We walked around town awhile saying ‘hi’ to strangers which I liked, the Masha called. Syd called Masha who agreed to take us to the Bazaar. We walked to the Stella bar which has become our go to wifi/meeting place, to meet up with her and drop Syd off with Jenny. Before too long Masha arrived and took us deeper down the main strip, then a left turn and we were at the Bazaar. It was like a swap meet/ farmers market. Lili was on the hunt for cilantro, but all we could find was parsley and dill.
Masha took us deeper into the market and then into a building that had more market stalls and into the fish section which smelled like “wow” not in the good way. When we went out into the main hall we saw lots of stands like the ones outside, Lili called me over in excitement and asked if the plant in front of us was cilantro, I leaned in to give it a sniff and it was. We were super excited and asked Masha to negotiate a deal for us. As she did that I felt a hand on my elbow, I turned to see an older man probably in his 60’s with white hair, he was speaking quickly in Ukrainian. I tried to get Marsha’s attention to come and translate what the heck was going on. She was still brokering the deal so she didn’t see, something told me not to turn my back to this man so I turned to face him and tried to be polite but I had that feeling us ladies get when we know what a guy is talking about, no matter what the language. Lili seeing my dilemma got Masha to intervene, she said the man said “he liked me” to which I replied “thank you” as I backed away a little. Brave beautiful Em was kind enough to step between us. He was still talking quickly and Masha said, he said ” He knows where I live, and where am I from”, the look on my face led her to add that he was kidding and was drunk, I have the feeling that she made the whole thing up on the fly to save me from whatever he really said because there was a look of urgency on her face and she whisked us away down the main hall into the dairy,eggs and honey room.
In the honey room the vendors were nice and gave us honeycomb with fresh honey to chew on. Logan was the first to get some, I watched her apprehensively take the honeycomb trying to decide how to eat it when I got slammed into from behind. Our drunk touch feely friend had returned, he was laughing and Masha told him to scram and took us further down the hall. The group was talking to a grain vendor and I stood in one of the market stalls with a yogurt vender keeping an eye on the old man, when I saw him making his way toward us again I nearly ran back to the group and was like “lemme get in the middle” , but as it turns out he Logan was just as good a target, he put his arm around her shoulder and she jumped and freaked out. She looked like that Looney Toons cartoon where the random cat drinks some potion and its hair stands on end and it become vicious. She was like “are you crazy? I will kill you!” In her thick New York accent, at this point the vendors all began to yell at him and he backed off and stopped following us.
I don’t know why I am so bad and sticking up for myself. Even Brit said later that I was the last person she would have thought wouldn’t have stepped up in that situation. The strange part is if it was any one of the other girls, I would have. I didn’t even get mad until I saw Logan get scared, prior to that I just felt scared, embarrassed and bad for the man. Its probably something I need to work on but I wouldn’t even begin to know how, stuff like that happening to me simply doesn’t trigger anger response in me. A similar thing happened in Venice Italy during one of the festivals, totally my own fault that it started but I can’t even imagine what would have happened if Jacqueline had not stepped in and roared at the guy. Being fluffy, brown and non confrontational can definitely be a fail
