One month into Peace Corps, and this is what I didn't expect

This morning, I was ecstatic because I had enough warm water left in the bucket to wash my hair.

It's a daily concern: is there enough water for my hair and the rest of my body? But after a month here--today is my Ukrainian anniversary--I finally unlocked the secret: If I wash my hair last, I know exactly how much water I have left to get the shampoo out of it. 

It's a far cry from my life just a month and a day ago, when my worries were whether we'd have enough players for the kickball game, or if my yoga class was going to be satisfying, or how many people were actually coming to brunch. Now, my worries are more along the lines of, I hope the woman at the register doesn't deviate from the three things I can understand: 1. "Do you want a bag?" 2. "Do you have a savings card?" 3. "Thank you." 

Last week, I spent a day at my host family's дача (dacha), or summer home. We took an hourlong ride on a маршрутка (marshrutka), or small commuter bus--although Google translate says it means "route taxi." We spent the day with бабуся and дідусь (grandmother and grandfather) tending to their garden and picking fruits and vegetables. All I did was pick raspberries, and clearly a pretty poor job of it because at some point дідусь came over and in five minutes filled the jar I had spent an hour filling half way up.    

Afterwards, we went inside and crowded around their small kitchen table--five of us surrounding plates of fruits, vegetables and grilled meat. I sat on a rickety wooden chair I feared would collapse at any moment, used my fingers to pick up food when it seemed more convenient, and drank warm beer out of an old teacup.

The family joked about who knows what, but somehow I understood it all--not what they were saying but what they were feeling. When we finished eating, everyone took a collective sigh and looked with accomplishment onto the garden they had just labored in. I didn't expect that moment to fill me with such contentment, or that the experience would be the happiest I've had in Ukraine so far. 

A month ago, I knew I would have to deal with adversity. I knew I would be in a constant state of confusion, that it would be hard to connect with people, that there would be times I would miss home and question why I was taking baths out of buckets.

But I never expected to find comfort, and gratitude, and satisfaction out of such relatively simple things. A month in, I'm grateful that yesterday I understood the price of the bottle of water I bought; that today a coworker smiled and said Добридень (dobryden or good day), and that this morning I got all the soap out of my hair.