The mid-2000s rank high among the toughest years of my life, beginning with 2004.  My mother suddenly became ill and died from congestive heart failure.  Three months later, doctors diagnosed me with acute myelogenous leukemia.  I survived without needing bone marrow transplants, but I’m permanently off organ and blood donor lists thanks to multiple chemotherapy rounds and countless blood infusions.  One physician succinctly said, “So now you’ll enjoy the final twenty or thirty years of your life.” I was only thirty-eight then, so twenty or thirty years. “Think of it as taking time off the clock so you’d have time on the clock,” he clarified.  Honestly, though, my filthy eating habits and exercise phobia will kill me sooner than cancer.

Over the next two years, I took a break from suicide prevention, a decades-long career, and tried teaching high school, failing dismally. Then, in 2007, my father suffered a catastrophic body-wide infection and lost his colon. I spent six months helping him recover. Call your boy, Chuck, if you need your open wounds packed or help with subcutaneous injections.

So, in my early forties and after having endured successive trials, I was emotionally exhausted and did not see any future. Decades earlier, I’d dreamed about joining the Peace Corps. Now, much later, lacking a wife and children, that thought returned. My father encouraged me. “Go,” he ordered. “I’m well, and I’m not a fucking old man. Go!” In April 2008, I applied and interviewed, and in September 2008, I, along with Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) Group 35, began working within the Ukrainian educational system.

After two months of learning language and teaching methodology, I headed off to Ternopil, a city in Western Ukraine with a population of 350,000, not too far past its village roots. My job involved teaching business and colloquial English to at least five groups of students per semester. I also led informal study groups, film clubs, and literature tutorials. Finally, I implemented and participated in summer camps. These activities were mainly for the Department of Foreign Languages for Banking Business at Ternopil National Economic University, where I landed because I have a graduate degree in English Literature. Also, they had requested a male with “life experience.”   

Snow! Thanksgiving week, 2008, I entered Ternopil, living in a snowy climate for the first time!  Ukrainians laughed while watching me tumble across ice and snow, marveling at my prodigious bone density. The worst?  I’d slipped while carrying an office chair between buildings.  My legs swept up over my head, I went down hard upon my back, and the chair, solidly built with steel framing, thudded squarely across my chest and head. Both the chair and I remained unscathed, however. Over time, then, I mastered flatfooted duck walking, the best winter survival technique ever.

Two weeks passed, during which I moved into my tiny campus apartment, warmed up to my colleagues and students, and received my first invitation to an interdepartmental holiday party at a local upscale restaurant, Marzipan. So much for the image of Peace Corps volunteers living sparsely upon faraway veldts, at the edges of rainforests, gathering dried fronds for huts, right? Ternopil restaurants feature wireless networks, and I carried a cell phone.  You’ll find pizza and sushi joints without parklands, the enormous lake in the center of town, or universities. The appointed evening arrived; I donned my official Peace Corps uniform, a black business suit with a Peace Corps Ukraine lapel pin, and mingled with Banking Business, Finance, and Agriculture professors.

The event started like any typical company party. Small congregations gathered near an enormous metallic silver tree, its blue and red blinking lights casting patterns across sequined evening gowns, or they sat on plush loveseats organized into conversation areas. A few hovered around me, curious about California, my teaching philosophies, and how I was getting along so far from home. My departmental colleagues kindly translated while I stumbled with Ukrainian words or phrasing. All was quite formal but cordial. Finally, we entered the dining room.

We occupied three long tables, each laden with fish, enough to fill Sea World: salmon, perch, haddock, trout, you name it. My friend Ruslana offered me perch, pronouncing it “perk.” I politely corrected her, which she loved, inspiring others to see how I’d pronounce other dishes.  Salads based on root vegetables rounded out the feast. We ate. Occasionally, someone would rise to give a toast. Ukrainian toasts are exquisitely defined. We toasted the meeting, the men, the women, and love before I lost count. I don’t drink, but I was obliged to participate in the first three rounds to avoid offense. Colleagues explained that after the third, I could exclaim, “на коні,” meaning “on horseback,” synonymous with saying, “I’m driving tonight.”

The eating and toasting continued for an hour before the men invited me to bowl — Marzipan’s a complex, with dining rooms, dance floors, and bowling lanes. I’m no Pete Weber, but some participants didn’t use finger holes, instead scoop-shooting their bowling balls from their palms. Others utilized a walk-up-to-the-line-swinging-back-and-forth-between-their-legs methodology.  One man from Finance tripped, stumbling across lanes before straightening himself. The toasts were having their effect.

A server announced the second course.

Second course? Was the fish the appetizer? Now we dug into beef, pork, голубці, вареники, more vegetables, and people made more toasts. So, so much food. “The fish was the appetizer,” I kept muttering to myself.  “The fish was the appetizer. Fuck me . . .”

“CHUCK! DANCING NOW!” a male colleague bellowed. Off we went to the dance floor.

We formed a large circle around the dance floor parameter, and dance styles varied. Soon, a woman initiated a hanky dance. The rules are simple: the hanky possessor selects a partner from the circle with whom they dance until kneeling and lying the hanky at the partner’s feet. The partner kneels on the hanky, and both exchange a small kiss. Finally, the hanky changes hands.  Repeat as often as necessary. We finished that and danced freestyle for forty-five minutes before someone announced the next course.

Are. You. Fucking. Kidding?

Then, more dancing.  Then, more bowling. Then another course. Holy shit.

I noticed one colleague, Nadiya, wasn’t dancing. I sat, introduced myself, and asked why. Her grandmother had passed a couple of months prior, and Ukrainian mourning forbids certain activities – dancing included — for up to a year beyond the death. Nadiya’s grandmother was famous for her embroidery. During World War II, she’d plied her craft for German occupiers against her will. Grandmother was quite the baker, but most importantly, she was quite the survivor, too, given what Nadiya explained to me about not only German occupiers but eventual Soviet ones.

Weddings, birthdays, holidays – celebrations are all or nothing. Ukraine has suffered through one occupation or another since Mongols razed medieval Kyiv. Their language, religion, and customs were suppressed, and once they won independence, they began celebrating everything and taking nothing for granted. They work hard, pray hard, and play hard.  Those who don’t are viewed suspiciously. My conversation with Nadiya was only the first step toward understanding how Ukrainian reasons for celebrating, their beating continual strife, could teach me so much.  Honor losses, but later, you must celebrate. I, too, am a survivor. I have honored my mother, father, and myself, and now I must celebrate.

Suddenly, I felt a large pair of hands grab my chair, pulling me away from Nadiya.  I turned and found the Dean of Agriculture smiling, his tie and coat long gone. “I LOVE AMERICA!” he bellowed. An affectionate bear, he pinched my cheeks, slapping me, not hard, but not knowing his strength.

“AMERICAN! ТИ ЛЮБИШ УКРАЇНУ?”

Indeed, I do love Ukraine and told him so.

He laughed straight into my face, grabbing my shoulders, shaking me, a worrisome thing given all the food inside me. “TИ ВИКОЛДАЧ!!!!  TИ ДОБРОВОЛЕЦ!!!!!”

Yes, I was a professor of sorts, but not really. I was a volunteer, however.

“Я ТЕБЕ ЛЮБЛЮ!!!!”

I began growing fond of him, although I couldn’t say I loved him.  Our conversation ended when colleagues appeared to rescue me. They apologized, explaining that he was “relaxing,” but I didn’t care. Points for enthusiasm!

Again, back to dancing.

Dawn was breaking when I finally made it out of Marzipan. Colleagues climbed into cabs, but I demurred since my apartment was a ten-minute walk, even going through heavy snow. I staggered along, trying to remember when I’d experienced any night that joyously intense. And why was my coat so damned heavy? Colleagues had stuffed every pocket with baggies of fish, beef, pork, vegetables, голубці, and вареники.

Fuck me. The fish was the appetizer.