Drevyev

Last night Nellie made a statement that I'm still mulling over. She said, "I think I've been here before, at least it feels like it." I think this is an astute description of feeling "at home" in a different culture or different place. Somehow we get so used to being in the new place that we forget that at one time we had never been there. One could say that acculturation, then, is not simply adjusting to a new place, but rather forgetting that the "new" place was ever new.

I've had this feeling more than once. I was listening to my students today talk during the break, and I was trying to think about not being able to understand them, but I couldn't. Last weekend, when my friend, Anzhela, from Kiev came to Lviv, I had to translate for her and Hollie. Sometimes I neglected to translate, because I forgot that they couldn't understand each other as I could understand them both.

At the same time, I feel some clashes between the languages. For example, the girls come by my class sometimes in the afternoon to get the key to our apartment. Their visit occurs after three hours of class in Ukrainian, plus lunch, some I'm in tip-top Ukrainian shape at that time. English, then, feels foreign, somewhat. Also, I feel really awkward when I hear others speak in a language I'm not used to hearing them speak. My students all know English, but when they speak English it's striking how weird it sounds. Mind you, they speak just fine, but it disrupts my expectations. I talk to the kids in Ukrainian and Russian, but that doesn't seem weird. However, thinking of having a conversation in Russian with a grown-up Nellie really strikes me strange.

Nevertheless, speaking a language can be overrated. Hollie is able to get by with a minimal amount of language. At the center where she works, they went on a field-trip to the woods. The girls at the center liked her a lot and walked arm-in-arm with her as they hiked. (Pics soon.) Good intuition and empathy can get you very far, as Hollie demonstrates. Add a few words, and people love you.

The girls are becoming more social with the few words they know. Consistently they like to say bye-bye ("pa-pa" in the local dialect) to people, including my students, shopkeepers, and even the surly tram drivers. It seems like they have the intuition to form relationships with people, which becomes communication, and the necessary words follow.

(Kali yesterday told the needlepoint vendor through my translation that she wants to help the vendor sell her needlepoint. So maybe the intuition is more commercial . . . The vendor asked if she could take Nellie and Kali home to her four little grandons, and Kali said she couldn't unless Hollie and I came with. I think Kali was really ready to take her up on the invitation!)

Maybe Lviv is becoming like a second home to the girls.