2 years...that's an eternity

I'm not sure that I ever experienced "culture shock" in it's purest form. There's not a gut-wrenching brand of poverty in Ukraine or an extreme filth issue or even a visual ethnic difference that smacks you in the face and makes you question how in the world you ended up there. Ukraine provides more opportunity for "culture stress" than anything else. Culture stress is less of a smack in the face and more of a drawn out, walking pneumonia sort of adjustment. It comes on slowly but will flare up and pull you down on occasion. It's not a shock that you recover from or get used to, though. Rather, you find that you get used to the inconsistent nature of your stress. This is why I kept peanut butter, Coke, and Gilmore Girls on-hand. The "how in the world did I end up here/why in Heaven's name have I stayed" questions come around when you least expect them, and you realize that you're not ever going to fully adjust to being a Ukrainian. That happened mostly because...well...I'm NOT a Ukrainian. Try as I might.


It took me quite a while to begin to understand this cultural transition issue. The pieces of the puzzle sort of began falling into place somewhere in mid-November of my first year. I'd been in Ukraine for about a month. The weather was changing; the sun was coming up later (like, 8) and setting earlier (like, 4). The days were darker, the nationals were grumpier, I was more idiotic every day, it seemed. I'd had about 4 Russian classes at that point and was realizing what an uphill battle that was going to be. Every time I tried to speak, people were horrified at my lack of skill and most weren't particularly nice about it. I knew that I looked like such an outsider every time I stepped out of my apartment. I was just starting to get into the classrooms, and I felt like I wasn't accomplishing anything since I wasn't doing much of what I'd been sent to do.

Although I spoke practically no Russian and literally no Ukrainian, I still attended the weekly Thursday night prayer meeting at church. I usually stood (that's right- stood, as opposed to sat) next to Ira, who would lean over and translate the beginning of prayer meeting (Bible reading, prayer requests, etc). Somehow, even with the language barrier and the fact that we were standing, this time of the week was a stable time for me. I usually ended up tuning out everything that was going on around me and just had my own prayer time with the Lord. I think most of the prayers came out something like, "God, what am I doing? I need help...can't even think of where to begin asking for help...I feel stupid and ridiculous and no one is going to listen to a girl who can hardly say one complete sentence in Russian..." and often the tears would come at that point. Prayer meeting was often quite wet for me.

After one particular prayer meeting, Ira and I were chatting for a second, and she said, "Erin, what's wrong? You don't look like yourself." That did it. I quite literally broke down and just cried and cried. Poor Ira. She didn't even know what to do with me. I tried to say things that were coherent, but mostly things came out like, "...can't speak Russian...hate feeling stupid...got yelled at...can't buy things...don't understand..." Ira was great. She hugged me and let me cry. Then, she prayed for me and said that she just knew that I would speak wonderful Russian by the end of 2 years. That's when I thought, "2 years...that's an eternity."

I wasn't sure I'd make it.