The Maffia and us. We jacked around at school, often going to the check-your-answers table to copy the answers and thus save ourselves of hours of honest leaning. The honor system didn’t work for us! We started leaving earlier and earlier… until we were leaving around lunch time. Seriously, why did the teacher let us make our schedule? We said the afternoon “traffic was bad”. Whatever. We just wanted to go home and play. We were kind of freaks there at the school. Even the mafia children were in awe of us. We even had our own section with a couple of the more advanced students in a private area. We were so distracting apparently. When the parents of this children would come pick up their children, it was strange. Mercedes and other expensive cars stood out like diamonds among the 20 to 30 year old volvos everyone else seemed to have. It was a declaration.
Then there was Alex. Our shadow, our translator, our adopted brother. “Hi, my name is Alex” was all he knew when we arrived. He could speak English perfectly with slang and juvenile name calling thrown in to boot by the time we left. We could argue and fight and make up in English. We taught him and the other boys how to play baseball and football and I was a novelty because I not only knew, but was good at playing both. On the train back to Kiev, we cried and cried. It was like one of those old movies where the train is pulling out of the station and someone is left there in the dust clouds. Alex was left in the dust crying. I hated the summer missions team, they were happy to be going home and cheering, and we were leaving a part of our hearts. What is he doing now?
The Ukrainian girls didn’t play sports. They wore bright red lipstick, high heels and mini skirts. Katy’s friends looked homeless, and by the end of the year, both her and I adopted the more “street-child” look. Seriously, I look back at pictures of myself and wonder what my mom was thinking! Katy’s friends were boring and made our barbies have sex all the time which was disturbing to say the least and sang Madonna and we with our southern baptist roots judged them for sinners. The tv showed all things, and after seeing part of a porno my parents pulled the plug unless we watched movies. The Lion King came out that year and our Grandparents sent it too us. I think it was a highlight of our year, that moment the sun started to come up and the African song began… the circle of life. How ironic.