WE ARE IN RUSSIA!

1-30-2011 to 2-3-2011

WE ARE IN RUSSIA!!!

Oh, I forgot that I never mentioned packing. Packing for this trip was a nightmare! There was plenty of extra space in our suitcases, but packing where we could stay under the weight limit was killer! We had to sort through the things we wanted to bring at least 3 times to narrow the items down so each of our suitcases would weigh less than 50 lbs. 50 lbs sounds like a lot, and it can be, but if you have to pack more than feathers and cotton balls, the weight limit of 50 lbs gets reached quite quickly. Luckily, after HOURS AND HOURS (seriously it took forever) we had each suitcase packed to right around that weight limit and when we weighed in at the airport our bags were 48 lbs, 50.0 lbs (just barely made it!), and 2 were 48.5 lbs. Seeing them all weigh in was such a relief. I am so glad that we will have so many less things to bring back to the U.S. than we had to bring here to Russia. Now, I just wish that the packing could be the last of our bag problems…… stay tuned…….

Oh my goodness sakes! The last 48 hours have been CRAZY! So our travels began with a flight from Seattle to Washington D.C. Of course we had to get up at a ridiculous hour to get to the Seattle airport, but we also had a lot of sleeping time ahead of us so it was okay. We boarded our flight to D.C. at 7am and sat in the plane for 4-5 hours. We got to D.C. and had about an hour before we needed to board the flight for Moscow so we spent that time enjoying American things that we would miss. We had chocolate milk, bought my favorite cheesy popcorn, and I used the bathroom twice (I already miss those =( ). Surprisingly, I really enjoyed the flight to Moscow. I was dreading it and was freaked out about flying over the Atlantic, but I would have to say that it was the best flight ever. The flight was smooth, I got to watch movies, had plenty of juice and soda, was fed dinner (it actually was alright), was fed breakfast, got snacks, and had plenty of room because the flight was only like half full. It was pretty sweet. I also really enjoyed the map channel on the little television because it had like all the statistics of how far we had traveled, what the temperature was, what our speed was, and it showed on the map where we currently were flying. That was interesting. So after a 10 hour plane ride (it was actually 9 hours and 55 minutes), we landed in Moscow. The first things I saw were a LOT of snow EVERYWHERE and forests of trees. They have these dense forests of trees everywhere, but they aren’t like forests in the Pacific Northwest. These forests have super tall super skinny trees, but the trees don’t have branches and a canopy except for the last like 1/3 or ¼ of the total height of the tree. Some of these forests are completely of Birch trees and these trees are tall, I never have seen a Birch tree even near that tall before. It is actually really cool looking. So the snow…. yeah, there is a lot of snow here. Now I know that there are some parts of the U.S. that I have never been to and that these places probably get a lot of snow (I am not including Alaska), but here there is snow everywhere on everything. There are just huge piles of it all over the place. Like in the U.S. when you’re on a roadtrip in the winter you will see snow along the way, but not absolutely everywhere. It will like fade in and out and some places there will be a ton and other places there will be none. Well here, it seriously is like a never ending expanse of snow. No wonder they find animals and occasionally people dead under snow drifts in the spring when the snow melts. There is a lot of snow to get lost in.

So once we got inside the airport we went through customs and did all that formal paperwork stuff. When they checked our passports and everything they like scrutinized our pictures a ton to make sure it was really us. It was slightly uncomfortable because of how intently they looked at us, but we all got through no problem. Now here is where the real fun began…..oh my.

After customs we went to gather our luggage as normal. Philip and I were so grateful that all our luggage arrived safely. There were 4 or 5 people total that were missing luggage that flew into Moscow, and 2 girls in my group were missing luggage. It took around a half an hour for Philip to help the girls report the lost luggage and leave descriptions for the Russian airport people. That was only the first of many delays. So, when ILP volunteers get to the airport they are supposed to be met by a native coordinator (someone who is a native to the country where the volunteers were sent) or someone who the native coordinator sends. Last fall there was a girl that the native coordinators would send, and she was really great, but she found a new job so they had to send someone new. The new girl they sent this time was very kind, but also very unprepared. She spoke English, but not very much, and she could only understand English if you spoke slow and said as few words as possible. Thank heavens Philip could ask her questions in Russian. Well, she met us and we went to go buy train tickets to the center of Moscow. So the girl went to go buy the train tickets and told us to go find food and use the bathroom. So we went and exchanged some money and went to the bathroom first. The toilets are much smaller than in the U.S. and are much closer to the wall. And, according to Philip, there seems to always be some woman custodian in the men’s bathroom cleaning and it is totally normal to them. Then we went to eat a piece of pizza at Sbarro and let’s just say that it did not taste American. And, in the particular case, that means it did not taste good. So we had originally been told that our train would leave in an hour, and we were all good with that. But then that hour came and went and we still didn’t go. So Philip asked the girl when we would go and she said another hour. So that hour came and went and we still didn’t go. So Philip once again asked the girl when the train would leave and she said in one more hour. It turns out that she had bought our tickets for the wrong time without realizing it so we ended up waiting for the train for 3 hours instead of for 1 hour, and that was not so fun when we were all tired and just wanting to get to our destination.

So we finally got on the train to go to the center of Moscow so that we could catch the bus to Voronezh. It was quite difficult for everyone to get their luggage on the train even though we had bag carts. We all pretty much fell asleep on the train because it was quiet and the train just rocked back and forth. So we all were thinking (and hoping) that when we got off of the train we wouldn’t have to go very far to get to the bus because we had so much luggage. But it turns out, we had to walk AT LEAST 5 blocks over rough snow-packed sidewalks to get to the bus. So here is the low down on the luggage: 7 ILP volunteers x 2 arms each = 14 arms to pull luggage. (3 people x 2 bags each) + (4 people x 3 bags each) = 18 bags. For those who don’t like math, that equates to there being 4 more bags to pull that there are arms to pull them. We were definitely blessed in this respect. Us 7 ILP volunteers could not have pulled 18 bags as far as we had to, so it is good that 2 of those bags were lost (don’t worry, they got found and got to the girls), and that we had the girl who came and picked us up who could pull bags too. We ended up with 8 people to pull bags and 16 bags to be pulled. That is 2 each, which is the most anyone could do (those bags were mostly big and weighed a lot), it doesn’t get much more perfect than that. But the pull to the bustop was still so RIDICULOUS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It was too far for people who have so much luggage, especially when we were walking on bumpy snow and ice packed sidewalks.

As we were pulling our bags to the bus stop there were a lot of Russians who looked at us and said, “Ridiculous,” (in Russian of course), and the guards at the bus place started laughing really hard as soon as we all walked by. I was just glad that someone besides the 7 of us realized how ridiculous it was. So we finally got to the bus and we loaded our stuff in the bottom (it was like a greyhound). And the bus ride began. We had originally been told that we would get to Voronezh at 8 pm, but at this point it was already 4 o’clock, so we all had our doubts. Well, to sum it up, that bus was really gross, the drivers drove to fast, passed too many cars on two lane roads, stopped at too many disgusting bathrooms, made us all worried we were going to die, and also made us all thankful that we were so tired that we couldn’t stay awake because otherwise it would have been so much worse. We didn’t get to Voronezh until midnight. =( But we finally did get there!

So we got off the bus at the main bus station in Voronezh and that is where everyone got picked up by their host family. We got picked up by our host mom Anya. Anya doesn’t speak much English, so Philip let her know pretty quickly that he spoke Russian, but that I didn’t. We aren’t exactly sure how she feels about how Philip speaks Russian. I think it is good and it helps her easily communicate with us and gives her an adult to talk to at home, but I imagine that she used to like being able to say things to her kids that the Americans couldn’t understand. I certainly appreciate the fact that Philip can talk to her though. Anya has 2 kids, Makar (he is 11), and Olianna (she is 6). They are both very sweet and fun. Makar speaks great English and would definitely be able to translate for us if Philip didn’t speak Russian, and actually Makar does still translate for me all the time. Philip and I only speak English to Makar and Olianna though so that they can learn more. Olianna loves to give hugs an she is a snuggle bug. She has just automatically loved us from day one. Olianna does gymnastics and is pretty good. She is incredibly flexible. For example, I am sitting here typing this on the couch next to her while she is watching tv and she is laying with her stomach on the seat of the couch with her legs arching over her back and touching her feet to her head. It’s not natural.

So after Anya picked us up she brought us back to her house. She lives a little ways out of Voronezh in a little village. She has a really nice house too. Even by American standards. It has wood floors throughout, a sauna in the basement, an indoor swimming pool, and the room we stay in (it is normally Makar’s room) has like a loft part that was made to be like a tree house. It’s really cool. Philip and I both feel quite at home here. Oh, and Anya makes such yummy food. I was kind of worried about Russian food, but so far it has been okay. Anya makes this yummy “pizza” that has a lot of dill, and normally I don’t like dill that much, but on this pizza it is really good. Anya also gets her milk from a neighbor and at first Philip and I didn’t think we would drink it, but then we found out from the native coordinators husband (who is American) that they actually like test the cows to make sure the milk is good and that the guy that Anya gets milk from is in high demand and that lots of people are always wanting to get their milk from him. This last week Anya brought home some very freshly squeezed milk and it was still warm and we drank some and it was delicious. Probably the best milk I’ve ever had!

So Sunday and Monday we went to the city to go to the school and meet with the other teachers to come up with a plan for teaching. Philip and I (at least for now) are teaching the primary level kindergarten kids. These kids range in age from 3 ½ to around 7 I think. We teach two separate groups a day for a total of 20 hours a week. This job is really hard, tiring, and quite difficult to come up with 2 lessons a day to do with these kids that will teach them English and keep them interested. A couple years ago I did a summer day camp job where I was with kids ages 6 to 12 for 7 hours a day and more were assigned to me at a time and it wasn’t nearly as hard and tiring as this is. What we are doing is like babysitting except for that we have to come up with from scratch every activity for them to do and we have to be talking to them and getting them to repeat what we are saying like ALL the time. Constantly talking for 4 hours is really hard. A lot of the kids we teach are really cute, but that doesn’t make the job any easier. And even though we only teach for 20 hours a week, we spend another at least 10 just planning lessons. It is very stressful and tiring and I really hope it gets better and can become something that I look forward to rather than dread.

Another hard thing is getting to and from the school. Since Anya doesn’t live in the city, we have to rely on walking and the bus a lot. A few nights a week we get picked up at the school, but otherwise coming and going is quite the ordeal. We have to walk 15 minutes (in tons of snow) to get to the bus stop and then ride the bus for 15 to 20 minutes (often standing the whole time because there aren’t enough seats) and then walk another 10 minutes to the school. I will always be so much more grateful for having a car after this. I won’t take that for granted again. And they try to shovel the sidewalks in the city, but they are still so bumpy and slippery all the time. And out in the village there are no sidewalks and only dirt roads normally, so we just walk in the tire tracks.

Russia is very, very different from America. And we will definitely have a unique experience while here. But I guess that is partly what we have come for. There are things that I like and others that I am learning to appreciate and yet others that I will not miss when I get back to the U.S. But we will try to make the most of everything while we are here!

From Russia With Love,

Jenepher & Philip

p.s. more posts with pictures soon! I can't upload pictures until I have a better internet connection.....