Another Slice of Life

My coat crackles and the snow squeaks under my boots as I make my way to the church. We've been having deep cold in St. Petersburg. It reminds me of Yakutsk. Back home my friends and family are running around in t-shirts. Figures.

Inside the church building, there is a trail of dirty, wet boot prints leading up the stairs. My white gloves are slowly turning black. Welcome to Russia. This is why I keep a pair of tennis shoes at the building. Well that and my boots get hot. I only wear them all day on Sundays.

Yesterday evening Luka and I went to meet a babushka at the metro. She's been having a rough time. We take her some money and a Bible. When we get to the metro stop she's waiting for us. Almost as soon as she sees Luka she starts crying and big tears roll down her weathered cheeks. I don't know what to do so I pat her arm and hand her a kleenex. Sometimes that's all you can do. Her eyes light up when we give her the Bible. I hope she reads it.

The internet randomly turned off in the apartment yesterday. Again. I could've played with the router and things. I would've eventually figured it out. Instead, I play the Damsel in Distress card on my neighbor, Dima. "The internet isn't working," I say. "Can you fix it?" He turns the router off and back on. It works. I feel dumb.

I am watching the men empty the dumpsters on my way home after choir practice. It is a giant garbage bag with a dumpster lid that they are putting into the frame. I don't see the patch of ice and I slip and fall. The garbage man stares at me.

When I peel off my jeans and leggings at home, I see my knee is scraped and bleeding. I am more upset about my jeans getting dirty. I literally just washed them.

Tomorrow we are showing the movie Groundhog Day at the church building. I worry no one will come.

Comparisons

I'm not even going to lie, it's kind of scary how much I'm loving being here. I'm really enjoying this time. I mean, is it lonely? Occasionally, when it's late and I should go to bed but don't feel like it. But generally I'm keeping busy and things are going well. I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop because I feel like it should not be legal for me to be having this much fun.

Maybe it's because everything is sort of subconsciously compared to my exchange. This is completely different though. There was a part of me that never fully got used to living in Yakutsk. I mean, my goodness all I did was cry the first three days and then tried to make it through every day in order to get home. I learned a lot. There were some definite good times, but there were also some very bad times too.

I think some of my enjoyment of this comes from automatically having a family. I mean, you have host families while on exchange. But honestly, with one exception I never felt particularly close to my host families. This time it's different. As soon as I got here, I felt welcomed, loved and accepted. Oh, I still have awkward moments, you have those any time you live in a foreign country. But among my church family I'm not afraid to admit that I don't understand, not afraid to make mistakes with the language, not afraid to ask for help. It's a nice feeling. My host families were willing to help me, but sometimes I could tell I was a burden or that they didn't really want to be dealing with me. They accepted me to a certain extent because they had to. The church people kind of have to as well, but the difference is they don't mind. I feel like there's an attitude of "Great! You're here! What can you learn from us and what can we learn from you?" Because we are all trying to be Christ centered, we automatically have that in common and it makes things easier.

But I didn't start writing this blog post with the intention of preaching. There are other factors that are making this transition easier as well. For one, I already know the language an culture. My exchange took me through the difficulties of learning a language and adapting to the culture. The first few days I was in St. Petersburg were a little rough language wise. I wasn't used to hearing full-on fluent Russian spoken all the time. Last week as I believe I mentioned, however all of a sudden it was like I kind of slid back into it and now every day it gets easier. I'm understanding a ton of what people say. I'm speaking more too.

The one thing I regretted after my exchange was I felt like I didn't practice talking enough. Well, that's being remedied now. If exchange was Russian 101, this is the next level. I talk a ton more than in Yakutsk. Plus, I talk and listen to more in depth subjects. I guess I really am conversationally fluent. People tell me good things about my Russian which makes me feel good. I know that I don't speak perfectly, not by any means, but to have native Russians tell me that I sound good, or that I form my words well, or that it's good when I correct myself means a lot to me. It's like they notice I'm trying and that makes me feel good and want to try harder.

Another thing that is making this easier is the place itself. Honestly, sometimes it doesn't even feel like I'm in Russia. There's a McDonald's two blocks down and KFCs here and there. I mean, it's obviously a Russian city, but it doesn't feel like it. I don't really know how to explain it. It just has a different atmosphere. After living in Siberia, and Yakutsk in particular, this place is like a wonderland of joy and joyness. The stores don't have empty shelves and there's always a selection of at least two or three brands of whatever item you want. Yeah, stuff is more expensive here, but they also have what you want. When you want it.  I'm constantly surprised at the things they have in the store here. Pre-made dough for Pirozhki? What? Or a product similar to something we have in the states that I couldn't get in Yakutsk? Wow!

I can already tell that it's going to be really hard to go home next fall. 

Social Time

People I know tend to hang out in my room. I'm not sure if this is because I'm very hospitable and easy going about people being in there, ("I don't care how long you stay, just be warned that at some point I'm going to bed") or if it's because I don't have a roommate and so it's pretty easy to just come in and hang out. Perhaps it's a bit of both. Generally it doesn't bother me, and when it does, I just don't invite people in.

Last night Zhin and I got together and made brownies and cookies in the dorm's communal kitchen. We got rid of most of the cookies and some of the brownies. To get rid of the rest, we wandered up and down my hall randomly asking people if they wanted one. It was pretty entertaining. She then came back to my room and we just talked and she bounced some ideas around for a paper she was writing. A little after nine, Puppy got a hold of me and wanted me to help him go over some German for a test he was having today. I reminded him that I don't know German, but to come over and I would help him however I could. So he came over and the three of us sat here and had a good time. Around 11, Puppy decided that he was hungry and I wanted a milkshake. I convinced Zhin that she should come with us and we went to the Diner which is cafeteria food but it's open 24/7. Oh and they have really good milkshakes among other things. So we walked across campus and got our stuff and then we walked back and said goodnight. It was a really fun time. This is another example of reasons why College is great. More of that random hanging out stuff.

In Russian, we're watching a movie called Brat or Brother in English. It's a pretty good ganster movie, but my teacher decided that it would be really fun to pile on the homework for that class over the weekend. Not only that, but I have a test in "We Come From Monkeys" on Monday and several other assignments and things for other classes. Needless to say school-wise I'm pretty stressed out at the moment. I did find out that there's going to be a Russian Movie night on Monday. I'm pretty excited and definitely planning on going.

Other than that, I don't really know what else to say. Russia's been in the news a lot lately. Seems, they've been making deals with Venezuela about Nuclear Energy and working with the United States on keeping Iran's Nuclear Energy under control. It's something I'm going to have to keep my eye on over the next several days.

Palin on Russia/Georgia

Was reading The Drudge Report Today and came across This interesting article.

Waiting

So today was the first day of classes. I had two. "Comparing Governments" and "We Came From Monkeys" The first one is going to be interesting, the second..well..let's just say that it's not my cup of tea. I came out of the classroom feeling like my brain was overloaded. So the semester starts. But what I'm really looking forward to is my last class tomorrow. Why? Because it's my Russian class! "Reading and Speaking" Here I come! I'm really really excited. I miss Russia so stinking much and miss speaking it, and the culture and everything. It's so bad, coming back because I seriously think about it every day. I seriously cannot watch American fireworks displays anymore without automatically remembering the couple I saw in Yakutsk, and the announcers calling out propoganda and the shouts of everyone going "Ura!" Gah! I want to go back to Russia, but in the meantime, I'll have to settle for becoming active in the Russian department.

Adventures At the Waterfall and Buluus

I thought it would be fun to do this post mostly in pictures. Hope you all enjoy.




Crossing to the other side of the Lena River




The main Road out of Yakutsk. This is the one that goes to Nirungry. Looks fun doesn't it?

Our little group of adventurers minus Egor's nephew who's taking the picture.




The Hazards of the road



Wait, Where is the road?




At the Waterfall at last!



The Wild Abigail creeps through the forest of Russia's Far East



Random Ponies in the Road. Actually, horses. Yakutian Horses




What happens when you blow a tire in the middle of nowhere? The menfolk change it!



We Finally arrived at Buluus where the snow never melts!



What is this?



That's right! It's SNOW!



I can now say I've made a snow angel in June!



The Wild Abigail in her natural Habitat. Captured here while drinking from the stream.



The view from the top.

And that was our adventure!

One Month

I am leaving this city in One month. One month. That's four weeks, or thirty days. That's not long.

For those of you who don't know, I spent friday through monday in Khabarovsk for the district conference. In some ways it was so much fun! It was great to see my exchange buddies again and I got to meet some Rotarians that I'd heard about, but had never met.

But Khabarovsk wasn't as amazing as the trip in March. I mean, the city was beautiful and all (What I saw of it anyway,) and it gave me more funny stories, but it was different than the other trip. For one we weren't all there. For another it almost felt like the carefree days of our previous trip were over. We're leaving. Becoming rebounds. Some of us have already left, some of us are getting ready to leave, and others are stretching out the time as long as possible.

It was like there was this unspoken thing hanging above us the entire weekend. There were a lot of tears. It was the last time some of us were going to see each other. It was tough. Especially when we had a meeting as students with some guys for the district, it was great because we talked about where we'd been and exchange and where we were going, and then we started talking about going home, and I just started crying. Because I'm scared. It's so hard to explain why. I never thought going back to friends and family, the place I came from would be scary. But I'm terrified. I can't really say what I'm scared of, but I'm terrified that everything's changed and nothing has. I'm terrified that no one will understand, no one will listen. Part of me just wants to go home and hide. Yet at the same time, I want to find places to speak and people to talk to, ways I can share my experience and let people know what life here is really like.

I had another revelation while we were there. For the first time in my life I felt an age gap between myself and other exchange students. I think I'm ready to move on, but at the same time the fact that exchange is ending means that I have to go home, have to be an adult. Have to be responsible for things and deal with things such as college. In short, I'm terrified.

"Russian Idol" Reaction

Sorry guys, but this having a Russian theme, I just had to repost and comment. First of all, I want you to know that this wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be. There were some things I found funny. I was worried about it because having lived for over seven months in Russian culture, I thought I would hate it and think it entirely sterotypical. So here's Abigail's analysis.

Have you watched the video? Good then what I'm saying will make sense. The first thing I'd like to say is that Robin Williams has a bad Russian accent. A really bad Russian accent. It got slightly better by the end of the sketch, but it was still pretty bad. Secondly, for those of you who want to know. Most of the song he's singing isn't in real Russian. He says something like "I only...you..I love you" and then the rest of the song is nonsense. I was sitting here listening to it and my ears were trying to make sense of it before I realized that it wasn't anything. What did I find funny? Well, the whole "so you think you can drink" Thing was pretty funny. Oh and I loved the fact that he pronounced "Hollywood" as "Gollywood." That's actually how the Russians say it. The song title "Babushka, use my woman now" was mildly amusing just because babushka means grandma. I found it interesting that the Beetles were mentioned, not because of the whole Lenin/Lennon thing but because the Beetles are actually pretty popular here. The Lennon song "Yesterday" in particular. I can see what would be amusing about the whole Lenin/Stalin thing to an American audience but I didn't find it funny. Nor did I really care for the whole women looking like men thing. Anyone who knows Russians knows that Russian women are known for dressing up. All the time. Even in Siberia. Oh and the gay thing. Didn't find it funny at all. Maybe because Russians are weird about gay people. Maybe because it added absolutely nothing to the point of the sketch. I'm not sure. Oh and for reference, if anyone cares. "Russian Idol" in Russian is Fabrika Zvyozd Which is like "The Making of a Star" or something to that effect.

Якутск

This is the city I'm going to be in. District 5010, Russia, Yakutsk Rotary club (For those of you who don't read/speak Russian. LOL!)

We had a parent orientation today. Basically we sat around with our parents and the other outbounds and heard a bunch of stuff about all things Rotary exchange. It wasn't all that exciting except for the fact that I got to see my outbound friends which was nice. I had talked to my country coordinator about if she'd heard anything from the Russian contact yet and she said no. This evening I got on the computer, checked my e-mail. Lo and behold, there was an e-mail that said:

"Congratulations! In checking my e-mail after the Orientation, I received a note from my Russian contact. You will be placed with the Yakutsk Rotary Club. I checked the area out on the web and it looks absolutely fascinating."

Incidentally, it is a fascinating place. The average winter temp. is -42.8C (-45F). Yet in July the temperature can be as high as 32.2C (90F). I think I'm going to die! AND I'M SO EXCITED ABOUT IT! Yakutsk is also home to the Mammoth museum and it is the largest city built on continuous permafrost. If any of you are interested in learning more about the city that is to be my home for the next year, you are welcome to check it out on Wikipedia. Now, if you'll all excuse me I must e-mail my country coordinator with my passport status.