I'm b-a-c-k

Today I went to the monthly general meeting of the International Women's Club. All I can think is... what was I thinking?

The club does work hard to get a guest speaker every month, to their credit. The only other meeting I've ever been to was really interesting because they had a Ukrainian lady who lived in India for five years, learning how to do traditional Indian dance. The dance was interesting but I was more interested in the fact that she picked up an Indian-English accent. She talked like she was fresh from Bombay, it was great. She even had the ubiquitous Indian head-wobble.

Today the guest was a cosmetics consultant from Dior. She was Ukrainian. She had heavily accented English which was not quite fluent, and she was trying to engage about 150 ladies in her sales pitch, with no microphone and no visuals except microscopic cosmetics bottles.

Now to give you a bit of background into my facial cosmetics routine, here are the four last occasions on which I deemed it necessary to paint my face:

- My wedding in October 2005
- The media launch of wizardwomen.com.au in March 2006
- My friends' G & L's wedding in April 2006
- A job interview when I first arrived in Kyiv in November 2006 (my only job interview. Obviously didn't look dyevushka enough for them)

About five minutes into today's presentation, I was lost. I had not idea what she was talking, what was going on. This is the downside of er... not wearing makeup very often, I guess.

When the lady started banging on about 'cleansing, toning, moisturising', my friend M leaned over and said, "Little Miss Moi, I can tell you're totally interested in this presentation". I had no option but to be rather rude and discuss what I did on the weekend.

This begs the question - why do all people, including women, suppose all other women are so interested in cosmetics? Sure, I probably look like an ugly hag, but I'd rather do it for free than spend $300 a month on the pleasure with the same result.

And even if I was a face cream fan, I wouldn't be able to afford Dior. And, to their anti-credit, the sales pitch was up there with the best Ukrainian service I've ever received. For example: the lady was touting a hand cream. Now, since I'd practically run to the meeting then downed about 20 cups of coffee as a desperate pep-up, my hands were a little swollen.

So when the reps giving out hand creme, I shamelessly shot my hand up - my hands were desperate for a bit of moisture. For my effort, I received a dollop of creme about a quarter the size of a one-kopiok/kopeck piece. When they gave me the toner, I didn't realise it was so runny and spilt it all over my skirt. I was a right mess.

To get back at them, I took two bags of samples. That's my big 'up-yours' at all cosmetics reps and women who expect all other women to be into spending their husband's hard-earned money on useless cosmetics.

And when they're 80 and I'm 50, I'm sure they'll have the upper, smooth-skinned hand. But you can only think you're a cool rebel once. So I'm happy to be a bare-skinned hippy for the moment. And those two bags of samples will last me the next two years.

A job opportunity

My enterprising mind sprung on an enterprising way to make some money: copy off other people's enterprising ideas.

I've always been a bit of a foodie. I really love cooking and using fresh produce to create really yummy flavours that both feed and really impress people at the same time. So in my current employment-drought, I thought perhaps I can get a foot in the food industry here in Kyiv. And once again, I look to the source of all things wise: babushkas.

These women are survivors. While their husband-muzh throws back the vodka in the village, these ladies are up with the birds, on the train to the big smoke to sell their fresh farm produce, before going back to the village to haul her husband-muzh out of his vodka stupor and into bed.

The only thing about selling vegies is, they have to buy them first.

So on the way from the train-vagzal to the market-rinok, they detour to the local supermarket to buy up a day's worth of vegies. And then onwards to the rinok to sell said vegies at highly inflated prices to useless foreigners (like Little_Miss_Moi).

Ukraine is a land where the food flows a-plenty at generally cheap prices (probably to make up for the occasional say, pebble in one's yoghurt). But when you're asked to pay $12 for a single cauliflower, you know the joke's on you.

(Lucky for the Bessarabskii Babushkas, I'm a total pushover. With my head bent in shame, I paid the dosh and exited the rinok. If I'd turned around, I'd have seen those wily old tarts giving each other high-fives and circulating a picture of me for future reference with the caption: 'She can't say no'.)

Ukraine is a happy go lucky sorta country. I'm sure no-one would care if I entered the fruit-reselling market. Except the scary babushkas.

Just one of the crowd

The International Women's Club organises a lot of groups, and one of them is Monday morning coffee (MMC).

Today I had a lovely MMC session, but hitherto I haven't been entirely convinced it's my scene....

Before Christmas, I went to my first Monday morning coffee at the residence of a tri-colour flag ambassador (not the obvious one). It's a little out of the centre of town, so I dressed in my Sunday best, with pearl earring and fob chain to boot, and caught the metro over.

At the metro exit, I took the wrong street. After walking for at least 20 minutes, travelling further into a nameless native suburb, I was evidently nowhere near ambassadorial residences. Consulting my map, I realised I'd gone so far in the wrong direction that I'd almost walked all the way home.

I retraced my steps and found myself on a road six lanes across, that descended steeply down and around. Seeing a construction site snaking off this road instead of the street I was looking for, and being now an hour late, I rang Mr_Moi in desperation and tears, and demanded he look up the map online.

"It's fine. The construction site is the street. According to the map, it's the eighth house on the right." And sure enough, it was. Past the construction, the street was a boulevard of national flags, marking various ambassador residences. I found the house I was looking for, with a flag blowing above a 10-foot high gate guarded by a stern military man.

I was impressed. The closest thing I have to an armed guard at my apartment is the security guy outside the casino two doors up. At least he's there 24/7.

The guard let me in and I was greeted at the door by a grinning maid-babushka who whisked off my coat, took my 'shapka' and had me out of the foyer and into the reception room in a flash.

And there were all the 'ladies who lunch', munching on pastries and elegantly discussing life in Kyiv. The dining table was adorned with 30 of everything: 30 fine-bone china cups with real-gold trim and matching saucers, 30 crystal juice glasses, 30 cake plates, 30 silver forks and 30 silver teaspoons. Overseeing all were 30 (okay, three) servants, dressed in black with frilly aprons and white caps, serving food and drink.

I sipped Perrier from a crystal glass to cool down after my pilgrimage from the metro, then grabbed a coffee and headed off to talk to someone. Anyone. I was by far the youngest in the room - by about 10 years. But on average, by about 25 years. I gravitated towards the one person I knew, and proceeded to stalk her for the next hour.

I found it hard to keep up with the chit-chat about finding drivers and housekeepers, trips to Switzerland for skiing and Paris for shopping. But I dutifully nodded or shook my head sympathetically where required. I chatted to people about this and that, and cracked a few jokes to prove that I was a 'crazy Australian' and worthy of social interaction. By the time the gathering ended, I'd talked to a lot of people and as a result was very pleased with myself.

As it was time to go, we moved en masse to the door, thanking the host for her hospitality. I donned my coat from the nice babushka, put on my hat and walked out among my new friends, laughing and chatting as we walked down the steps, past the military man and out onto the street.

It felt nice to leave with the crowd. It was like being at school again, yearning to be accepted and then actually making some friends. I felt like I was one of them - I was a lady who lunches! I threw my shoulders back and turned on my heel to head towards the end of the street. I took about five steps, then turned to ask someone a question, and realised... I was alone.

As I stood looking around for the vanished crowd, I was blinded by a blur of tinted windows and metallic paint as my fellow 'ladies who lunch' flew past in their luxury cars-with-drivers. My heart sank as I realised I was alone on the long walk home.

I set my shoulders to the wind, trudged up the hill and caught the metro back to my little one-bed flat with no babushka at the door. As made a cup of tea to cheer myself up, it occurred to me that I don't even have four matching coffee cups, let alone 30.

Luckily, things have improved. Now that Christmas is over, no-one is discussing holidays I'll only get jealous of. And most importantly, I found out MMC is usually walking distance from town - no driver required.