawn.

I. The Day
I took the six o’clock train into Kiev Saturday morning and met Dave at the train station. Dave was coming from Crimea, where he’d spent a week working at a summer camp, swimming in the sea, and getting tan. As we walked the kilometers from the train station to the Peace Corps office, I couldn’t help but marvel at his color. I’m still glaringly white, transparent even, and honestly, rather hopeless that conditions will change in the near future.

After dropping our stuff off at the office, Dave and I grabbed some breakfast where we witnessed a man down 200 grams of Hennison. He had a pained, determined look on his face that said, rough Friday night, need to kill the hangover. It was 10 o’clock in the morning.

With breakfast out of the way, and many hours until dinner when we were meeting Dave’s host family from training, we decided to try to find the convention center and see if we could procure our tickets. We hopped on the metro, the red line, and took it over the river and way across town. Dave didn’t know the exact location of the convention center, but he knew that it was close to the metro stop. We figured it’s a convention center, how hard could it be to find?

When we got off the metro, we didn’t immediately see anything that screamed convention center. We walked a few blocks in one direction, but still didn’t see anything. Then we walked in another direction. Off a ways, we saw a large building with international flags waving out front and headed towards it. As we got closer, we saw the parking lot full of semi-trucks.

“Hmm,” Dave said, “It looks like a shipping port.”
“Yeah,” I agreed, “It does. Maybe it’s that way?” I said, pointing back the way we came.
“Maybe,” Dave said, and off we walked, but we didn’t find the convention center in that direction either. So we walked in another direction, but again, saw nothing. We came to a bookstore with a poster advertising the show hanging on the door.
“Hey, let’s ask in here,” I said, meaning of course, you go ask in here. So Dave did, and we were pointed back in the direction of the shipping port.
“Good thing we’re mapping this out now,” I said as we footed back in the direction we’d just been.
“I bet it’s that place we thought was a shipping port,” Dave said, “I mean, he’s only an international DJ playing a huge show, of course there’s going to be trucks of equipment. It’s not like he’s going to arrive half an hour early with his turntable and a pair of speakers.” I laughed. Turned out Dave was right.

We made our way down to the convention center where speakers, lights and video equipment were being hauled inside. We walked into to a lobby where we overheard a security guard talking to a young girl. He was telling her that getting tickets at the door would not be a problem.

After finding the convention center, we hopped the red line back to the Peace Corps office. At that point, we figured we’d be going straight from dinner with Dave’s host family to the show, so we grabbed what we would need later and left the things we wouldn’t. We were meeting Dave’s host siblings in Ukrainka, the city Dave trained in that’s 30 minutes outside of Kiev. To get to the station where we’d catch the marshrutka, we hopped on the green line. As usual, the metro was pretty crowded. There was a young guy sitting down with a big, black cat on his lap. As the metro rumbled loudly down the track, the cat sat obediently on the guys lap. I tried to imagine Klitchko sitting so calmly in a loud, crowded, underground metro car, but I couldn’t. There is nothing calm about my cat.

After the metro, we got on a marshrutka and headed out to Ukrainka. When we got there, we went to the outdoor market so Dave could buy a shirt for the show. He wanted a yellow shirt to match his yellow pumas and he found one without any difficulty. The shirt he found was even a yellow puma shirt so that his shoes, in true Ukrainian fashion, matched his outfit.

We spent the rest of the afternoon sitting in the park overlooking the river. The sun was shining and the weather was nice. At five o’clock, we met his up with his host siblings and headed to the family’s house in Trypillia, a town a few kilometers outside of Ukrainka. In Trypillia, Dave talked to Yulia and Andre in Russian while we shared a bottle of vodka and ate sausage, bread and bananas. At 7:30, the four of us walked to the train stop and caught an electric train back to Ukrainka. In Ukrainka, Andre got off and Yulia’s boyfriend got on and the four of us continued on to Kiev.

Yulia and her boyfriend got off the train at the metro stop where Dave and I had caught the marshrutka to Ukrainka. Getting off the train also was another guy carrying a cat—no cat carrier, no cardboard box, just a big cat who’d been hanging out on the train. Hmm, I thought to myself. What are the chances of seeing two carrierless cats in one day?

Dave and I stayed on the train, intending to take it all the way to the train station because the train station is only one metro stop away from the Peace Corps office. Unfortunately, we didn’t make it all the way to the train station. We had a little confusion and ended up getting off the train too soon, only to realize too late that we’d gotten off at the wrong stop. Dave realized it before I did, and he probably could have jumped back on the train before the doors slammed shut, but that would have left me alone on the abandoned platform, so I’m glad he didn’t do that.

I had no idea where we were, but thankfully Dave’s got a pretty good sense of direction. We walked all the way to the Peace Corps office. It was no big deal. What’s a few extra kilometers when you’re going to be dancing all night anyway? I kept referring to it as our warm up, though Dave didn’t quite share my enthusiasm for that likening. As we were walking back, we came across a wedding and witnessed a rather spectacular fireworks show. We stood and watched it for a bit, standing close enough for ashes to rain down on our heads.

We made it to the Peace Corps office just as it was closing for the night, though the guards were kind enough to let us in for a few minutes. I reapplied some makeup, pulled my hair back, slapped on a little extra deodorant, shined my shoes and we were off. On our way back to the metro, we bought some Burn energy drinks. We were walking and talking and not paying a whole lot of attention to where we were going. As we were taking the escalator down the three or so stories to the metro platform, we were deep in a hypothetical discussion about how awesome it would be to ski or sled down the steep slop. We were so distracted that neither of us noticed that we were getting on the green line instead of the red line. It took us a good 7 stops to realize our mistake. I thought it was rather funny. Dave didn’t share my sentiment. We had to grab the metro back in the direction we’d just come. On the crowded train, there was a woman with a cat in her purse. The cat was just sitting there calmly like it was a stuffed animal or something, only it wasn’t.

We got off the green line and went towards the escalator that would connect us to the red line, only we got on the wrong escalator. We got on the three-story escalator that slowly took us back to the street.
“This is where our problem started,” I laughed on the escalator as it crawled back down again. “If we hadn’t been so caught up in how awesome it would be to ski down this thing we probably would have gotten on the right metro. But then we wouldn’t have seen that cat in the lady’s purse, so I guess it was worth it.” Dave still didn’t think it was as amusing as I did.

We finally made it to the convention center. There was a long line out front, which we stood in for over an hour. Perhaps it’s because I grew up spending most of my summers standing in lines at Great America waiting to get on rides, or into shows, or into the park even, but I find crowd control in this country incredibly lame. I was spoiled growing up standing in lines that had cues, at a place that opened doors proportionally to the size of the crowd trying to get it. Here, for a show where two to three thousand people showed up to dance, there was one door, ONE DOOR letting people in.

It didn’t bother me, but it was lame. I thought perhaps the line was moving so slowly because they were checking peoples bags as they came it, perhaps doing a quick body scan with a metal detector, but no. None of that happened. The line was slow because there was one door. Wait, that’s not true, there was a VIP door, but a VIP ticket cost 300 hryven, so that door didn’t really count.

II. The Dance
We got into the show at 12:45, 15 minutes before Paul Van Dyk came on. Already, the large convention center was packed with people. Dave immediately started dancing with a huge, peaceful grin on his face. I started dancing too, but I was doing more of a body bop than any real dancing. At that point I was still too overwhelmed by the scene.

The show was expensive by Ukrainian standards. It only cost 20 dollars, but that translates into 100 hryven and that’s pretty steep for the average Ukrainian. As Dave said, it was the cream of the Kiev crop at the show. And they dressed it. I do believe I saw more supermodels at the convention center than New Yorkers see during fashion week. The pants were tight, the skirts were short and the heels were high. Compared to the cream of the Kiev crop, I felt a bit like sour cream or heavy cream, though it didn’t much matter. Everyone was there to dance.

Along with the models, were some regular folk. There was also the occasional person in costume. At one point a guy in a gas mask dance-walked past me, followed by someone wearing a scary old man Halloween mask. I saw a guy dressed like an angel, with little fairy wings on his back. There was a young guy who was wearing one big, white Mickey Mouse glove. There were a few people wearing what will forever be known to me as SARS masks. There was a guy wearing snowboarding goggles. There were lots and lots of people wearing sunglasses, the most popular trend being the Hunter S. Thomson look, followed closely by the Olsen twin look, followed closely by the Oakly look. (I can’t think of any celebrities off the top of my head who still go in for the Oakly look, maybe Lance Armstrong?)

When Paul Van Dyk started to play, the dance bug finally bit me and I gotta say, I really got into it. As into it as I got though, I remained rather vigilant of my surroundings, fearful that I would have my eye either burned out by a flailing cigarette or blackened by a flailing elbow. And let me tell you, both came close to happening.

Dave and I danced side by side. Occasionally I’d look over at him and just watch him. He was like a machine, a smiling, happy, dancing machine. Sometimes he’s turn around and survey the crowd with an approving looking on his face like a proud father watching his children. Other times I’d look over and see his arms raised in the air, his eyes closed, his face so content that he reminded me of an evangelical parishioner deep in worship.

We took one water/espresso shot break during Paul Van Dyk’s set. Then we returned to the dance floor. As the night, or should I say morning, progressed, more and more empty battles of water and soda were scattered on the floor. Not only was I worried about losing an eye, but I was also worried about turning an ankle on a rogue plastic bottle. It was like dancing on a minefield.

Paul Van Dyk’s set ended at four o’clock. Many people in the crowd left, but more stayed to dance on. My feet were killing me at that point, and my legs had lost all their spring, so I opted to find a seat and take a breather. I found a chair off to the side and watched as Dave danced with same amount of enthusiasm and vigor as when he hit the dance floor four hours earlier.

At 5:30, when the metro started running again, Dave and I left. We walked slowly to the metro and waited with throngs of people for the first train to come. When it finally came, people packed on. There was no extra room. When the metro came to the next stop, there was a platform full of young people, tired from their own night of dancing, waiting to get on. The doors opened and people pushed in. Even when I thought that another person could not possibly fit, someone cried out, “Please!” and another handful of people forced their way into the train. It was barely even possible to breath, there were so many people packed like sardines.

It made me think of this one time when I was at Disneyland with my sister. It was closing time, and we were waiting for the tram with a couple hundred other people, and when it finally came, instead of pushing her way onto it, she froze, had a bit of a panic attack because of the crowd, and refused to take another step. We had to wait for another tram, which was no big deal, but now that I think back to it, had that same situation happened here in Ukraine, you better be sure that all those hundreds of people would have gotten on that first tram. And nobody would have panicked.

Dave and I got back to the Peace Corps office at six o’clock, right when it was reopening. We went upstairs to the volunteer lounge and crashed on the couches. All in all, it was really, very fun. And though I still feel a bit like I just ran a marathon, or was hit by one of the semi-trucks carrying equipment for show, it was hands down something I would do again in a heartbeat. Though maybe next time I’d nix all the excess walking beforehand. My Target shoes weren’t made for quite so much walking AND dancing in one 24-hour period.

Little Feats

Last Saturday, I ventured into Vinnystia to buy a train ticket to Kiev. It was to be my first solo train ticket purchase, as in the past, I’ve had Jennifer by my side telling me what to say and when. I was a bit nervous because the women behind the counters at the касаs are a notorious bunch. I’ve heard horror stories of volunteers being yelled at, and in one particularly harrowing account, even brought to tears. I didn’t want that to be me, so I went prepared. I wrote myself a script and practiced it the whole bus ride to the big city.

The bus from Bar arrives at the варскі (barsky) bus station. From there I can hop on a trolleybus to get across town to the train station. The trolleybus costs 50 kopeks and the ride lasts 45 minutes. Another option is to take a marshrutka, which costs 90 kopeks, and takes 25 minutes. I’m cheap, but I’m not that cheap; plus, I’m no longer enamored by the trolleybus experience, so I opted for the marshrutka.

I got to the train station a little after one o’clock. In the past, when I’ve gone to purchase tickets, there have hardly been any lines. In the past though, it hasn’t been summer and everyone and their second cousin twice removed hasn’t been trying to get to the sea. It was utter insanity inside the building. There were five ticket windows open, each with a line of people that stretched to the back of the room. And really, the lines were twice as long as they appeared to be because a) in true Ukrainian fashion, people were practically standing on top of each other and b) people would disappear from the line and reappear 20 minutes later expecting their spot back. I’ve always been under the impression that “savezies” is uncouth. Though maybe that’s only in America, or at amusement parks. Certainly it’s a perfectly acceptable practice in Ukraine.

I chose my line carefully, which meant scrutinizing the signs above each window to see when that window would be closing for break. In Ukraine, when it’s break time, it’s break time. I’ve been one person away from the front at the post office and I’ve had the window slammed shut on me because it was break time. I took it for granted in America that someone’s break never interrupted my errands. Breaks are staggered, and there are always enough workers to ensure that the post office doesn’t close for an hour in the middle of the day. Here, there are no replacements.

I took a chance by getting in a line that would be closing down for break in an hour. I figured I’d chance it, though I won’t lie, I neurotically glanced at my watch every two minutes while willing the lady to sell faster. All around me, people were grouchy and I felt an increasing amount of panic overtake me as I got closer and closer to the front of the line. I took out my cheat-sheet and read it over and over again. I ended up standing in line for 45 minutes before I made it to the window. By then, the break was rapidly approaching. The people behind me, feeling the minutes tick away, pressed closer and closer until I was literally, sandwiched between a mob of travelers and the glass window.

In a last minute laps of confidence, I decided to give the woman my script rather than try to say it. The pressure was too high, and I thought things would go faster if, like in a low-profile bank heist, I just slipped her the pertinent information on a sheet of paper. It was not faster. In fact, I think my slip actually slowed things down considerably.

After I slid the paper under the window, the woman cocked her head and looked at me for a long moment, probably trying to decipher whether I was handicapped or simply foreign. Then she slowly turned her head down towards the paper. I’d written everything in big block letters, because I don’t know how to write in cursive, and the woman’s eyes bugged out (in good-grief-how-long-until-my -break kind of way) the moment she started reading it. I’m pretty sure nobody here ever writes in block letters EVER after the age of seven.

When she finally finished reading it, she looked up at me and just, looked. Now I was expecting her to start fiddling around on the computer, perhaps find the trains I requested. Instead, she just looked at me. So I slid her my documents but she just kept looking, until finally, not knowing how to say, “It’s all right there in front of you!” I found myself asking for the morning train to Kiev on June 10th and a return ticket to Vinnystia on the 11th. I suppose really, I didn’t need to slip her the note after all.

Even though in the end, I used my Ukrainian to buy my tickets, the woman insisted upon slowing things down even further by flashing her fingers over and over again to communicate numbers to me. She flashed ten to double-check that I wanted to go to Kiev on the 10th, eleven to double-check the return date, thirty-eight to tell me how much I owed her, twelve to say how much change I received. With each number she flashed to me, the grumble of the people behind me grew louder and louder. It didn’t bother me though. I didn’t know what the hell they were saying anyway. Sometimes it’s nice not to understand. Really, ignorance is bliss.

On Tuesday night I found myself feeling a little stir crazy. I would have called Yulia, except she went to the sea for three weeks and won’t be back until the end of June. In my boredom, I decided I would call her friend Roma. We used to play basketball together during the dark days of winter/host family living and the last time I saw him he asked if I was ever going to invite him over. So I gave his cell phone a call. It rang three times before he picked up.

“Hallo?” he said.
“Hi, Roma, it’s Sheryl,” I said in Ukrainian.
“Hallo? Hallo?”
“It’s Sheryl. Sher-yl”
“Who is this? I can’t understand you,” he said, hanging up on me.

So I called him again,
“Hallo,” he said
“This is Sheryl,” I said again in Ukrainian, “Sheryl”
“Hallo? Hallo?” he said, again hanging up on me.

So I called him once more.

“Hallo?” he said, sounding mildly annoyed.
“Roma, this is Sheryl,” I said in English, figuring he’d have to know it was me since I’m the only English speaker he knows.
“Oh, Sheril,” he said, “Hello.”
“What are you doing?” I asked, reverting back to Ukrainian.
“I’m trying to come back to Bar,” he said. Apparently he was out of town.
“Do you want to come over tomorrow?” I asked him.
“I don’t know if I’ll be back tomorrow. When I’m back, I’ll call you,” he said.
“Ok,” I said. Ok is one English expression I use all the time without thinking.
“Yes?” he asked, using one of the few English words he knows.
“Yes,” I said. Then he said,
“вжлоажфшугкущшлвожшвоащгщшуододлоажшуагщшфщшдл дваожшугожщф дложшвущ лвоагщуцгк щшфо даожщфушгкщц лвьдшвогащуг ловажогаш.” The only thing I happened to catch was “devi”, which means many things but in this case I think it means “let’s meet”, and “poka”, which means good-bye.

All in all, I’d say it was a fairly successful phone call. In fact, the very act of making the phone call made me feel less stir crazy because even the smallest act brings a rather significant sense of accomplishment.

Last Bell

Larissa knocked on my door yesterday evening.
“Tomorrow is the last bell ceremony,” she told me. “It starts at nine o’clock at the sports field by the school.”
“That sports field?” I asked her, pointing to the sports field across the street from our apartment building, and across the street from the school.
“Yes, that sports field,” she replied. “See you tomorrow.”
“Okay, see you tomorrow, nine o’clock, that sports field,” I said, repeating the information to make sure I had my facts straight. Even though Larissa speaks English, we don’t always communicate. That’s something I’ve learned since I’ve been here: two people can be speaking English and you can still have no idea what the other person is talking about.

This morning I woke up and looked out my window. The stadium (ie: “sports field”) was empty. I had expected to see teachers and students bustling around, setting up for the ceremony. Huh, I thought to myself looking at the gray sky, perhaps they’ve moved things inside because of the weather.

A little before nine, I made my way to the school. Students and parents were milling about, talking excitedly about, well, I can’t say exactly. I followed the crowd to the side of the school, to a small area of grass and dirt and a single, all-metal jungle gym. Speakers were set up in front of the jungle gym. A small band of ten students sat off to the side playing music.

“Welcome to our sports field,” Larissa said, coming up behind me. I looked around, chuckling to myself. It wasn’t much of a sports field. It really wasn’t much of a field, it was more a dirt plot, but I didn’t say anything. Anytime Larissa and I have an unable-to-communicate-and-create-shared-meaning-moment, it makes me wonder just how much sense I made to my poor students.

The ceremony got underway. The students stood with their classes and their class teachers in a square formation around the so-called field. The eleventh form filed in and stood in a line along one side. They were dressed in traditional school uniforms. For the boys, this meant sports jackets and ties. For the girls, this meant sexy French maid numbers. Their dresses were dark blue or black and came down to their mid-thigh. Over the dress, was a white, lacey apron. Tell me that doesn’t sound sexy French maid? They wore their hair in pigtails, as is customary, with poofy, white, pom-poms tied in each one. They looked cute in a sexy, uncomfortable for the Calvinist in me kind of way.

The director and other administrators spoke first, as the sky broke open and the rain started to drizzle down. Following the speeches came the changing of the guard. Each year, three students from the eleventh form are chosen to be the flag bearers. The flag bearers wear blue and yellow sashes (at least that’s what I assume they’re suppose to be, though my school’s sashes are more a neon green, blue combo). The flag bearers bring the flag out at the start of ceremonies and then stand in front of it the whole time. When it was time for the changing of the guard, three students from the tenth form came and took the sashes from the eleventh formers. The eleventh formers then kneeled in front of the new flag bearers and then rejoined their classmates. The flag bearers are always two girls and one boy. The girls walk in front of and behind the boy as he carries the flag.

Next, the student president of the school spoke. She invited her administration (ie: her best girlfriends) to join her. Then she gave “the club of power” (as Larissa put it) to next year’s president. There is no election of student government at my school. The president is chosen by the school administration and he or she appoints the rest of the positions.

Following the changing of guard, came the reading of the names of all the “school leavers,” as the eleventh formers are called. Next, the director read the names of all the best students in the school. These students came forward and received a limp, wet certificate. (The drizzle never did let up.) Then all the students in the school gave flowers to their favorite teachers. For about 5 minutes there was total chaos as this took place. I was very to flattered to receive an armful of flowers from various students, a couple who I didn’t think liked me at all, so that was nice.

Following the flowers came the last dance for the eleventh formers. Two students sang a song as the rest of the eleventh formers grabbed a teacher and slow-danced in the middle of the square. After the last dance, two students from the second form did the tango and two students from the third form waltzed, in full costumed. Then someone read a poem. Then the tenth formers gave all the eleventh formers red ribbons with tiny bells. They pinned these on, so it took some time. So much time in fact, that the girl singing as the pinning happened actually sang the same song twice.

Before the last bell was rung, a group of students from the second and third forms performed an odd dance number. They ran out into the square with backpacks and a soccer ball, threw off their backpacks, kicked around the soccer ball and then did a few choreographed dance moves. They then shouted “hooray for the summer,” pretended to get into a fistfight, did a few more dance moves and ran off before the music was over. I didn’t quite get it.

At last, the time came to ring the last bell. A girl from the first form took a hand-held bell from the director and walked around the inside of the square ringing it. She walked until she reached the eleventh formers and handed one of them the bell. She rang it and it was passed down the line so each school leaver could ring it one last time. The ceremony concluded as each student in the eleventh form took the hand of a student in the first form. The pairs walked to the park and put flowers on the monuments to the victims of World War II.

My teachers asked me if we had ceremonies like theirs in America. Not really, I told them. Graduation is much different then the last bell ceremony: there’s no tango and there’s no last dance with teachers because, well, we never have a first dance with teachers. This ceremony wasn’t graduation for the eleventh formers. They have about a month of testing before they’re done with secondary school for good. When their tests are finished, they have another ceremony where, I’m told, they dress very formal, kind of like prom, and party for three days.

That should be interesting.