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BUT WOULD YOU COME LIVE HERE? Tamara Stadnychenko-Cornelison Last week I picked a bad time to go shopping at the local supermarket and had to stand in a long check-out line for at least twenty minutes, and this after the annoyance of not being able to find a particular brand of catfood that had been one of thirty or so items on my shopping list. As I stood in line, fidgeting and muttering under my breath about the incompetency of the cashier, the slowness of the woman at the front of the line who was groping in her purse for exact change, the nerve of the man in front of me whose cart was so loaded that it would take another ten minutes for him to get through the check-out, and condemning everyone associated with the delay, I suddenly thought of Ukraine. Here I stood, grousing and miserable over one missing box of catfood and a twenty minute line. How could I ever live in a country where no one has ever heard of catfood in multicolored boxes and where every shopping expedi tion means not minutes, but hours of waiting in lines with no guarantee that the object of one’s search will be there when the end of the line is reached. I have been to Ukraine twice now, both times returning to America with a sense of nostalgia and with a sense of guilty irritation at having so many seemingly useless things, convenience, luxuries ---- all inaccessi ble to friends and relative there. In every city, ironically, I was asked one question: would you come live here? Swept up by the euphoria of having returned to my roots, to the land of my ancestors, I always answered in the affirmative. One could, I reasoned, adapt to any thing. Wasn’t I doing just that during my trip? Wasn’t I dealing sensibly and rationally with surly hotel clerks, with the absence of fresh towels and hot water, with cancelled flights and delayed trains and the complete lack of junk food and even vegetables? The incident at the supermarket has caused me to rethink this line of reasoning and to rethink the minor but frequent irritants I had brushed off during my two visits to Ukraine. How would I, and anyone else brought up in America, deal with scarcity and lines on a daily and endless basis? How would I survive in a city where water has been rationed for years? How would I adapt to a life where men tell me they forbid their wives to paint their faces and where women routinely contem plate having abortions because of economic necessity and just as routinely carry a child to term because the birth of that child will ensure a bigger apartment for the family. How would I live in a country so muddled with bureacratic red tape that it is an obstacle course to even the simplest daily tasks and creates in every citizen the need for learning and perfecting survival skills that are centered about outwitting and circumventing authority? Having posed these questions, I am forced to admit that I would fare not at all well. With friends who have suffered similar delusions of adaptability, I have discussed, and only half in jest, the prospect of packing my bags, chucking my life here, to plunge fully and enthusiastically into the Ukrainian re- aissance. What could be more romantic than assuming the role of a revolutionary heroine, come from abroad to really make an impact on the rebirth and democratiza tion of Ukraine? We know so much, we are so well edu cated, we have so much energy, we have so many des perately needed skills, we are so capable. We are American women accustomed to thinking and behaving as we like and achieving whatever we want -----what could stop us! What could and would stop us all dead in our tracks would be something as simple as the inability to deal with simple hygienic routines that we take for granted, something as casual as the absence of Domino’s Pizza or McDonalds on those days when we don’t feel like cooking, something as petty as the Ukrainian male’s attitudes about the place of women or the first (or per haps the sixteenth) time we had to deal with the red- tape that would smother the energy or enthusiasm of even the most patient of us in a matter of weeks. And this lack of patience is perhaps our worst flaw, for it is a virtue very few of us has had to practice or even learn in this land of instant gratification. What American woman, accustomed to washer and dryer convenience, could learn to cope with bathtub laundering while worrying if there will be sufficient water or soap to complete the task? Which of us could comfortably give up the American woman’s right to make executive or family decisions without a second thought about feminine propriety? And how many of us could sacrifice the economic professional activities? Precious few, I imagine. And so we are condemned, by our own limitations, to be content with a preripheral involvement, to settle for working for Ukraine from a comfortable distance, to do what we can from the safety and security and abundance that we were born into or lucky enough to fall into when our parents boarded planes and boats and brought us to this brave new world where decisions over catfood are the substance and spirit of daily life. WHAT NOT TO DO TO LIVE SUCCESSFULLY 1. Don’t contradict others, even if you know you are right. 2. Don’t be inquisitive about the affairs of even your most intimate friends. 3. Don’t underrate anything because you don’t possess it. 4. Don’t believe that everybody else in the world is happier. 5. Don’t be rude to your inferiors in social position. 6. Don’t repeat gossip, even if it does interest a crowd. 7. Learn to hide your aches and pains under a smile. 8. Learn to attend to your own business. This is especially important. Видання C оюзу Українок A мерики - перевидано в електронному форматі в 2012 році . A рхів C У A - Ню Йорк , Н . Й . C Ш A.
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