Pig Fat, The Robbery, and Transitional Amnesia

True story. I don’t remember the normality of American life; I can only tell you abnormalities of my life now, which generally penetrates into every function of my seemingly normal life now. (I say seemingly because I’ve apparently blacked out from memory my transition period from America to Ukraine – doctors call this ‘transitional amnesia’. I just made that up but for the purpose of this essay it will be my semi-fictional filler phrase.) There are the obvious complications of living in Ukraine that make things seemingly abnormal – strange foods, language barriers, customs, traditions, time change, etc. But in reality it’s all a matter of time and perspective. (And completely blacking out the memory of your former life) At first, looking at a bowl of solidified pig fat (Salo – a traditional Ukrainian dish) as an entrée is problematic. (Looking at it from the normality of life in America – I think I might throw up.) After a year of ‘transitional amnesia’, the know how of dropping that bowl of solidified fat into a frying pan and turning it into gravy for your mashed potatoes is even more problematic. (Looking at it from the normality of life in Ukraine - why would I do that when its perfectly edible as is?) In this scenario, it’s much more complicated to explain to a Ukrainian family that you don’t want to eat the solidified pig fat than it is to do the latter (Unless you just really want to blow their minds) but it’s perfectly acceptable to refuse under the pretension that you are a vegetarian, have eaten too much, or you cannot eat Salo for religious reason. (“Yes, I do believe in God and he told me that I cannot eat the pig fat.) Besides, it’s really not that bad now that I’ve eaten it a few times and it goes perfectly with a beer or two. (In Ukraine, one beer equals a liter of beer.) The less obvious snags of life in Ukraine are trickier in that they pop up when trying to reverse my brain to my former life and way of thinking. They are less obvious but normally happen in situations like remembering how to pump gas, studying for the GRE, remembering English words, or filling out a police report. At first, sitting in a police station answering questions in Russian/Ukrainian is obviously problematic. (This recently happened to me in Crimea on a camping trip. Someone stole stuff from our tent) Now however, the trickier part is when I’m trying to explain in English what happened to my family back home. Not because I was over excited or drunk during the incident (which is completely true, I’ve given up alcohol except for beer, tequila, rum, and whiskey) but because when I tried to use words like ‘stole’ or ‘tent’, the only words that came to mind was ‘vkrali’ and ‘palyatka’ and I literally could not think of the English words. Its like when someone asks you “Hey who sings this song?” and even though its your most favorite band in the world you cant think of their name because of temporary amnesia. It actually didn’t occur to me that the process would have been much easier in English until much later when conveying the story to my mom only took 15 minutes instead of 4 hours. By no means am I fluent in Russian or Ukrainian (I’m actually really awful at it which is why it took 4 hours to fully explain to the police that we had been robbed and answer their questions.) but its simply that I am no longer as efficient in English. It’s more like I am equally illiterate in three languages instead of somewhat illiterate in just one. I have been in Ukraine for 14 months and it appears that the nuances of this country have commandeered my body and mind. I am a walking robot with a little Ukrainian inside my head behind the steering wheel. I do however stop from time to time though and think; “why did I just do that? I wouldn’t have done that a year ago? Get out of my head you tiny Ukrainian!” (even that’s just weird and I wouldn’t normally talk to myself in a normal situation) In my own self defense you can ask any Peace Corps Volunteer about this phenomenon and they will undoubted launch into a tangent about how strange their life habits have become; increased need for alone time, eating Salo, reading 18 books in a month, walking 45 minutes to work, thinking to yourself partly in a differently language, cooking real food instead of eating out, forgetting how to have small talk and social interactions, etc. etc. It’s not necessarily that we have forgotten what our former lives were like; it’s closer to the fact that we have over written our former lives with the details of this life through adaptation and assimilation. This is the time when all that is seemingly normal is crazy and all that is seemingly crazy is normal. Ultimately, it’s a good thing and a benefit that will make us all adroit to adapting and assimilating new things. Hooray for Peace Corps making us weird through transitional amnesia.