Ukraine is cold

Wrote this a while back. ¡Disfruta!

I knew what heat was. The thick, heavy, sticky heat of south Georgia, a constant part of my life for the first eighteen years of it, is both dreaded and welcomed, like an awkward but still-loved relative. In Key West, where I lived for two years, the heat is different, but just as oppressive, though the proximity of the Atlantic offers a quick cool-down to anyone with fifteen minutes to walk to the island's perimeter.

I knew heat, and my closet was packed with summer dresses, miniskirts, tank tops and flip flops. And I thought I knew cold. In Georgia, cold is a fashionable Gap peacoat over a long-sleeved henley, jeans and slightly flushed cheeks. In Georgia cold is negligible, a mild inconvenience like a particularly lengthy queue at the DMV or traffic on I-75.

Then I came face to face with the full, terrible, merciless fury of a Slavic winter. I arrived in Ukraine at the end of still-pretty-mild September and listened to my new colleagues and friends speak with resignation and gloom about the impending winter, and thought surely that they must be exaggerating somewhat. “Do you have a winter coat?” several of my students asked.

In fact, I did have a coat, one of the St. John's Bay variety from JC Penney, wool on the outside and insulated (the tag said) with down. As autumn drifted along and neared its close, I had settled in comfortably and was looking forward to the pretty, picturesque snow that native Georgians never get to experience. Fluffy white clouds would soon cover the ground. Perhaps we teachers would build snowmen on our days off, sled down nearby hills or just walk through the winter wonderland in downtown Marinsky Park.

When December descended upon the city of Kyiv, I became a convert. The fluffy white clouds I'd envisioned did not materialize; instead, two meters of grimy, dirty snow obstructed sidewalks and roads, the bottom six inches or so freezing permanently to the ground below.

This ice, the bane of every Kyivan winter, remains in place until late March, reducing the city's residents to slipping, sliding, knee-bruising (me), hip-breaking marionettes, their strings pulled by uncontrollable Mother Nature. There is no such thing as snow or ice removal in Kyiv, this and other aspects of the residents' well-being neglected as usual by the mayor, whose ineptitude and cocaine addiction are well-known and oft-ridiculed facts.

Among other things, winter is an especially good time to observe elements of Ukrainian culture that are often a combination of the bizarre and hilarious. The aforementioned absence of snow and ice removal make for entertaining (if you can see it that way) trips anywhere, especially with children in tow. The first time I saw a child-bearing sled dragged by the child's huffing, puffing, struggling parent, I was reminded of Santa Claus and his reindeer. I half-expected to hear the child, invariably bundled so tightly as to resemble a gingerbread man or starfish, cry out “Mush!” and brandish a whip.

On a similarly entertaining note, fashion in Ukraine is all-important, and not at all sacrificed to practicality during the winter months. Throughout October and November I made a passable attempt at stylish clothing and footwear, abandoning it altogether when the weather made it completely pointless and perhaps even life-threatening. Ukrainian women, known worldwide for their enviably sleek beauty and keen fashion sense, are not so deterred. Well into the freeze they can be seen shod in five- or six-inch stiletto heels, taking birdlike little steps and digging the point of the heel into the ice for a better grip. Perhaps it's taught at school, or simply inborn. At any rate, I never saw one of them fall.

Needless to say, winter in Ukraine is a strange time. The absence of the sun is total. There are no quick trips anywhere, not even to the kiosk twenty meters from your front door for a Coke. The cold is relentless, biting, cruel, harsh, even angry. You must cover every possible inch of flesh or risk illness or frostbite. The metro becomes a stinking, drafty hole filled with somehow-melted snow and ice that threatens one's balance at every yanking, jerking turn on the ride into downtown. A simple trip to the market becomes a two-hour epic adventure as you battle the wind, the crowds, the floodlike snowfall and of course the ice while you cling to your purchases through gloves so thick you'd think they would actually keep the cold out. Suicide, depression and alcoholism are common in the winter months and even considered normal reactions to a season that seems to go on interminably every single year.

And yet, most people – the ones who are not alcoholic, depressed or suicidal – seemed happy to me. I certainly was. Winter in Ukraine meant dangerous cold, snow, ice, heavy boots, mussed hair and blood-red cheeks, but it also meant constant house parties, nights with my best friend Jaemi after work at Puzata Hata (think Ryan's, but smaller and with beer) and one more opportunity to find out what I was really made of.

By the time I left in early June, I didn't have the wide Slavic features I'd come to know so well but I'd begun to feel more Ukrainian than American, fancying myself as tough and resilient as the people I'd lived among for nine months – people that fought through and survived centuries of hardship featuring a smorgasbord of poverty, war, foreign control and untold indignities preceding a decades-long nightmare under the suffocating and heavyhanded control of the Soviet Union. And I realized with surprise and pleasure that I now had more friends abroad than I'd ever had in the States. Even by mid-December, I knew that, in spite of the weather, I'd come to the right place.

El Carmen y La Familia Ballumbrosio

Afternoon. The air is hazy with dust and the warm, slightly oppressive rays of the mid-spring Peruvian sun. The plaza is still and strangely quiet, its loud, cheerful colors in startling contrast to the silence. The only sound on the mostly-deserted dirt streets is the occasional shout or laughter from the impromptu football game nearby. We leave the hotel – the only such establishment in the tiny, earthquake-battered hamlet of El Carmen – and begin the three-block journey to the house of the world-famous masters of Afro-Peruvian music and dance: the Ballumbrosios.

The walk is short but memorable. An acrid, pungent odor thickens the air and I am reminded of the unmistakable smell of the hog pen on the farm where I grew up. Piles of rocks and concrete fragments litter the dusty streets, which are lined with residences of crumbling brick. Some of the houses have been hastily repaired and reinforced, the residents making use of any and all available materials: garbage bags, tarps, sticks, bits of canvas. The earthquake that battered Peru's west coast in 2007 might have happened yesterday, instead of three years ago.

They know we're coming. As we approach the house at San Jose 325, the faint buzz of conversation grows to a pleasant roar. The door is open, and we file in without ceremony. The sensory assault that follows is unexpected. The walls are painted in alternating shades of rich mustard, rust, and, curiously, electric blue. Family photos cover nearly every inch of available wall space, and I can feel history staring out at me from every corner. The sharp, nostril-stinging aroma of carapulcra wafts in from the kitchen along with the sound of salsa music on the radio.

We take seats on the hard wooden benches along the wall and wait. It won't be long, I'm told, before someone gets a jam session going with the cajons (large, boxlike drums) that are stacked neatly in the corner. Soon enough, one of the kids – a girl of about eight, with milk chocolate skin and voluminous jet-black ringlets – hops atop one of the cajons, gives it a few testing little taps, and begins beating rhythmically away. Her hands fly over the polished, glossy wood in perfect time, and we sit transfixed for a minute or two, watching. But she is still a little girl: the effort cannot quite compete with the lure of her toys several meters away, and she abandons the cajon.

The original twelve children of Ballumbrosio patriarch Amador have all grown up; many of their children, teens and toddlers alike, now fill the family home. The majestic art of Afro-Peruvian dance and music seems to flow as naturally as blood through the veins of every one. Amador himself, folk violinist virtuoso and master of the ethnic tap dancing art of zapateo, was both a revered musical icon and a beacon of hope and happiness throughout his years – even when health problems forced him permanently into a wheelchair. The beloved musician, dancer, and father died in 2009.

Inside the family home, however, Amador's tradition lives on. In the evening, the entire clan assembles to give the neighborhood one of its frequent lively shows. We are lucky enough to secure a coveted spot on the worn but comfortable sofa and listen as Amador's eldest son, dressed entirely in white, speaks at length about the inception of Afro-Peruvian music, his father's legacy, and the importance of tradition. The introduction complete, he retreats to the back of the room, joining three other white-clad brothers, each as astride his own cajon, and the show begins.

The men beat the cajons in perfect rhythm for a few moments, the vibrations seeming the rattle the walls and our rib cages, until two of the dancers – females – emerge. They are barefoot, clad in frilly, midriff-baring bra tops and tiny skirts with colors that match the walls. Their limbs are a blur, each one's movements a mirror image of the others, and both are wearing an expression of simple delight. They perform their hip-shaking, torso-twisting dance at an impossibly frenetic pace, concentrated but smiling, while beads of sweat form on each cajon-playing man's forehead. For the next hour or so, we watch, rapt, while the women – six of them in all – rapidly and effortlessly contort their bodies in a fascinating display of speed and gracefulness and the men pound tirelessly upon their wooden instruments.

When the women have finished, the men treat the audience to a thrilling zapateo show. Each gives a solo performance, filling the air with rhythmic stomping and tapping on the unadorned stone floor. The men wear similar expressions of pleasure and concentration, absorbed in the effort of creating such unique music.

Some time later, with a collective bow and a chorus of “Gracias!”, the show ends. The room has grown warm from the feverish exertion of the talented human bodies of the Ballumbrosio children and grandchildren. We rise slowly, still feeling the show's lingering vibrations inside. I look down at my scribbled notes and realize that it will take days to satisfactorily relate my experience in the house of Amador Ballumbrosio. The overwhelming richness of it all reminds me of the first bite of extra dark chocolate – the flavor is striking, intense, and unfamiliar, but nonetheless addictive and somehow luxurious. As long as there are Ballumbrosios in El Carmen, I decide, the beauty and joy of their craft will ease the devastation and hardship beyond the front door of the little house on Calle San Jose.