Traveler, Writer, Aquarius, Peace Corps Volunteer
The evidence
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On Teeth and Verbs of Motion
Few appointments rattle the human spirit quite like a trip to the dentist. Just the thought of that whirring drill can kick the Pavlovian terror unit into high gear and get those neck hairs rigid as a repressed schoolmarm. I for one, thanks to my cavity-free pie-hole and perverse prediliction for a pinch of pain, don't have any issues with the mouth doc. But let me tell ya, folks, you guys in the States don't have any idea how good you got it.
It used to be that jolly ol' England was known as the land of the dental rejects. Jokes abound about how English mouths are as crooked as the streets of London during the blitz. But there's even a bucktoothed gap between England and Ukraine. You ain't seen nuthin' until you've had a gander at the chops of some these cats. Now, I've never had braces and it shows, so I'm not one to start throwing stones in my fragile glass house, but the dental scene here ain't what I'd call pretty.
Take, for example, the other night. Claudia had told me earlier that day that she had an appointment with the dentist that she wasn't looking forward to. She was in some serious pain and even with my limited Russian I could make out that she was having some work done. I got home that night, and poor Claudia was in the kitchen making dinner, hunched over like a Byzantine Quasimodo. "Dobrii Vechir, Claudia," I said. "Kak dela?" "Ochen plocha," she replied, and as she looked up I noticed that about four teeth in the right side of her mouth were gone. Just gone. Out. Fin. Apparently, she had to go back to the dentist A WEEK LATER in order to have the work fixed. So she's just been traipsing about looking as though she just got hit in the face with a hockey puck.
But that's not all. She had company the other night, and one of the woman there had enough precious metal in her mouth to pick up air traffic control. I could have stuck an antennae up her ass, pried open her mouth, and picked up Radio Free Europe. And she's one of the better ones. So next time you hear "Rinse" and "Spit", thank your lucky stars that you have teeth to begin with.
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News Flash: Learning Russian isn't easy. It's been over a month now that I've been ensconsed in Po-Russki, and it's suddenly no surprise why there are so many Russian chess champions. It's like playing Garry Kasperov just to put a grammatically-correct sentence together.
Okay, I know I'm not exactly Mr. Foreign Language. But I did grow up learning to read Hebrew, took four years of Latin in high school (could I have done anything more stupid? Yes, mom, I admit I should have taken Spanish), and had two years of German in college (okay, maybe that was even more stupid than taking Latin), so I'm not a complete stranger to the dreaded adjective endings and various case agreement. Russian, however, is an evil Bitch-Goddess deserving of its own place in one of Dante's deepest levels of Hell.
Just a simple example of the inane crap I'm dealing with here. In English, when we go somewhere, we have the verb to go. I ask "Where are you going", and you reply "I'm going to school" or "I'm going to the beach" or "I'm going to visit a friend." Simple, right? Well, in Russian, it's not enough to just go somewhere. You have to describe not only how you're going, but express frequency AND direction as well. For example, if one is going on foot, you use the verb form ���� (pronounced eattee). But that's only if you're going on foot that specific time and implying only one direction. If you're actually returning from that trip, it's ����� (chodeet). But if you're taking some means of transportation, it's ���� (yedeet). Once again, that's only a specific trip, one way. If you're taking transport and it is a regular event, it's a whole nother verb, ����� (yezdeet). Of course, they all conjugate differently.
But wait, that's not all! If you're asking someone where they are going, it gets even more fun! If someone is in motion towards something, it's ���� (kuda), which in turn requires the nouns to take accusative endings following prepositions of place (in or at). However, if you're asking someone where they are or where something is, it's ��� (gdye), and the preposition of place then requires the standard locative ending. And it wouldn't be Russian without having a different word for where if the motion is returning from somewhere: ������ (otkuda), which of course in turn requires the prepositions of place to take genitive endings.
For all of you out there who speak Russian or Ukrainian and are laughing at me, thanks. And for those of you who speak much more complicated languages than Russian, good for you. And for those of you who grew up speaking another language and had to learn English, I'm sure it ain't easy, what with those tough articles and all. Okay, done bitchin'.
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As for the rest... the big news is that I go to Kyiv next Wednesday for the Coordinator's Conference, at which time I'll find out my new home, and then actually go there for a week. Keep your fingers crossed that I get a winner. If not, well, at least I'll be able to say "where" it is that I'm going that sucks four different ways.
Later peoples...
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