Almost ten months ago, my mom and I were traveling on the train to Lugansk from Kyiv. A woman sitting with us heard us speaking English and said hello. Her name was Lena and she worked in Kyiv. She was headed home for her sons second birthday. She is a single parent and has a great job in Kyiv. Her parents have her son during the week and every Friday she makes the 15 hour train ride to Alchevsk, the stop before Lugansk.
I really enjoyed getting to know her and it was great for my mom to have such an experience. We talked Ukrainian culture and American culture. Lena had lived in the USA for a study abroad in high school. We exchanged contact information, but never spoke again, until today.
Our train today was the hottest train I had ever been on. I kept thinking about Dante’s Inferno and the levels of hell getting hotter and hotter, and thinking which level is this. I felt like I was cooking from the inside out and that this cannot be good for me. This young mother was walking the aisle with her son and she looked so familiar. She said to me, in English, I know you and I said the same thing. We talked for a while and realized were we had met and under what circumstances. She remembered my mom and I remembered the birthday. It was great fun for both of us. And a true sign of my integration into the Ukrainian culture.
No comments:
Post a Comment