I hate growing up. Yet I wouldn't want to be Peter Pan either. It's just growing up can be such a pain sometimes. Especially lately, I've felt I had to be more of a grown up than a kid and it was really depressing. I don't always want to be a grown up. I like being able to act silly and have a good time, it's just who I am. But I understand that sometimes stuff happens, and when you're 19 years old and ten-thousand miles away from your parents, you have to deal with that stuff on your own. Mommy and Daddy can't just make it all go away, and make it all better. Sometimes I wish I was seven again so they could.
Having said that, the good news is that I did get to feel like a kid again this weekend. That made me feel better. We had a holiday on saturday, march 8th. It's called "international woman's day" which I can't figure out because they only celebrate it in Russia. They probably also celebrate it in other eastern european countries too, and that's where they get the "international" when stuff is "international" here that usually means that it's happening in the former soviet states as well as in Russia.
Anyway, I basically spent the weekend doing various church-related activities. Saturday night was the weekly youth meeting, which I went to and that was fun. One of the guys, Egor had a nice lesson on how God sees women, and what the bible said it. In honor of March 8th. It was also easier for me to follow since he had a nice power point with all the verses written out so I could read along as he read. Made understanding easier. hurrah! At the meeting, one of the girls, Sveta invited me to go to a girls youth meeting in Namtsy, a nearby (two-hour drive) town. Sunday after church. I was like "Okay, why not?" So directly after church, I ate lunch at Anya's (One of the preacher's daughters remember?) and then Her sister, Maria and I headed to meet the group going to Namtsy.
It was a long day, but fun. We got to Namtsy maybe about three and sat in on a women's meeting that was run by men. Which I couldn't quite figure out. The best part was that we sang songs not only in russian, but in Yakutian as well, which was fun for my tongue, but was interesting to practice reading Yaktuian, which is related to russian in alphabet with enough different/extra letters and different sounds to make it interesting. We were accompanied by accordian and guitar. After the meeting ended, Maria, Sveta and I went out side to strech our tired bottoms.yeah, try sitting jammed in a van for two hours and then sitting in a hard chair another hour and a half. Not fun. So we frolicked for a bit. Then, about six we had a meal. I love the way we eat communal meals in Russia. It's just so...communal. We had the ever present plov which is like the ultimate quickie, feed a lot of people dish here. Good thing I like it. It's usually rice, meat of some kind and carrots all fried up together. Awesome!
After the meal, we girls cleaned up i.e. Did the dishes. I find it odd that back home at church I always tried to avoid helping clean up,while here I don't mind. I find it odd because there's actually a lot more work to clean up here since we wash all the dishes (even the throw away type) while back home, we just throw it all away.
After the meal, we had our girls meeting. There were three girls from Namtsy and then our six or seven girls. we watched a video of a woman talking about purity which I found rather interesting. Afterwards we headed home.
Going was really good for me. Not just for the church thing but because I spent time with Maria and Sveta. Got to know them better and deepen some friendships. I also got to feel like less of an adult, which was a good feeling.
In other news, i'm leaving the day after tomorrow for Vladivostok. Since I've got issues with registration, The rotary club decided to send me to Eleonora, the woman who's the district coordinator for the exchange students in the Russian part of 5010. she is going to help me get out of the country, and back in so that I can renew my registration. Then, we have orientation and our trip to Moscow and Peter. I'm actually really looking forward to spending some time away from yaktusk. Not that i don't like it here, it's just going to be nice to have a sort of vacation and see some other places. i'm really looking forward to meeting and hanging out with the other inbounds. Yay!
I should be coming back to Yakutsk sometime around April third or fourth. i don't know what the internet situation is going to be like while I'm traveling and frankly, I'm not going to worry about it, so it's very possible that you won't hear anything from this end until I get back.
Wish me luck!
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