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!