some guys fishing in Sevastopol, UkraineOld person conversation is the same on every continent. Im sitting here eating my bowl of chili watching the ‘babusiyas’ (grandmothers) converse next door and I’m only imagining what their conversations could be about. (Seriously, what could they have to talk about? They sit in the same spot literally everyday for hours at a time. I don’t know what could have happened between 3pm yesterday and 3pm today - Maybe babusiya Irena is listening to babusiya Olga carry on about the same thing she was bantering about yesterday. I don’t know about babusiya Irena but that would make me angry. Maybe there will be a baba-battle?) What makes this so fantastic is that the topic could be anything because A) I cant understand every word and B) even if I could they’re too far away to hear. The conversation could be about cabbage, the rambunctious hooligans that live next door (me), or even killer robots. Take your pick - there are endless possibilities and hours of entertainment sitting right outside my balcony window.
I do the same thing pretty much everywhere I go now. I try and listen to people’s conversations in Ukrainian or Russian and figure out what they’re talking about. You might call it eaves dropping but that would assume that I can understand what they’re saying. Well I can only get about one out of every five words and the rest I fill in with my own vivid imagination. I call it actively practicing my listening skills which I’m sure what every five year old tells his parents when he is actually caught eaves dropping. It’s more like that game called Mad Libs, where it has the skeleton of a sentence with blanks every few words. In the blanks it gives you the type of word and you have to pick a random word to put in the blank. Kind of like this;
Can you believe that Volodya has a _(Adjective)_ __(Noun)__ and he __(Verb)__ it every day to __(Noun)_ because its __(Adjective)__? You know, to my mind its simply a _(Modifier)_ thing to do.
And this is how I fill it in;
Can you believe that Volodya has a _giant_ __eagle__ and he __flies__ it every day to __the pool_ because its __thirsty__. You know, to my mind its simply a _brilliant_ thing to do.
Anyways, after I finish my chili I go to meet a friend at the train station and we walk around for awhile catching up on current events and whatnot. I tell her about babusiya Irena and Olga and their conversation about giant potatoes. She doesn’t think this is funny and say’s it is “creepy” that I’m spying (AKA – eaves dropping) on the old ladies next door. (This is the point in the dialogue where I explain how its not eaves dropping.) Actually, the scary part is that I can’t turn English into background noise anymore. When someone is speaking English within a two mile radius I can tell you exactly what the person is saying. This being my reality, my fun little game is immune against people speaking English and even worse, I can’t block out the people who normally would fade into the background noise. (blah blah blah) Today is one of those days where I really want (need) to block out the conversation I’m having because it consists of a contradiction every two or three statements.
“I love to travel” says my friend.
Just to get things going I respond with “You don’t say, have you traveled much around Ukraine since you’ve been here?”
“No, I don’t have any desire to really travel too far from here.”
“Interesting. So, you just don’t like to travel in Ukraine then?”
“No it’s just that I really love my (small) town and it fits my personality.”
“Oh, so you like small towns? Did you grow up in a small town?”
“Not really, I’m a big city kind of person.”
In my mind, I am pouring poison into my friend’s beer because this has turned into a coy game and I don’t understand the rules. Isn’t that how an opponent of equal coyness responds by eliminating the opposition? Outside of my mind this is a sincere conversation and it’s not a game. I really like this person as a whole but I miss Babusiya Irena and Olga. Their conversations are much more predictable and entertaining, mainly because I make them up. I am sure that Babusiya Irena and Olga are just as frustrating in real life as my friend and actually many others that I have conversations with these days. I don’t have as many day today social interactions with people of my own species. (English speakers) and in all honesty, I think it’s really that I am becoming more socially awkward the longer I live in Ukraine.
I do the same thing pretty much everywhere I go now. I try and listen to people’s conversations in Ukrainian or Russian and figure out what they’re talking about. You might call it eaves dropping but that would assume that I can understand what they’re saying. Well I can only get about one out of every five words and the rest I fill in with my own vivid imagination. I call it actively practicing my listening skills which I’m sure what every five year old tells his parents when he is actually caught eaves dropping. It’s more like that game called Mad Libs, where it has the skeleton of a sentence with blanks every few words. In the blanks it gives you the type of word and you have to pick a random word to put in the blank. Kind of like this;
Can you believe that Volodya has a _(Adjective)_ __(Noun)__ and he __(Verb)__ it every day to __(Noun)_ because its __(Adjective)__? You know, to my mind its simply a _(Modifier)_ thing to do.
And this is how I fill it in;
Can you believe that Volodya has a _giant_ __eagle__ and he __flies__ it every day to __the pool_ because its __thirsty__. You know, to my mind its simply a _brilliant_ thing to do.
Anyways, after I finish my chili I go to meet a friend at the train station and we walk around for awhile catching up on current events and whatnot. I tell her about babusiya Irena and Olga and their conversation about giant potatoes. She doesn’t think this is funny and say’s it is “creepy” that I’m spying (AKA – eaves dropping) on the old ladies next door. (This is the point in the dialogue where I explain how its not eaves dropping.) Actually, the scary part is that I can’t turn English into background noise anymore. When someone is speaking English within a two mile radius I can tell you exactly what the person is saying. This being my reality, my fun little game is immune against people speaking English and even worse, I can’t block out the people who normally would fade into the background noise. (blah blah blah) Today is one of those days where I really want (need) to block out the conversation I’m having because it consists of a contradiction every two or three statements.
“I love to travel” says my friend.
Just to get things going I respond with “You don’t say, have you traveled much around Ukraine since you’ve been here?”
“No, I don’t have any desire to really travel too far from here.”
“Interesting. So, you just don’t like to travel in Ukraine then?”
“No it’s just that I really love my (small) town and it fits my personality.”
“Oh, so you like small towns? Did you grow up in a small town?”
“Not really, I’m a big city kind of person.”
In my mind, I am pouring poison into my friend’s beer because this has turned into a coy game and I don’t understand the rules. Isn’t that how an opponent of equal coyness responds by eliminating the opposition? Outside of my mind this is a sincere conversation and it’s not a game. I really like this person as a whole but I miss Babusiya Irena and Olga. Their conversations are much more predictable and entertaining, mainly because I make them up. I am sure that Babusiya Irena and Olga are just as frustrating in real life as my friend and actually many others that I have conversations with these days. I don’t have as many day today social interactions with people of my own species. (English speakers) and in all honesty, I think it’s really that I am becoming more socially awkward the longer I live in Ukraine.
2 comments:
My baba loves to gossip. Also, I find she's more entertaining, too.
It's interesting that most of the conversations I hear at work are about as important as the ramblings of the babushkas... "We need this project done by next week"... "Bob, please call organization x and ask them if they are prepared for the conference call tomorrow"... Well, I guess at least cabbage is important.
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