Ukrainian Mystery Date

I've always dreamed about teaching overseas. Since about 1997, my goal was to do it before hitting 50, which back then seemed very far away. A couple of years ago, I realized that my target age was creeping up, and I'd better get moving.

Well, I got in just under the wire, and here I am, half a century! Whether here or in the U.S., I'd have turned 50 anyway, and I'm happy to be here, experiencing a new culture and learning new things, like the alphabet.

Patty visited from Germany for the weekend, which was wonderful. She came to school with me on Thursday and students immediately began calling her "Ms. Panneton #2." She noticed aspects of the city that I've already begun to take for granted, like the mix of architectural styles in Kyiv: Soviet-bloc buildings, baroque, contemporary, junky vacant lots, art nouveau.

Friends came over and I received a bunch of joke gifts good for someone turning 50 in Kyiv, ie the tiara pictured at left and a Ukrainian version of the old "Mystery Date" board game. Most Americans born circa 1956 recognized this game and could even sing the jingle ("Mystery date! behind the door, a dreamboat or a dud?") but it puzzled a young Ukrainian teacher.

"We did not have such games when I was a child," she said. (her childhood was spent behind the Iron Curtain and was free from corrupt western influences like Mystery Date. Read After the Wall by Jana Hensel to get an idea of what it was like to grow up in the USSR).

I think I'll play Ukrainian Mystery Date with my fifth-graders.