Home Again Home Again

As per my last day with my host family here in K--, I was worried about my reception upon coming back from M---. To my absolute delight, everything was fabulous. They were all happy to see me and invite me back happily. Sasha, never one to ask a lot of questions, was full of all sorts of questions. The most profound was apparently, "when are you going to get married?," which was translated for me. Remember, they are my age and have been married now for 9 years. I didn't really have any dates to tell him, just said that there are some cute volunteers out there, so you never know.

He then asked whether or not I'd change my last name. I told him that I wouldn't, simply because, in my best Russian, which is bad Russian, that my last name is my name alone--that only family have the unique spelling. I then asked what women were doing now in Ukraine. My host mother said that some women will keep their last name, if their husband's name is Cozal or something like that, which means 'goat' and is also an ethnic slur to make about Russians. We talked about other things and I finally busted out my lap top to show them some photos of home. I have had some safety issues prior about doing such a thing--not because of my family, but more because of how many folks are in and out of there at any given time. I'll be putting it away again soon, but I've just been lazy since coming home and wanting to settle back into K--- life.