Back on the Blog

Hey gang. Today I went to the internet connection office and they were all set to install in my apartment until they realized I'm not a Russian citizen. I have to go back tomorrow with somebody who has a Russian passport (the cute Russian boy in line behind me wasn't allowed to help) and then, with our powers combined, I should get internet at home. Don't stop believing!

10.7

Today was a roller coaster, which in Russia is called “American mountains.” Not that it was particularly exciting, but just full of ups and downs. Tuesday is my easiest day at the Ped. Institute; only one class with at most three students. After that, I came home, had some lunch and headed downtown to the cafe that usually has free wireless internet. I was anxious to read birthday emails, but to my dismay, the internet wasn’t working. And that after I bought a bottle of water for 45 rubles! The nerve! So I schlepped my laptop over to a real internet cafe (to be clear, there’s real internet, but no cafe). They don’t have wireless there, so I had to pay another 100 rubles for about an hour’s worth of internet. I was trying to get my fix of New Yorker articles, plus pictures of musicians for my upcoming lecture on rock music. Unfortunately, I wasted both time and flash drive memory loading Google Image pages that now won’t open. On the plus side, the happy birthday e-mails were all-you-can-eat.

From the internet cafe I walked to the synagogue, and even figured out some new shortcuts. It was the first night of my English language club, and we had over a dozen participants! They were of varying ages and levels, which is a challenge unto itself, but everybody was energetic and attentive. My preparation consisted of bringing postcards of Cleveland and photos of my family, so I had everyone talk in groups about their lives, families, and pets until I heard it dissolve into Russian. Then I asked them to name their favorite English and American authors, and you wouldn’t believe the people they mentioned! We’re talking J.D. Salinger, Tennessee Williams, Graham Greene, Kurt Vonnegut! It blew my mind. For next class, I’ll have to do some actual planning. Luckily, the people at the synagogue are extremely accommodating, and they even have internet! Too bad the Ped. Institute isn’t run by Jews.

After class, Katya, one of the younger participants asked what I was doing. I had planned on just talking the metro home and having dinner, but she insisted on giving me a ride, introducing me to her English-speaking friends and showing me around the city. We went to a cafe (ironically the same chain where I had gone for WiFi, but in a different location), where her friends were going with their English class. We were standing in line to order shwarma when her friends came in, attended by a group of Texas missionaries. I was introduced to Rodney from Dallas, who had no idea that when he first entered the cafe, I thought he was just another Russian drunk. Anyway, Katya is very sweet. She even treated me to the shwarma and when I thanked her, she said, “No, thank you for the class!” What a mensch. So now I’m home, full of Coke, shwarma and love for Ekaterinburg’s English-speaking Jewish community.

Tomorrow is Yom Kippur, and though I’m not going to fast, I will tally up my sins. I’ll start with the most recent and work backwards. Sorry for prejudging you, Rodney from Dallas!

10.9

It’s a rainy Seattle night in Ekaterinburg. Also, as Lewis Black said, “It’s Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Jewish year, and I am FUCKED!” I knew I wouldn’t fast, so I didn’t go to temple either, for fear of being hypocritical. In fact, this morning I woke up just as services were beginning and thought, “Woo hoo, don’t have to go.” Way to atone. Instead, I went to the Marc’s-type discount grocery store and stocked up on yogurt and generic honey flake cereal. They also have fresh (non-frozen) meat there, amazingly. Sorry Hashem!

I went in to school around 2 to meet with Vino, the resident American English Language Fellow. She wanted to plan some Halloween festivities, but we also both needed to get photos done for our new visas. (Actually, I had some extra passport pictures done in Ukraine, but somehow I lost them. My frustration over this fact even crept into last night’s dream.) We talked about doing Halloween and Thanksgiving programs as we walked to the photographer. Vino doesn’t speak Russian, and it gives me a great feeling of confidence to translate for someone. We got back to school just in time for me to print some documents and head to class.

So I’ve been doing a little poetry with my classes lately. I started with Langston Hughes’ “Harlem (A Dream Deferred)” and William Carlos Williams’ “Red Wheelbarrow.” Recently, though, I found a beautiful poem about racism called “The Incident” by Countee Cullen. I started using this poem because it’s about a white boy calling a black boy “nigger,” and since this is the normal Russian word for a black person, I wanted my students to know not to use it in the U.S. Most of them have liked this poem and had nice egalitarian things to say about it. Today, though, I gave it to the third-year PR students and was shocked by their response. After analyzing the poem, they said that it was irrelevant to their lives because racism does not exist in Russia. Probably I was too aggressive, but I told them that I’ve seen so much discrimination against foreigners, mostly people from former Soviet republics. Hostile treatment of Azerbaijanis and Tadjikistanis, I said, was no different from discriminating against blacks. The students became extremely defensive, most of them insisting that these foreigners come to Russia illegally and sell drugs. It got very uncomfortable very fast. I tried to break the tension by revealing that I’m Jewish, but it didn’t really work. Eventually, one of the students appeased me with some anti-racist platitudes, and we moved on. They much preferred “Dream Deferred” (hey that rhymed!) and one girl even connected it to race relations at the end. I was still feeling shaken by what had gone down, but as we were leaving, a student asked how long I would be there, and when I said all year, she smiled and clapped. Phew!

After that I had class with 4th-year English students. I walked in and saw one of my favorite groups, which was strange because I’m only supposed to have them twice a month. They also said they were surprised by my being there, but we got started anyway. About ten minutes into the class, their real teacher walked in and said a different group was waiting for me downstairs. Whoops! And just when I was starting to feel comfortable in this school. But that was just hubris, overweening pride. Still though, it’s just as important that they’re getting used to me.

10.12

It was a great weekend, the best I’ve had in a long time. It began Friday evening with a much-appreciated phone call from my friend David, who’s ETA-ing in Vladivostock. We had a great talk about our shockingly similar experiences. Like me, he is adjusting to living alone for the first time, and strongly missing his friends and family. But on that topic, he imparted a piece of wisdom from Balzac or Rousseau or some such frog: “The man who gives himself to loneliness, oh yes, he will soon be lonely.” I realized that I’ve spent more time lamenting my solitude than doing anything to change it. When we finally hung up, I was on the brink of grateful tears. He’ll never know how much that phone call meant to me.

Saturday I went to temple, and felt wonderful sitting surrounded by friendly and familiar faces. After services, the Israeli girls asked me to have lunch, but apparently the rabbi’s wife had sent the same request, and she won. Feeling like the prettiest girl at the dance, I promised Chaia, Mushka and Chanali that I would surely join them next week. We also made plans for Sunday, but more on that in a minute. So, my friend Sveta and I walked to the rabbi’s house, and she explained her philosophy of shabbos. It’s not correct, she said, to think of it as a day of not working. Rather, it’s a holy day, and you honor it by not doing what you usually do. In her convincing opinion, this is more liberating than conceiving of shabbos a list of prohibited actions. I asked her why, when you don’t use machines, it’s ok to use running water. At just that moment, we ran into the rabbi, who took the question. I couldn’t quite understand his explanation, but I think it has something to do with processes that are already going on for everyone. That is, the water is running whether I turn on the faucet or not. That’s fine, but it reminds me of what my Bubbe used to say, “They make it up as they go along.”

How’s that for gratitude? Here this man and his wife welcome me into their home, and I mock their beliefs. Nice, Abbie, real nice. Anyway they know that I’m not religious, I mean, I don’t know the prayers or anything. But they know how much it means to me to feel part of a Jewish family. The food was even better than last time, and I felt comfortable and confident enough to join in the conversation. By the time I left, it was snowing heavily. A student, Yulia had asked me to meet her in the city center for an evening walk, but I was dressed for a morning temple service, so I went back home. Feeling discouraged by the weather, I called her to see if we were still on. She was game, so remembering the advice from Balsack or whomsomever, I put on warmer clothes and headed back to 1905 Square.

Now, a confession: when Yulia first called, I wasn’t sure who she was. Her name hadn’t registered, and anyway there are Yulias aplenty. But when she came out of the subway, I recognized her smile immediately. Another confession: she’s one of my favorite students. She had brought Margarita, a psychology student whom she tutors in English. In bad weather, Russians still go for a walk, but only as far as the nearest cafe. In this case, it was Mamma’s Biscuit House. The girls told me about their Buddhist aspirations, meditative drawing classes and New Years plans of taking a train to seek out shamans. Writing it out makes them sound like New Age hippies, but really they’re so spirited, fun and smart. After they ate and I, still full from lunch at Marina’s, drank, we fancied a change of location, so I invited them back to my place for a drink. We shared cheese and crackers, wine and all our thoughts on international relations. Yulia said she’d never met an American that she really wanted to befriend, but in me she sensed a kindred spirit. She went on to say that I made her realize that the Cold War is fought between Moscow and D.C., but Russians and Americans can still be friends. I told her that’s exactly what I wrote my Fulbright application about and, though I didn’t want to come off as needy, this was the first night I felt like I had real friends. Her birthday is coming up, and I volunteered to make any kind of cake she likes. When she asked if I could make a Pavlova, we both knew that it was fate for us to meet.

Today, Sunday, I planned to go with my friend Nona, plus Chaia, Mushka and Chanali, to the Ekaterinburg museum of art. We walked there from the synagogue along the river, passing an excellent monument to computers: the PC keyboard hewn in stone. The museum was great, and featured amazing exhibits of metal-smithing and Urals stone decorative art. I recognized busts of Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, plus mini-sculptures of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza. Unfortunately, I enjoyed the museum much more than the Israeli girls. They were not at all interested in the iconography, which is my favorite, and further discouraged by not understanding the Russian placards on the rest of the works. I tried to help them feel engaged by explaining the historical predominance of religious art in Russia, but on the way back they confessed that art doesn’t much interest them anyway. Still, they were happy to go somewhere besides work. And I was happy to see all that beautiful Christian art!

In the evening, I did my favorite thing in the world: cooked a ton of food and shared it with friends. Last year’s ETA Katie is visiting, and since we got acquainted in Kiev, I invited her to stay with me. I also asked Yulia and Margarita to dinner, since they wanted to show me the Russian-dubbed version of the South Park movie. I made vegetable soup, chicken pilaf, Israeli salad and my grandmother’s garlicky eggplant. The girls brought the most delicious tea and chocolate-covered marshmallow-type treats, which I served along with some gingerbread. The DVD didn’t work, but I was just as happy just to talk and goof off. It’s really nice having Katie here, since she spent all of last year in my position and then signed up for a second hitch in Belgorod. She’s on the couch passed out now, and I’m in my bed, about to do the same. Let’s just hope that while she’s here I get back in the habit of closing the door to the bathroom.