Kvas is a malted low-alcohol beverage served from trucks, like the one on the left, during the summer. It's allegedly made from "old black bread" but that must be the home-brewed version. It sounds kind of scary. It's traditionally served in a tin cup that everyone uses, but now you can pay extra and get your own plastic cup.
Wendy, a Ukrainian-Canadian teacher who has been here for 10 years, was talking about the quirky beliefs of Ukrainians towards health.
On Oct. 1, no matter how hot it is, kids are bundled up in wool hats and winter coats (and it was HOT this year in October). It's dangerous to sit in any draft, the dreaded "squazniak" which will make you sick and possibly cripple you (in the computer lab, an evil local Dennis protested that his computer was near the open window--I wanted to yell "get over it!" but being, sort of, culturally sensitive, remembered that this was serious, so I let him move). Women of child-bearing age shouldn't sit on cold concrete because it will freeze their eggs (my younger friends have been admonished by strangers for taking this risk).
"And then I go to the kvas truck and they give me the same cup everyone else is using!" Wendy chortled. "what's the sense?"
Long-engrained beliefs of safe vs. dangerous.
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