Mi Casa!

This is the living room. You can see my bed to the left and my host-woman's bed to the right. And that's the television where I watched a bunch of American movies only dubbed in Russia with no English subtitles. I still don't really know what happens in Sherlock Holmes after watching it six times.


This is the kitchen, where pasta was never in short supply. I loved my host-woman, she knew how much I loved pasta and would always buy it for me. And I think on the table in this picture, she made this thing with summer squash and garlic with a little bit of mayo and some tomato salad thing, it was delish.


The kitchen leads to the balcony where I spent most of my time.I would stand here often watching people walk by and smoking cigarettes, trying to sort out my feelings toward this place, sometimes loving Russia, sometimes hating it.


And finally this is the view from my balcony.


Actually there were two balconies, but the other was reserved for drying clothes. I think I prefer clothes to be dried on a rack instead of a dryer--- it'd keep me from ruining my sweaters.

Зазеркалье

I know it's been about six months since I last touched this site, but I wanted to wrap up my experience a little before I forgot forever.

So the camp was the strangest thing ever. I was with the kids from 8am until midnight, then the counselors would have about 2- 3hour meetings afterward, translating to no sleep, ever. What made these meetings even better was that I didn't understand a single thing because I don't actually know Russian (I'm working on that still). So my friend, Sam, and I passed the time throwing ants onto each other and then eventually started skipping the meetings to swim in the river. We met so many characters at the river. We met a girl who took English in high school and insisted that we friend her on facebook, immediately. We met another person who was just chilling with a hedgehog. We ran into a party of people who gave us booze and we ended up making fun of each others' culture and accent. It's safe to assume that there is always a good time at the rechka (little river).

But the camp itself was intense. Filled with back to back games, activities, and skits. We played about three camp-wide games a day, which often meant that the counselors were running around in 100+ degree weather, while chasing or being chased by screaming Russian kids. My favorite and most terrifying game was the one in which us counselors were dressed in bones and antlers and were told to be deer. Then they released a horde of scary children on us. My deer instincts told me to run and I did, fast. I have scars from running through the brush at such speed and agility. I was terrified, more terrified then the night the all the Russians left the Americans in the woods after dark for about an hour. Cool, bros. But back to the story, these kids were scary. And I'm sad to say, they managed to gobble up my bones and antlers, leaving me panting on the stone ground, alone, begging for our local water, that was soon to be nicknamed grasnaya voda (dirty water due to it's color and odor).

I know I say these kids are scary, but they are truly far from it. They are passionate, intelligent, innovative, and simply amazing. Like for one game, the American counselors had to create tasks for the children to do and stick them into balloons. But to get the tasks out of the balloon, each team had to create a functioning bow and arrow. AND THEY DID. It blew my mind.



This is Misha taking a shot at a balloon. He was the best shooter in all the teams.



Here's another boy, named Misha as well, completing a blind portrait task.

This was the day before tragedy struck.

**I know I left a lot out and alluded to things that I really didn't explain here or elsewhere, but that would be a lot of text that I feel might bore you, plus I failed to take a lot of photos during the actual camp day **

Apocalypse

I believe it was Day 4 of camp, maybe 5, you lose track of time when you are in the magical world of Alice in Wonderland (the theme of the camp if you don't remember). I was finally getting used to the chaos of camp, this day already feeling calmer than the previous ones. It had just begun and I was leading an English lesson. We all noticed the smoke rising from the woods off in the distance, so I thought all things fire and smoke related would make for an appropriate topic for my students.

Then a babushka (old woman) with a megaphone interrupted my lesson, yelling to everyone to collect their belongings and head to the river, so we did. I wasn't taking this threat of a fire too seriously a) because I was in Russia and b) because these things don't actually happen. But then I should have realized when dealing with a, b never really matters.

I walked back to my room, took out my camera and collected some essential items, leaving a ton behind. This is the view from my housing.



We stopped to make sure, we had everyone.



Then we made our way to the river. Two of the boys from my group, they were secretly my favorite.

Then we each took turns crossing the river.



Once we were all together again on the bank, we were instructed to start walking on a path in a direction opposite from camp. This is when everyone realized that we weren't going back. I helped carry bags of kids overburdened with luggage.




Camp was over. The true impact of this didn't settle until we finally took a rest. The kids began to cry about how much fun they were having and that they were going to miss us. In this time of sadness, we broke code, finally revealing our real names, so that we could be friends on vkontake (aka Russian facebook).


We found a clearing and sat, waiting for cars to pick everyone up and drive them out of the woods to safety. So I sadly said my goodbyes, letting the kids go first, while I watched the sky grow darker.

Then it was finally my turn to leave. I hopped in the car and began to cry, not believing that this was the last time I would see everyone. The good-byes felt short and rushed, but I tried to distract myself, by watching the people and houses I passed. Right when I felt eyes dry, to my surprise everyone was being re-located to the same spot, so I cried again, happy to be re-united with everyone again. But still a general sense of sadness still loomed.

Some kids just sat by themselves waiting for parents or for the bus to arrive, to carry them safely back home, while others sat in the arms of others, hugging everyone they could find.




***I'm placing these photos sort of out of order, but you can tell- the darker the photo is, the longer we were standing there**

This boy was throwing rocks.


These two are another favorite from my group. They are extremely smart, had a great sense of humor, and spoke English pretty well, well, way better than my Russian. And like the boy, most of the kids had wet t-shirts that they wrapped around their face to protect from the smoke. Also, you can see the wall of smoke slowly take over the sky.


A Russian counselor, Anton (aka Piram), making calls to the children's family.


Sam and I's general attitude towards everything, even this forest fire.


The bus that saved us!


Right before I stepped on the bus, I snapped this photo of the sun.


What an unbelievable ending to the four or five longest, weirdest, funnest, most unbelievable days of my life. And right when I got used to everything, it ended.
That's Russia for you.