12 days of Christmas.

I am interested in recapturing, or perhaps, capturing for the first time, the spirit of celebrating Christmas for 12 days, starting on December 25th. Of course this is difficult in American culture, what-with the big shopping frenzy-buildup to the 25th and then the holiday being "over", other than catching the "after Christmas" sales. It's after because Christmas is, effectually, over.

But this is not how it has been in the church calendar. There is a song about the 12 days of Christmas, which I hear is reputed to have spiritual significance. Perhaps that is an appropriate starting point to discovering the meaning in the 12 days. But the practical question remains.. how to incorporate a 12-long day Christmas celebration into your home, your family, your church, your own heart?

I'd love to hear ideas and suggestions for celebrating Christmas for 12 days... leave them in the comments, along with any other feedback of course. ;)

Christmas.

Arise, shine, for your Light has come! It shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

I've enjoyed a Christmas celebration this week that has been completely different from any previous celebration of the holiday. The biggest highlight has been coming to Denmark and enjoying time with friends from home, whose conversation and company has been most enjoyable, encouraging, and refreshing. The second biggest highlight has been worshipping with their international ecumenical community here in Copenhagen.

First, this community though ecumenical is led by a Lutheran pastor. I had never been to a Lutheran service, though in many ways it has been similar to my reformed tradition back home, a tradition that I have missed since being in Belarus. One thing I found interesting was how they commune at the Lord's table. Everyone came to the front of the church, to the chancel, gathered in a semi-circle and kneeled before the altar with other believers to receive the elements, by intinction, and real wine was used. (as it should be, :) ) I loved this aspect of kneeling side by side with my family to commune. We also communed at the Lord's table Sunday, Monday on Christmas eve, and Tuesday on Christmas.

Christmas was a special service because it was held in the home of the pastor and his family. We enjoyed a relaxed brunch, then gathered in the family room. (see photo above) At the front was a manger holding the bread and the goblet with the wine for communion. It was a reminder... the babe in the manger became this broken bread and poured out wine. The manger that held a babe was also holding the broken body and blood of our Lord, God's presence with us... and now, at communion, we remember anew how God's presence is continually with us. The Word took on flesh, and dwelt among us. This presence was temporal and yet is at the same time eternal.

I have never had a Christmas like this one. I have never been to so many times of worship and communion before. I completely loved it. It made me also think about how sometimes I know of churches that don't hold services on Sunday if Christmas is on Sunday.... and it led to thoughts about being a widow or orphan, or perhaps even just spiritually an orphan or widow. There are tons of people who do not have a nuclear family or whose family they do have do not care to celebrate Christmas by worshipping the King. If our churches stop meeting on Christmas, for "family time," what happens to the orphans and widows? The students and singles? The elderly and sick? The lonely and isolated? Is it good or even right for them to celebrate Christmas alone? Isn't it antithetical to Christmas to celebrate alone? Not because the holiday is a family holiday in the cultural sense of the word, but a family holiday in the spiritual sense...! Shouldn't we spend the holiday with our family in Christ? It seems there is a whole contingent of folks out there who may not have a community to be with on the holiday... so it is my hope that the church would step up to the plate, or maybe individuals and families, to open their doors to the "stranger" who is alone, be they an actual orphan or widow or spiritually so... Everyone needs community, especially at Christmas.

I found myself a "stranger" in a strange country among people who are not my nuclear or blood family in a church I had never set foot into before... and yet I felt in my heart and soul that I was not alone, not at all a stranger. I was with friends who are also my spiritual family... I was with an international family in Christ who in a matter of three days knew my face, name, connection to Denmark, my story... who welcomed me to the Table with them, who laughed with me, talked with me, communed with me. It was beautiful. I hope every person who remotely finds themselves or feels themselves alone or isolated in this world will be sought after by the Church, by families and individuals, and treated not as guests, but as family at the same table, under the same roof, just as I have been ever-so graciously welcomed.

Thank you Tilley's, thank you to the church here in Copenhagen, those who made me feel like family and not an inconvenient guest or worse, just a visitor passing through or even a stranger...

unholiday depression overseas...

I have on more than one occasion railed about the commercialism in America, and the consumeristic, materialistic addictions we as Americans have that are, literally, consuming us from the inside out. This commercialism and consumerism is all the more rampant at the time of Christmas. Oh, how I once loathed when the malls would be rife with Santas and trees and stockings, advertising, tempting you, to buy this or that trinket, this or that item… and how the pressure to buy buy buy and please please please others often racks us… and it will break us. For a month, maybe even two, Americans are surrounded by commercials, advertisements, decorations, meant to supply the spirit and joy of the holiday, the Christmas spirit perhaps. Oh, I grew to hate it. I already hated malls, all I needed was another time of year to have an even better excuse to avoid entering their premises.

And yet.

Here I am, miles and miles away. I am in a culture that does not celebrate Christmas until January 7th. Even then, it is not their big holiday. It is their religious holiday, for religious types. Which means it goes basically unnoticed by the culture at large. Maybe they’ll give you the day off of work and studies, but maybe not. No, the real holiday here is New Years. In searching for Christmas cards, it’s ironic that from the outside, they LOOK like Christmas cards, at least, your run-of-the-mill American “Christmas” scene sans the baby Jesus (“Christlessmas”). Bells, garlands, wreaths, snow covered homes, ornaments, pine trees, sleds, presents, candles… But when you read the words, they rarely make mention of Christmas… rather, they wish you a happy new year. Ironic.

Maybe you wonder, how is the new year celebrated here? I’ll tell you: they have new year’s trees, very much like our Christmas trees. They exchange gifts. They spend it with family, and occasionally with friends. They eat a lot of food. They watch TV after midnight when the President gives a speech congratulating the people on the new year. They have fireworks. They drink, a lot. They don’t go to work the next day. This is new year. And Christmas? Most people don’t celebrate it at all.

So I find myself… missing America at Christmas time. Yes, even slightly missing the barrage of decorations and music incessantly playing in the shopping malls… but I remember being in the States and feeling like it was Christmas time, awaiting it. There was more anticipation for its arrival. Maybe I anticipated the days off of school or work. Maybe I anticipated time with family and watching American football on TV. Maybe I anticipated the holiday foods. The scents of sugar cookies and apple cider and fires in the fireplace and pine. The joy of stealthily wrapping a few carefully selected gifts for those near and dear to me. Hearing the piano played, or singing some carols. Seeing the sanctuary every Sunday, decorated and reminding me of One’s great coming. Such joy, expectation, anticipation, delight, wonder... Here, I am lacking some of this luster, this Christmas spirit. Granted, nothing about trees and garlands and lights truly belongs to Christmas... but it brought me joy, and ushered my heart into a time of expectation, reflection... here I find I'm simply falling into a dry winter depression. No one here is thinking much about Christmas and only a handful celebrate it on December 25th. Every “Christmas”-esque decoration is hailing the new year, not the birth of Jesus. No one knows any Christmas hymns to sing. Here we are, less than 10 days away from the day, and I still don’t feel like it’s already here… Celebrating holidays overseas is just not the same. It is enough to make me feel depressed!

I am thankful though, because I must make my own preparations, in my mind and heart as well as among my friends, for this great celebration. Two days ago, my roommates and I hung up decorations: tree, garland, lights, candles, cards, stockings. We played Christmas music from my computer. There was even some snow blowing around outside our window. Though vastly different from being among family and friends at Christmas, it was still very much welcome… without such little things, the holidays really are very depressing for an expat.

(Luckily, this expat won’t be alone on Christmas. I’ll be visiting wonderful people sojourning for this year in Copenhagen. Perhaps there, we can enjoy fellowship on this day, and together celebrate the great Advent.)

All the more, how I must, on my own, look deeply into myself, and once again find that great joy worth searching the whole world over for, worth giving up life as we familiarly know it for… the joy that is good tidings and peace on earth for men… the joy of knowing the mysterious and beautiful Love Incarnate.

html help?

if anyone knows how to help me fix my header/banner/photo montage thing so it's not cut off on the top and bottom like it suddenly is now... shoot me an email. that would be a big help! ;)

highlight of today.

Today, after returning home after 3pm to thaw out, I had the most delightful surprise waiting for me in my mailbox: the Fall 2007 edition of The College, St. John’s alumni quarterly. Last year I never received a copy over here in Belarus… this year, for some reason, I was mailed a copy! Thank you whoever sent it; it was certainly a highlight to me. I sat over my 3pm lunch reading it cover to cover. It’s so nice to feel engaged and connected to a community even when very far away.

How rare, it seems, that we take the time to practice dialectic with one another, to not merely read for our own enjoyment and betterment, but to intentionally discuss and strive and search for truth and beauty with other pilgrim souls... this is what I miss most, and what I long most to foster in my life, a community of questions and discussions and striving for truth and beauty and understanding and getting at that deep marrow of life... but it must be a community, or something essential is lost to this whole endeavor. Adventures are meant to be shared. So is life. So are thoughts. So are questions and the quest in them.

pomp & circumstance

Today, I was hoping to get a glimpse from across a five lane road of none other than President of the Russian Federation, Vladimir Putin. Alas, it was not meant to be. Now, I did wait patiently in sub-zero temperatures at our infamous Victory Square. I even skipped the second half of my Russian class, in hopes of seeing him and hearing him give some short speech. The military arrives. Roads were blocked off. Metro was inaccessible. The military band arrives with instruments. Film crew arrives and sets up. Black clothed security patrols the streets and the square. Photographers are preparing to snap away. People rush around talking on their cell phones, radios squawk. A banner proudly welcomes the president. Light poles are adorned with flags of Belarus and Russia, side by side. The colors of Red, Green, White, and Blue are seen wherever your eyes glance. Students line up on the curbs of the streets surrounding the Square, flying high the flags of those two countries. There was certainly a lot of pomp, but the circumstance was less than hoped. I was there. I arrived after 11:15am. I was watching. Waiting. I was joking with my friends that maybe his car was speeding and he got pulled over. They joked back that maybe he forgot to bring his passport with him, or tried to enter the metro without a token. We waited longer. We were freezing. It was 1pm when my Korean classmates decided to leave. I decided to hold out a little longer. I stood with a Frenchman and a Swede. We shivered. We talked with some Belarusians. We asked “official” looking people and “unofficial” people when the President might arrive… no one knew. We were told 11:15. We were there at 11:15. No President. Fashionably late, I suppose. By 1:35pm the band and military left the square to practice and take a break underground. Probably to warm up as well. Students were leaving in droves. The flag-bearers didn’t want to stick around anymore. If we knew when he was to arrive, we might have been able to know whether it was worth it to wait. But by 1:45pm, I decided my nearly frozen fingers and toes were more precious to me than seeing Russia’s President. As usual, lots of show! But where was the delivery?

Maybe I can read about it in the paper tomorrow.

small worldliness

Interesting experience the other day. I go to a Belarusian gathering of believers and before meeting at the Table, they showed a short film clip about a guy who carries this card table around and sets up his own communion for passerbys, which is for the most part ignored or unnoticed. But this wasn’t even what struck me. As soon as they started playing the film, I knew exactly where this film was shot. It was shot in the historic downtown Annapolis, Maryland. None other than my college town. There was Stevens hardware on the corner, there were the boats at city dock, the market house behind the dock, there was the food court at the Annapolis mall, etc. Every place in this video I had been. Now how weird and random is this: I’m halfway around the world in a culture entirely other than my native country and culture and in this place, I find myself on a Sunday morning at a service entirely in the Russian language, watching a short video clip in a room full of Belarusians (with a few Russians, Chinese, Slovakians, Cameroonians, Nigerians, and the scattered Americans as well), and there we watch together scenes from a town that I once called home. The strangeness of the circumstance made me smile.

chores.

I've come to realize that differences in life between Belarus and America extend beyond just the obvious "exterior" cultural ones... differences permeate home life as well. For example, I have learned how to deal with many adjustments at my apartment. I've learned how to light, operate, and control my own water heater. I've had to adjust to life without a dryer, instead having to "freeze dry" my clothes on the balcony or drape them over the heaters. I now work exclusively with a gas stove AND oven. I've had to deal with my inability to control the temperature in my apartment. Plus, when it's cold and the heaters have not been turned on, I've learned that I have to tape my windows, which are old and create drafts. I regularly use a trash chute that's located in the stair well of my building on the 9th floor. People always remove their shoes once they enter an apartment. Of course, there is also no dishwasher. (I'm privileged to even have a microwave.) But last week I discovered yet another way that apartment living in Minsk is different than in the the States: cleaning the carpet.

In Minsk, you can buy vacuum cleaners. However, they are expensive, and my roommates were not willing/able to pitch in for one. So, we decided to do without a vacuum cleaner. But when last week I was expecting many friends to come over as company, and knew we would be sitting on the floor of my living room, I realized the carpet would have to be cleaned somehow. I quickly realized you can't sweep carpet with a broom. (I tried.) I ended up having to resort to a wet rag. I was on my hands and knees, trying to scrub and gather dust and dirt and whatever else out of the carpet. It took me over an hour and even then, the job was neither complete nor thorough. I felt like Cinderella. It was not glamorous... and I hope I don't have to do that ever again. ;)

In the States, my favorite chore is mowing the lawn. I love yardwork. I love working with my hands, working with plants or building things from wood or grilling food, or anything having to do with design. Everything else is pretty much boring routine, but above all, my least favorite chore is probably laundry. (All the moreso in Belarus.)

always snowing, always melting, always snowing.

the past week we've had this pattern of snow covering the ground overnight, covering the earth, and then by mid morning the next day, it has already melted.... it repeats this process, and has repeated it, for at least the past 3 days.

I thought about how this is a picture at times of life. When we're sleeping, at peace, resting, trusting our Dad above, we receive His grace, His love, His mercies, which are new every morning. Then something happens and we "muck it up" and it starts melting. It melts because we can't hold onto the ingraspable, and we're imperfect and don't always dwell all the time in His goodness and grace and love. What's amazing is that we're promised He'll keep pouring out His mercy on us, keep making us as new creations, keep covering our scarlet sins with white snow...

This is just one of many promises we have from the One who came to be Incarnate, to demonstrate His love to us, and who we can joyously celebrate, especially this Advent season. I've wanted to be more intentional to celebrate Advent in a special way, as this special time of year... I'd love to hear in the comments how you celebrate Advent.

I'm not 25% Irish for nothing

Your Inner European is Irish!

Sprited and boisterous! You drink everyone under the table.

Who's Your Inner European?

lucrative McD's career?

I know a guy, a university student, here in Minsk who works at the McDonald’s. He was recently promoted to work as a cashier. He only works part time. I wondered if he enjoyed his job. I don’t know for sure first hand, but his roommate speculated that he liked it because it made good money. So. I had to ask. How much money does a McDonald’s employee in Belarus make? The answer was very interesting.

According to my friend, if a person starts working full time at McDonald’s, on the lowest rung of job opportunities, say, the janitor… full time work will pay them $300 a month.

This is shocking. Well, $300 is practically nothing by American standards. Rent on a single apartment will probably cost you at least $500 in my city back in the States, so $300 would not even cover your basic rent expense each month. But in Belarus, economy is of course much different, and thus so is cost of living. Did you know that this McDonald’s employee would earn more money than a full time teacher? Not only that, but most likely, this McDonald’s employee would earn more money than most full time professions for the average worker in Belarus! The McDonald’s employee would certainly make more money than either of my roommates, who have university degrees.

So there you have it. Belarusians could make a decent living by working as a janitor at McD’s. Not just decent, but better than most. And they don’t even need higher education.

convenient cages

I love the smell of toasted brown bread. Mmm.

The joys of apartment living: hearing other people’s arguments.

I saw the sun today. It is becoming a rarity so I feel like I should note every time it happens.

I saw a little 8 or 9-year-old girl riding the same bus as me the other day. She struck me because she looked like she could have been an American girl. I say this because nowadays, kids in the States are incredibly fashionable at a young age. (I think back to when I was in elementary school, and remember the fashion conscious bug really didn’t hit me until the 6th grade, and then I really didn’t go anything about it until 8th or 9th grade. I didn’t really pay attention to it until I realized other people around me did.) This particular little girl had a pink and grey backpack, which matched her pink and grey socks peeking out from under her skirt and tall boots. She also had a matching pink glitter hair tie. To top if off, she had a striped pink scarf. This girl was cute. There was, however, one dead give away that she couldn’t be American, and was actually Belarusian: she was carrying a plastic bag with her. If you take a quick survey of people on the public transportation, you can easily see that 90% of the people riding the bus or metro are carrying a plastic bag. It may hold their groceries, their schoolbooks, their work or important papers, their umbrella, … who knows. But everyone seems to carry them - men, women, elderly, working class, students, and kids alike. (Not me.)

I was talking to my roommate the other day. We were talking about transportation. In Minsk, there are many cars, but most people use buses, trams, trolleys, and metro. Of course this is in stark contrast to how most Americans get around, mainly by car and only by public transportation if they live in a big city. Even then, people often drive first to their stop to get the train into the city if they don’t actually live in the center. My roommate shared about her friend in Minsk who bought and started driving a car in the past year. Apparently, she has begun missing public transportation. She misses seeing all the people.

I wondered whether any Americans would be able to relate to this… would anyone actually prefer to give up their car, which affords them convenience, privacy, comfortability, freedom, complete control over temperature, music, speed… and choose to deal with the inconvenience of waiting for and catching buses, standing for long periods of time, being surrounded and at times squashed by other people, often feeling cold from the continual drafts coming through the opening and shutting doors, being at the complete mercy of the driver and the traffic that day…? It seems very unlikely to me that any American would rather choose this. But this is also because we have grown so accustomed and reliant on our cars. We don’t even really carpool anymore. Spouses rarely share a car. Work partners rarely travel together. But over here, people are not used to having their own space, their own privacy, in their vehicles. So now, some people who have experienced this convenience are longing for the people that are absent from their personal automobile. They miss the interaction and the connection to their people, their neighbors you could say.

So my roommate concluded that she doesn’t think she could ever live in America. She says that for her, as well as her friend, she likes the metro and the buses. Her favorite part of the day is taking public transportation.

Something in me doesn’t fully “get it.” I suppose it has something to do with the fact that I’m American and I love driving… But part of me also dreams of giving up my car and just biking everywhere. I don’t, notice, dream of giving up my car and taking public buses everywhere.

I now have to wonder and ask and push the question, are we as Americans missing out on something by leading our lives the way we do, or, in the words penned by my favorite band, “do we know what life is outside of our convenient Lexus cages”? Is there something “Gone” that needs to be regained?

russians like rum

Russians love their vodka. This is a well known fact. Though of course, they also like cheap beer, the other drink of choice for alcholics over here. But they also like rum.

My Russian friends have passed on a recipe for an extremely tasty mixed drink that I personally never heard of (that’s not saying much, though). I was told it was awesome, but I probably won’t get a chance to make one while I’ve over here. So if someone else wants to try it, you can let me know how it turns out. Unfortunately all I can give you is the ingredient list; I have no idea about the proportions. But I’m sure you can have some fun with trial and error.

"Mahita"
Brown Sugar
Lime
Mint
Sprite
Rum
Crushed Ice

verses out of rhythm

These days I find myself walking the autumnal streets with a smidge of melancholy and wistfulness in my spirit. I feel like singing Simon & Garfunkel. Not only that, I feel like I’m dwelling and living out their songs. Every moment in this season and weather and place makes me want to dance at a Scarborough Fair… gives me the sense that darkness is my old friend… calls me to lie down like a bridge over my troubled waters… finds me wishing I was homeward bound to someone who would comfort me… and loses me in a dangling conversation… and I sometimes get the sense as I gaze from my window to the streets below that I am a rock and an island. (Because I have plenty of books to protect me…)

Oh, what melancholy. There’s beauty in the melancholy, but these songs are but a fitting foil for the greater beauty of the reality and truth of hope and joy itself. Inexpressible and glorious it is.

groceries

Planning for two meals this week: 30 minutes
Shopping – for the very first time by myself! – at the large indoor/outdoor public Komarovsky Market: 40 minutes
One bag of celery: $4
One avocado: $3
Four potatoes: $.40
One bunch of green onions: $.50
Three white onions: $.40
One small packet of walnuts: $1.50
One garlic piece: $.25
Five tomatoes: $1.50
One head of broccoli: $1.25
One head of cabbage: $.75
Time spent carrying these groceries in my messenger bag, in the rain: 2.5 hours
Time preparing soup and salad at home: 2 hours
Time spent cleaning up: 30 minutes
Time it is now: 23:11

Time it took to get this posted: 20+ minutes
Time for bed. Phew!

of Belarusian-ness and orphans

I am eating a cabbage carrot soup. I feel very Belarusian.

The leaves are falling left and right. Winter is almost here.

I won at speed scrabble the other night after 5 rounds of playing. My best word was “nascent.” I love that word.

I actually found a spelling mistake in someone else’s writing, which my 4 Belarusian friends failed to notice. The reason this is a big deal is because it was in Russian. Go me!

I visited an orphanage on Tuesday. Met a really interesting fella from Washington state who has been working at this orphanage for a while. He goes out to the fields with them in the mornings when they dig up beets and potatoes. He takes them to town to buy school supplies and toiletries out of his own pocket. He goes into the halls for every class break to hug the kids and walk with them for their extra 5 minutes. We visited with a lot of different kids. In one classroom they were making cards out of construction paper. All of their cards had hearts on them. A second classroom was full of newcomers. The boys all had shaved heads because of lice, and the one girl also had shortened hair for the same reason. They all had the same clothes on. While we were there they were painting the tables while the kids were still in the room for class time and it smelled awful. A third class was the oldest bunch of kids. Without having to be asked, they all simultaneously rose to their feet the moment we entered the room. A few of the girls in that class were amazingly beautiful. They could be models. But instead they are orphans. I remember one girl, Lera, had a particularly joyful countenance. She was always smiling.

Each orphan has his or her own story. How they got to be in this place. Most of them are tragic. Some still have parents, but their parents have either rejected them or are incapable of caring for them. Most of them that can’t care for them are alcoholics. Some mothers wanted an abortion and just drank and drank and drank in hopes of miscarrying… but the child was still born, and now suffers with the effects. One child witnessed one parent stabbing another. Another was put in an oven by her mother for a minute or more and still has awful raisin-like scars all along her right side of her body, and a badly mangled ear. The stories will break your heart.
They break mine.

foreigners on foreign territory in a foreign land

I photographed a little kid from Nigeria, playing the piano on American territory in the country of Belarus. All those overlaps in culture make me smile. My fellowship here was invited to the ambassador’s house for a picnic. It was a windy, rainy, cold picnic. We also got a tour of the downstairs of the house. Apparently, the residence is considered American soil. So. Lots of Belarusians that day got to visit America visa-free. We had lots of fun jokes about that.

There is this really good melon here that comes from Kazakhstan. Sort of like a cantaloupe, except more elongated/larger, and white inside. It is really yummy. I’ve been munching on some the past two days.

Last night I was sleeping in my bed with at least 5 or 6 coverings (sheets and blankets.) I was wearing flannel pants and socks. I was still cold. Something is wrong with this picture. (Granted, the heat isn’t turned on in my building yet, and my windows leak cold air very badly from the chilly balcony, where it takes clothes at least 24 hours to dry.)

I don’t want to, but I think I will be starting Russian classes tomorrow. I don’t want to only because I have this weird new kid complex. I hate being the new kid. I always hated when school started back. The first week was the one I looked the most forward to being over. You’d think I’d be done with the new kid complex now, but no, I’m 25 and feel like I’m perpetually the new kid, and I don’t like it.

Still digging Stavesacre. Also been listening to Sinatra and The Fray.

changes.

A few changes in the city…
There is finally a dome on the church/monastery being built at the end of the road by my apartment. It still looks far from being completed.

Work on a new metro stop is still underway. I don’t expect it to open while I’m here.

There is at least one new pizza place downtown that I’ll have to check out soon.

Metro and bus fares have increased by 100 roubles for adults and 50 roubles for students. So that is about 4.7 cents and 2.3 cents respectively.

I will have a new Russian teacher this year. A guy named Nikolai Nikolaevich.

It now takes me 18 minutes to walk to the metro. Last year it took me about 12. But I also have the option of taking a bus for 4 or 5 stops whereas last year no convenient bus was available to take me to the metro. While the weather is nice (above freezing) I’m trying to walk and not take the bus.

I have two roommates this year. One of the girls doesn’t speak English. At all. I think it’s splendid. Apartment life is, overall, splendid.

What is less-than-splendid is the seemingly-non-stop disco party going on somewhere below me in my apartment building. I can hear the disco beats at most hours of the day. Mercifully I don’t hear it at night. Like last year, I also have a smoker somewhere nearby in my building. It always wafts in through the vents in the evening. Most people in Minsk smoke, in general.

My soundtrack of choice for the day has been Project 86 and Stavesacre.

sunset on saturday.

first week ramblings.

I saw a young girl, perhaps 9 or 10 years old, riding the metro this evening by herself. I wondered what it would be like to be a kid using public transportation in a city of 2 million people in the evening without a parent, guardian, or older sibling to watch out for you. I am pretty sure I was never allowed to wander the streets of my suburb even by myself. I always had my sister or my best friend across the street to walk to the bus stop with. And if it was bad weather, my mom would drive me. I didn’t have a lot of opportunity to be independent when I was younger. I don’t think I learned how to be independent until I started to drive. I wondered, does this young girl enjoy being out in the city? Or was she scared to be out by herself? Was it a highlight to her day, or did she dread it and only felt a sigh of relief after she walked in the door to her home?

I sometimes step back and evaluate how I feel as I move about and live in this big eastern European city. I find myself doing a lot of things independently, on my own, more than I would in the States. My alone time in the States is usually in the car, as I drive around. Even when I have errands to run, a lot of times I have company, or as is often the case, a lot of errands can just be done at home, either by phone or the internet – paying bills, ordering a new CD or book, etc. In Minsk, I feel a lot more solitary. Now that I am going to start back with classes, I also am faced with a more solitary aspect of life. Last year I had several American friends in class with. We’d hang out on breaks together, go get tea or a snack together, hang out after class, grab lunch, etc. This year it will be harder for me… I probably will have about 10 Turkish guys in my class and no Americans. Broken Russian will be our only common language. I just can’t see myself hanging out in the same way with a bunch of guys who are in Belarus just to find a Belarussian wife. Ok, I better not stereotype. But saying most feel this way is pretty safe. Just sayin’. It also takes me longer to get to school. Yes, I have roommates now, but they are also hardly at home. So usually I am traveling 45 minutes by foot/bus/metro/foot again by myself. I people watch until I realize that most people are watching me. Then its just awkward to stare back… More often than not, I keep my iPod going so as not to get bored. I am afraid to read and miss my metro or bus stop, so I rarely do that. When I read I usually get in a zone. So life is a bit solitary.

And yet, you’d wonder, do I feel unsafe? After all, a young gal like myself, walking around alone, a foreigner and it being obvious to everyone around me that I am a foreigner seem like prime conditions to be taken advantage of. Yes, last year I had my wallet stolen off my person. But I am pretty sure a woman did it, and she did it on a very crowded bus where you have to let go of any desire to retain personal space. The weird thing is, I actually feel much more safe walking the streets of Minsk than I would the streets of America. There is crime in America. There is very little crime in Belarus. The only thing I worry about is drunkards. At night there are plenty. But, again, they’ve never actually bothered me. Sure, their drunken state bothers me, it bothers me that they leave beer bottles lying all over the streets, broken beer bottle glass in the elevators to step on, etc. But they never talk to me. Never hassle me. I’m bothered internally but not externally.

I’m a people person and like having people around me. I like having company. Unlike my friend Rand, I don’t have one or two or twelve orphan kids hanging around me 24/7. I don’t have my own car to drive in the city. So, in a way, it’s a little melancholy for me in this way, very un-Kristi to be by myself a lot of the time, riding the public transportation, surviving on my rusty Russian. But if I were to be solitary in this way here or in the States, I guess maybe I’d rather it be here.

******

Yesterday I carried my new travel French press around town, filled with some very yummy Coffee Times coffee. Let me just say, people were ALREADY going to stare at me because of my bright white new tennis shoes I got for running, and because I don’t look Belarusian, so I decided, what the heck, I don’t care. But having a travel coffee mug and taking it on the metro of all places DEFINITELY was a magnet for stares. I’ve been more annoyed by the staring this year than last. People, just get over it. Americans are really not THAT much more exciting.

******

We had small worms invade our kitchen cabinets. They even ate their way through some of the Ziplocs. Yuck. Not to mention, I’ve seen at least one cockroach climbing the shower wall. We also are hamster-sitting. So there are critters. Out and about.

******

Summer left. Took off. I saw it for a brief few hours the afternoon I flew in. The next day and every day since has been chilly. 15 to 18 degrees Celsius. Which is like 59-65 degrees Fahrenheit. Fall is here. I can’t wear short sleeves without a long sleeve shirt underneath or a jacket over top. Flip-flops are a no-go outside my building. Sigh. As I know from experience, fall also doesn’t last long. Winter will be here by October.

******

I’m ashamed to admit it, but I’ve already been to McDonald’s once. I do, however, have a good reason! I hadn’t seen my friend Rand yet, and so yesterday (Monday) he finally stopped by my apartment…. Around 8pm. We decided to get a late dinner. We went to Minsk’s new-ish underground mall, stalitza. There was a small café, called the Sun Café, that we went to for pizza. Rand, one of his orphans Sasha, and me. We’re talking in English most of the time. We order food. Rand gets a phone call. I’m zoning out, and tired. (Jet lag this time around has been rough.) While he’s on the phone, the waitress informs us that something we ordered is not available. That much I got. So Rand gets off the phone, and we re-order something for Sasha. We thought that was it. She brings our drinks. We wait 20 minutes. She brings Sasha’s food. We wait 10 minutes. She brings the check. No food for us. Finally I tell Rand I wasn’t really listening to her before, and he was on the phone and distracted, so we ask Sasha, what did the waitress say? He informs us there was no pizza for us. WELL. Wish we had been smart enough to think to ask Sasha sooner. So. Still hadn’t eaten and it’s 10pm. Where are we going to go? Yep. McDonalds. By this point I wasn’t that hungry. So we got McFlurries. Mine had raspberry flavoring in it and it was pretty yum.
That night I also gave Rand an Ale-8-1 straight from my hometown of Lexington, Kentucky. It was only slightly flat, but even so… he was won over. Spreading the Ale-8 love one person, one city, one state, one country at a time…

enjoy.

hope you enjoy the new look. i was hard at work at it. :)

round 2.

I made it back to Belarus. Here's to round two - more russian, meeting new people, reconnecting with old, and the mystery of what's in store this time around!

alabama

you know you are in Alabama, the deep south, when...

...you step outside for 10 minutes and become mosquito meat, accumulating bites at a rate of more than 1 per 30 seconds. yes, this was my experience.

...the humidity in the air is actually visible, and might as well be tangible.

...you can't resist the smell of BBQ, and insist on eating BBQ for every meal. Or dreaming that you could eat it for every meal.

...you feel the need to say "ma'am" and "sir" every other word in the name of politeness.

...you can't help but slow down.

Bistro

The word "Bistro" is of course commonly attributed to the French - refering to all their small, quick, cute cafes where you can pick up a sandwich or coffee or the like which have been assimilated to some extent into our culture in the States. But I learned that this word is actually not French. It's Russian. The French adopted this word, however, after Russian cossacks were "inhabiting" their terrority during the time of Napoleon, and not being able to speak French, they simply shouted to the waitresses in Russian "быстро!" - [bwui-stra] - which is the Russian word for "quick! fast! hurry!" and thus... we have the butchered version "bistro."

Yea for history and language lessons. :)

The ebullient Russian word

"As a numberless multitude of churches and monasteries with their cupolas, domes, and crosses is scattered over holy, pious Russia, so a numberless multitude of tribes, generations, peoples also throngs, ripples, and rushes over the face of the earth. And each of these peoples, bearing within itself the pledge of its strength, filled with the creative capacity of the soul, with its own marked peculiarity and other gifts of God, is in an original fashion distinguished by its own word, which, whatever subject it may express, reflects in that expression a portion of its character. A knowledge of hearts and a wise comprehension of life resound in the word of the Briton; like a nimble fop the short-lived word of the Frenchman flashes and scatters; whimsically does the German contrive his lean, intelligent word, not accessible to all; but there is no word so sweeping, so pert, so bursting from beneath the very heart, so ebullient and vibrant with life, as an aptly spoken Russian word."

-Ch. 5, Dead Souls by Nikolai Gogol

wowza, it's HOT

I rolled out of bed at 7:15ish, after one particular kitty woke me up repeatedly since 5:15am... and I noticed the thermometer outside read... 29 degrees Celsius... !!! WOWZA!!! I was pleasantly astounded!

The only sad news was that the night before a friend's dog ate my flip flops, leaving me without shoes that allow for toe breathing. And my toes must breathe on such a day!! *sigh* I was resigned to wear my saucony's (usually not a resigned action, seeing as how they are some of my favorite shoes, but all the same... socks on a hot day is just not something to look forward to).

I did, however, spend about 4 hours walking around the city with a pal. This was after, mind you, I successfully ran various errands around the city by myself, which necessitated speaking in Russian, without internally freaking out. (Yes, this is big for me. ;) haha.) What a lovely day it was.

Today the city was celebrating the arrival of Iran's president. (No comment...)

I'm running again.

I've also realized I'm really not that much of a cat person. Infinitely prefer dogs. But a cat is still better than no living animal to have around...

Might be going to Russia soon... (sorry Lauren!) But I don't plan on shelling out any money to look at some dead freaky embalmed... ok you get my point...

I had a thought when I got on here, and well, ... it flew away somewhere... there's always next time I guess...

Belarusians don't discriminate against dandelions

I think it's splendid.

Things I miss about the States:
Hymns and all things PCA
Good coffee houses where you can stay for hours
Convenient and affordable places to buy clothes and shoes
Bookstores
(Usually) Friendly customer service
Freedom of driving/Ease of travel
Having a real spring
Variety of good restaurants and good beers
Running in parks and around town, and it being normal
Backyards
College sports

Things I don’t miss about the States:
Hollywood gossip
Rat race
Fixation on time and being busy, living by the clock
Spending gobs of money on gas
Extravagance
Fast food
Malls
Parking lots
Cost of living
Lackluster appreciation of the arts (by a majority of the populace)
The advertising industry

call for a poem

So I suggested that my Russian class read classic russian poems in class sometime. I guess I was nostalgic about senior language at St. John's... my Russian teacher like this idea, and then counter-proposed that I find a good English poem to translate into Russian and share with the class... oy! Not as easy.

So here is an open call for suggestions... I need a poem, preferably well known or written by someone well known, which was written originally in English, and is not too long or complicated... IOW, T.S. Eliot would probably be out.

Any suggestions? Oh yea, and I need to find the poem on the internet.... help!!

flowers!

In Belarus, I re-use teabags and matches. Plastic grocery bags also get at least 10 uses before having to be thrown away because of holes. Conservation and economy are more of a norm, and take on new levels over here.

I was walking to a friend's flat the other day and I passed by a young mother with her son, who was just at that age to be walking with the assistance of her hand. He was pointing at objects and saying what they were. He pointed and said (in russian) "Flowers!" His mother replied, "No, not flowers, it's a car." It made me smile.

I currently have a roommate named Evie, a little kitten. She is at the moment sitting on my lap, as I type.


She also likes to jump on high places, and occasionally, for her that can mean my head.

springing forward

We finally sprung forward with daylight savings time last night. I don't really know why we were about 3 weeks behind the States, or the States 3 weeks ahead of us, but so it goes. And the weather here has been very spring-like which has been simply wonderful.

Today was independence day in Belarus, marking their original independence that was pre-Soviet Union. However, it has only come to light as a celebration in Minsk recently because of certain political groups (i.e. not the government). Thus, there were peaceful demonstrations around the city, of which you can probably read about at www.charter97.org
I experienced a bit of inconvenience thanks to these demonstrations, but of course, it also was a bit interesting for me to witness. As I tried to leave church with 2 friends (1 thankfully was Belarussian), our bus was not allowed to stop to pick us up… because the bus would be driving by the central square where the demonstrations were planned. The metro stop at the center of the city also was shut down…. For the entire day… creating havoc when I had to switch metro lines and was unable to later that evening… Also, there were human and fence blockades on the sidewalks in about a 2-4 block radius around the center. Therefore, I had the experience of walking through hundreds of people (while also managing to get a photograph or two) carrying the old Belarus flag around, then had to walk 4-5 blocks away from the center, and then make a loop back to the main road… a nice 30 minute detour, that normally would’ve been a 5-10 minute walk on the main road. Several times police kept us from walking up certain streets (hence why I was thankful to have a Belarussian escort to find out where we COULD walk to get on the other side of the main city center). Overall, the day seemed a bit uneventful, and I don’t think there was much momentum for this protest. ((update: after perusing the above site, it seems there was quite a bit of momentum later in the day, and at different parts of the city. I simply did not manage to see very much from my end. the only way I would have seen much would have been by pushing my way through human blockades, and well, I wasn't about to do that for sure!! It also appears it was not totally peaceful, as force was used to restrain protesters.)) I did however manage to pass all of the ambassadors to Belarus - EU and American - strolling TOWARD the main square, accompanied by many reporters and photographers, right smack in front of the kgb building. I wondered if they were going to make a statement or something on this day, or wave their own former Belarus flag … ((they are also mentioned at the above site))

ladybug

I learned today that a "ladybug" is called in Russian something along the lines of "God's little cow."

Now, aren't you just so glad you stopped by my blog today to find out this little piece of information?? :)

frustrations, magic 8-balls, and saying hello to spring

Everyday can’t be “your” day. Yesterday was such a day for me. I lost my eyeglasses for about 20 panicked minutes shortly before 15 people were expected at my apartment. I accidentally dumped a glass of water all over my kitchen table – unknowingly – while my laptop sat on this same table, and soon I discovered that my laptop was SITTING in a puddle of water. My speakers disappeared for a while, and then were off and on for the rest of the day. (Now I think they’re fine.) Then I killed my shift key. While working on my computer at my desk, I accidentally knocked a photo frame off the shelf above it… and the corner landed right on the shift key and suddenly I heard POP and there flew the shift key off the keyboard. I had to perform emergency surgery, not knowing what the heck I was doing, and now I pray that it’s fixed and won’t decide to randomly fall off...

I’ve also learned that perhaps I need to take more cues from the Belarussians. I can imagine myself sitting with a magic 8-ball in my hands….

Question: Am I a stupid American?
Answer: It is decidedly so.

You see, the snow is wonderful. I love the snow. But when the temperature gets above freezing, there is this phenomenon known as “melting.” Then, not only is the snow no longer snow, but slush and water or even sludge, but it’s not pretty, and it is a trap for city dwellers… Because when you are walking along streets at night, with all this slush and water, you find yourself INEVITABLY walking through puddles, nay, veritable LAKES in the middle, er, taking up the entire width, of a given street…. So, why does stepping into these lakes of wet doom make me a stupid American? Well, you see, it’s because I wasn’t taking cues from the Belarussians. They have this “fashion style” (which I know now also comes from experience and wisdom) to wear their boots over or on top of their jeans. Being an American, I’ve never really done this, or never had boots that would be proper to do it with, and of course all my jeans have a boot or wide cut leg, making it difficult (and uncomfortable) to stuff all this extraneous material into your shoe… so generally, I just haven’t done it. I kept wearing my jeans over my boots. But then these past two days, I met the lakes disguised as harmless puddles, and suddenly found myself wading through water over and over again over the course of a 10 minute walk in my neighborhood. Well, it was nasty. My jeans were unhappy, as you can see. So maybe I should stop being so stubborn and start learning some practical tips for dealing with the unexpected perils in a winter wonderland…



p.s. Happy First Day of Spring. Well, at least Belarus celebrates the first day of spring as March 1st. Which makes no sense, since it's earlier than it is celebrated in the States, but Belarus is last to really experience spring-time weather. Maybe they just redefine spring to mean "lots of slush and rain and wind" instead of what I think of as spring, being, "sunny skies and blooming flowers."

spartacus

For the first time in my life, I went to see a ballet. (At least, the first time which I can really remember or have the ability to make a judgment of personal taste… I have a vague notion that I might have “seen” the Nutcracker in NYC, but if so, I was probably only 7 years old and I probably fell asleep…) There are a few certain cultural events that you must take part in or experience wherever you are, and I have realized that over here, these cultural musts can be narrowed down to: the circus, the opera, traditional dance, ballet. After tonight, all that remains is the opera.

The show was Spartacus. I am sure Plutarch had something to say about this guy, but I wouldn’t really know, I never got into Plutarch very much beyond required reading, and of what was required, I haven’t retained much (sadly). I wasn’t sure what I would think of ballet. I mean, I like to dance, but watching dance was another thing… and not just any dance, but ballet dance… I attended dance recitals of a friend in high school, and well, found those trying to sit through. So, tonight I wasn’t expecting too much; I was just looking to enjoy myself at something new for the evening. As it turned out, I became a sold fan. Granted, I could have really done just fine with 2 acts. The 3rd act was pushing it a bit for me onto the long side. Having that said, I was quite impressed. Musically, physically, aesthetically overall. I’ve heard that Romeo and Juliet tends to be one of the favorites around here, so I hope my next ballet will be to that one.

Also, as an aside, there is a verdant cultural texture and richness in the arts here in Minsk. I don’t think this is unusual for this part of the world. Ballet and opera and theater and concerts are attended regularly by everyone in the populace, so it seems. It isn’t just for the “artsy folks.” Everyone here enjoys this cultural, shall we say, tradition? Furthermore, there is a tremendous heritage of writers and poets. Many a street is named after poets and writers throughout this city. If you want your name to be on a street sign in Minsk, you better be a writer or a revolutionary. Up until recently, the main street running through the city center was named after a man who made a significant literary and religious contribution to this country, the man who translated the Bible into Belarussian language. Sadly, the name has been changed. But the secular poets and writers have retained their places in society, with street names and monuments, statues and busts.

national men's day

February 23rd is national army day. But then, it somehow was morphed into national men's day... the men all just claimed it as their own holiday. I unknowingly celebrated this day. I had made chocolate cupcakes and invited friends over, but then it was cool when I realized there was an actual occasion to share these cupcakes! But I think there is also some strategic planning of this holiday... because in about 2 weeks, there is a national women's day... so all the men who got treated so nicely on their day now feel obligated to do something for the women, when otherwise they might have been too lazy .... ;) At least, I am sure that is the logic behind the timing of these two holidays...

thanks

I can’t remember the last time I lived somewhere where it was snowing for multiple consecutive days. It snowed here for 5 days in a row, then the snow took a weekend off, and again this morning, it was snowing. The ground goes from white to brown to slush to ice and back to white… I am sure there has been over 6 inches of snowfall in the past week. It’s really quite lovely… I really love snow. If it’s going to be cold, I want there to be snow.


I had the chance to enjoy a Valentine’s “date” at McDonald’s for lunch today, but I turned it down. Well, I would have had to pay for myself anyway, and I didn’t have time, and it’s McDonald’s. So, no. No excitement on Valentine’s day.

I had a Reese’s peanut butter cup today. Oh-so-delectable!! The small joys from America are worth noting.

Belarussians don’t get baked potatoes. They don’t eat them like that. They don’t cook them like that. It’s a new concept for them. They do however like drinks made from birch sap…

I had the opportunity to thank someone this past week for doing something that changed my life forever. I’ve thought about, off and on for several years now, this girl I knew when I was in seventh grade. She was the first person to share with me about who Jesus is. Not that I believed her, or the truth she spoke of, then. I moved and we lost touch. But later, it was her sharing that propelled me to investigate truth for myself. It was her sharing that propelled me into a life that follows after Him who is Truth. So it’s been on my mind and heart to track her down and give thanks. But I had no idea how this would ever happen…. yet thanks to one of those annoying social networking websites that I like to gripe about… I stumbled upon her. So now I can’t gripe about them too much, but thank them. I was able to express in writing what a difference her words and life made in my life, over 11 years ago. What was even more awesome was when she thanked me for expressing my thanksgiving, because it came at a time when she needed encouragement like that. Being thankful people is an awesome command of our Dad. It glorifies Him, yes, and it’s also a privilege to give thanks to people too. So, thanks Dad, for letting me participate in thanksgiving, and for reconnecting with a girl whose life intersected with mine for less than a year – a brief time, but a revolutionary time.

lately

lately i've been embarassing myself by pretending i can rap in russian. on video.

lately i've been learning about the Old Testament, and even had to write two papers based on the OT!!

lately i've been procrastinating from doing russian homework, cuz i don't understand it anyway....

lately i've been listening to music in ukrainian.... which i also don't understand much of....

lately i found myself spending nearly 16 consecutive hours on trains. ugh.

lately i've been enjoying some new snow boots which are quite handy with the recent weather... since i've lately noticed that people in Belarus are not that concerned about shoveling the snow.

lately i've been living in the moment. i don't want to miss the goodness that is enveloped in the now.

lately i've been thinking that i am in exactly the right place at the right time.

lately i've been embracing the mystery in life.

numbers

Half an hour in transit to my university. Three hours of Russian class. One chocolate bar consumed. One hour of walking and praying through the city. Two hours of business meeting. 2 pieces of pizza enjoyed – complete with red pepper, pepperoni, mystery green sauce, and eggs as toppings. One hour editing English grammar for a friend. One letter written to the dean of my university, entirely in Russian. Night sky already out by 4:50pm. Another half hour in transit back to my apartment. 37,210 roubles spent at the grocery store. 40 minutes chopping cabbage, pepper, onion for a new salad recipe. One sinkful of dishes washed. One massive spider squashed. One wet bathroom floor mopped. A third of a bag of pelmini consumed (a yummy Belarussian food). One cup of vanilla green chai being drunk slowly. An hour navigating through my Russian homework – I’ve taken 37 pages of notes since January 3rd. Four SMS messages received, three SMS messages written. One great smell permeating my apartment: white chocolate mint (yankee candle). Listening to the Dixie Chicks, Dar Williams, and the Cure. At least 30 minutes on the internet, and a guaranteed two or three more hours until my head hits the pillow. All in a good day’s work. And now only 3 days until I drive to Lithuania for 10 days.

For one of the first times I can remember, I encountered a friendly grocery store worker.

I miss being able to buy a head of lettuce. I’m having to learn to like cabbage. Sigh.

I miss wi-fi. Dial-up is not my cup of tea.

I say “oy!” a lot, and can’t for the life of me think of what I used to say instead of “oy!” Oops? Shoot? Dang? Whoops? UGH? But I like the “oy.”

egypt details...

Some people have been asking about Egypt, so I’ll give a little more info about all the fun experiences I had…

I won’t lie, I was pretty depressed in December! I just saw the departure of many wonderful American friends shortly after Thanksgiving, and I was feeling their absence, and the impending reality of a very windy and cold winter was all the more saddening… So getting away to a more southern, sunny, and warm locale was the goal. One of my friends was also a willing companion for a travel, and thanks to a generous donation from generous and loving people, the possibility of Egypt was soon a reality… Why Egypt, per se, you may ask?? Well, there is this “little” problem that all my Belarussian friends have with obtaining visas…. And Egypt is one of the few countries that does not present this big obstacle…

I generally am not a huge fan of beaches. I would prefer hiking or more active sight-seeing. But this trip afforded the best of both worlds for me. Vegging beachside and touring. We went to Sharm-El-Sheikh, which is on the shore of the Red Sea, on the east side that faces Saudia Arabia. It is a famous snorkeling spot for all the fish and corals. I had the opportunity to snorkel in about 3 or 4 different locations, and the variety of corals and fish I saw was simply spectacular. But after a few days of lounging on the beach, suntanning and what-not, we took the first of three excursions to Mt. Sinai. We took a bus about 2 hours to the mountain base, and arrived around 1:30am. We began hiking in this pitch blackness, having only flashlights and the breathtaking starlit sky above as our guides. We would stop for breaks every 30-60 minutes, and finally arrived near the summit around 5am. We had to wait until 6am for the sun to rise, and we enjoyed the spectacular view. Hiking up Mt. Sinai gave me a lot of opportunity to think about Moses and what it must have been like for him and the Israelites in this wilderness of Egypt… It is a wilderness that is simultaneously breaktaking and frightening… frightening because you have to wonder, what did they eat? How did they manage wandering in such a place for so many years?? It is secluded, barren, rocky, dry, dusty. It is lonely. After the hike up, we took a rocky stair climb down to the base again, and visited the monastery where supposedly THE Burning Bush has been transplanted and thriving since Biblical times. Who knows. But the monastery was the oldest Orthodox monastery in the world. I think. It was quite lovely.

The second excursion we enjoyed was to Cairo. Cairo is a city of 21 million people. Pretty amazing. It is huge, hazy, old, dirty. You can see people driving cars, riding bicycles, riding horses, or driving carts pulled by donkeys in the city streets. On the street where their President lives there are hordes of military personnel on guard at all times. They tended to stand at attention in clusters of three. In Cairo, we visited the over 100 year old Egyptian Museum. The highlight for me was seeing up close and in person all the gold, jewelry, and ornate coffins (sarcophaguses?) that were excavated from King Tut’s tomb. I had seen pictures and read so much in elementary and middle school about King Tut, and then suddenly, the things I had only seen in books from childhood were within sight, only a foot away behind glass. Everything was truly impressive. After the museum, we sampled scents of perfumes made locally. Then we headed to a papyrus museum and learned how they made papyrus paper. Of course, we also drove out to Giza and enjoyed time walking around, taking in, and photographing the pyramids and the sphinx. And yes, they are massive. They were as large as I expected them to be, and were not a disappointment. The amazing thing is to see the Bedouins dwelling in a complete desert on the other side of the pyramids. On the one side, a big growing city of Giza, and on the opposite side, nothing but desert wilderness and camels and their Bedouin owners…

The third excursion we went on was an off-roading adventure through the desert of the Sinai peninsula. We went north, stopped in the middle of nowhere – literally it seemed – to have tea with some of the Bedouin desert dwellers. They were constantly trying to sell you something and the children would look for an easy handout from the tourists. Our off-roading eventually led us to the shores of the Red Sea again, where we enjoyed lunch in a Beduoin hut on the beach, snorkeled in the beautiful waters, and then continued on our way by camel. Yes, for nearly an hour, I rode a tall, slow moving camel (and no, I never spotted a spitting camel…), ambling among the water’s shore within sight of Saudia Arabia, and navigating through small rocky overpasses. The camel ride gave me a lot of time to photograph some awesome views of sea and sky and local kids helping us lead our camels along on our way. After an hour, I also realized that riding camels can be a very uncomfortable experience and my realization was enforced all the more when large bruises showed up on my legs from the uncomfortable “saddle” I had to sit on for the entire ride. Eventually, we got back into jeeps and headed to the city of Dahab. There we snorkeled in the one of the more famous spots, the Blue Hole. It was a spot where the corals were the height of two story buildings at least, and surrounded you on all sides, leaving you a pillar of water in the middle to swim in while soaking in the beauty and peacefulness of the marine world.

Of course, our trip could not have been complete without many interesting Egyptian men eager to befriend foreign women. Every Egyptian man I talked to was simply shocked I was American. I would speak half Russian, half English with them, because most people I was in contact with spoke Russian and not English. My tour guide up Mt. Sinai heard me speaking English all of a sudden, and asked me, where did I learn to have such good English? I said, you know, I lived in the States for 24 years… He was shocked. Did I study there? What did I do there? And I replied, well, you know, I’m an American citizen… I was born there and lived there nearly my whole life… (hahaha.) It was a funny little joke.

music and virtue

I’m savoring some limited edition Ghirardelli peppermint bark chocolate right now… oy! So delectable.

As I am away from the States right now, I’m coming to see why there are a lot of people who find us… really irritating. I thought I knew why before coming to Belarus, but… I’m getting a different perspective just by the sheer fact of having my dwelling place geographically located somewhere else… I’ve had to think about the things I value and why I value them… and where to make the distinction before a standard of goodness and personal preference or even inculcated or acculturated predispositions. Ah, yes, I find myself dancing around the timeless question, what is virtue?...

I hung out with a few girls last night. I was sharing some of my music with them. I was shocked… They had never heard of bands that I thought would be well known by now in most parts of the world, including Eastern Europe… like Dave Matthews Band. Counting Crows. Smashing Pumpkins. Barenaked Ladies. Moby. Simon and Garfunkel. Lauryn Hill. The Cure. Dashboard Confessional. B.B. King. Switchfoot. Frank Sinatra. Nope. Never heard of them. Granted, I wouldn’t have been shocked if 2 or 3 of those I just listed they didn’t know… I am sure many people in the States don’t know some of those groups. But to not know ANY of those 12 groups/singers was the bit that really astounded me. (I guess by now I should know that I shouldn’t have been shocked about such things in Belarus…)

They had heard, however, of U2 and the Cranberries, probably because they are European bands and not American bands… Though to their credit, they did know a few American singers and groups… namely, Lifehouse, Norah Jones,…

january 5

I have a building cat. He kind of reminds me of a tabby cat, but then if I were to try to define what I tabby cat is off the top of my head, I'd be stumped. Today I talked to the building cat in Russian. I've discovered that several residents in my part of the building feed this cat. My neighbor across the hall likes to leave whole fish and fish heads on the floor outside his door for the cat to eat. Oh-so-lovely.

2007 is predicted to be one of the warmest years Minsk has ever seen. Lucky me! Though, I wish there were snow. It makes things so much more beautiful and peaceful, and then I forget about the cold and the harsh, blowing wind.

I went shopping on December 30th at the largest grocery store near my house with a friend. When I say largest, think small. MAYBE a FIFTH of the size of a Kroger… and only the grocery section of a Kroger… still, with five or six aisles, it's impressive. It was like Black Friday at the market; in summation, it was insane. New Years is the biggest holiday for Belarussians, so everyone in the neighborhood was shopping the same time I was. While there, I even ran into another friend, shopping the same time, and thereby keeping my theory alive that there really was the WHOLE neighborhood there. And by neighborhood, don't go thinking about a "subdivision of houses" in the U.S. Think of about 5 square blocks that are packed with 5-15 story apartment buildings… Maybe you can imagine… To top it off, the power in the grocery store went off FOUR times in a span of 10 minutes. And of course, without power, there are no cash registers. So the lines were doubly insane. Where else could I have such wonderful and interesting experiences??

I'm planning a Star Wars movie marathon with some of my friends. I have Belarussian friends who have never seen Star Wars, which is a travesty that should be remedied immediately... I haven't had a Star Wars movie marathon since… 2001... I think... As I remember, only 2 other brave souls besides myself stayed the whole time, watching 4 of the movies, which was all we had then. Even then, I was the only one who remained awake to the last minute… What can I say?... That makes me… stupid or hard core. ;)

happy new year

Let’s see, where did I leave off?...

Life brought me to the Ukraine, then Egypt, and then back to eastern europe in time for 2007.

Belarussians are blunt people. It is a long standing observation of mine, but I don’t think I have ever commented on it. It makes me think about communication in general, and what can be "standards" of, say, polite, good, or gentle speech, if there can be. At first I thought the bluntness, sometimes which even feels harsh or rude to my american self, was just a result of the language barrier, politeness being lost in translation,... but I have since realized this is just how they are, or just how Russian language itself is built. It has been an adjustment, whether conscious or not, since I’ve arrived. So when I do encounter belarussians who seem very polite or kind, I find myself really struck by it, and really appreciative, when perhaps I would have taken it for granted otherwise, elsewhere...

So the new year… {long babbling play-by-play follows…}
I had an awesome celebration in true Belarussian fashion. Ten of us gathered at my friend’s apartment at around 7:30pm new year’s eve. I had prepared cracker-coated baked chicken and brownies. We enjoyed a huge meal, which meant I tried traditional Belarussian new year’s food, like mushrooms and fish salads, in addition to more American fare, like my chicken and BBQ ribs, with Tony Roma’s sauce even! After stuffing ourselves, we played a few games which resulted in so much laughter that I swear I had to have lost all the weight I had just gained from dinner by the end of the fun. Around 11:30pm, we all turned off the lights, except for their little “yoluchka tree” (new year’s tree), and prayed about the past year with many praises and much thanksgiving together. Then, at about five minutes before midnight, we turned on the TV to hear the president give his “new year” greetings. After midnight passed you could hear fireworks being set off in the streets and parking lots in the middle of the apartment buildings. But we went back to praying, this time for the upcoming year. By now, it was close to 12:45, and we all rushed to throw our coats on and run down outside, while carrying sparklers, to catch the metro out to the completely opposite side of the city by 1:30am to watch the city-wide fireworks display. We got on at the second metro stop of maybe 10, and it was already packed with people. The crowd was so bad and insane that we felt nothing but sheer hilarity about it. Getting gum out of my purse became a real challenge… and soon, even standing up was painful. Of course, you couldn’t move (or fall) anywhere, because everyone was nearly suffocating by everyone else packed around them! The police had to keep people from getting on the metro cars at the following stops. By the 4th stop, everyone inside the metro was shouting to those on the platform to take a taxi, or they would reassure the bystanders that there would be a New Year next year, so they could just wait until then to see the fireworks…. I was squished in between my friends, and halfway falling on or jabbing with my elbow the people sitting down. When we reached our final destination, the mass of people exiting the metro was astounding. I would have grabbed my camera to capture it, but I think I would have been trampled in the effort and/or would not have even been able to GET my camera out of my bag to even take the shot. Maybe next year… Around a quarter of a million people were there to watch the fireworks, which lasted 20 minutes. Then we had to try to catch a bus back to our apartment, which took about an hour given the traffic jams. So by 3:15am, I was back at my friend’s apartment in time for dessert. I successfully converted several Belarussians to loving Reese’s pieces. We had cakes and torts and brownies and chai, and by 4:30am, everyone was simply exhausted, and the conversation was dying down. I headed “home” with my friend Krista, and finally went to sleep at 6am, just one hour before midnight EST. But New Year’s day proved to be just as fun as New Year’s eve. I made muffins at noon, and took them over on my “wake up call” errand at 1pm. I ended up hanging out with my 8 Belarussian friends again until 8pm, having leftovers, playing cards, watching some crazy Russian cartoons on TV, and having some good conversations in English and Russian.

So here I am… it is nearing January 2nd, 2007, and I’m looking forward to more relaxation before going back to class on Wednesday… and still brimming over with joy from the fun in the past 48 hours. 2007 is going to be a great year, I’ve decided…

Hope your new year’s was as merry and wonderful as mine! Any resolutions for the year? Share if you dare. :) (‘Cuz I’ll make sure to ask you about them next year!! ;))