Quick Random Notes …
January 31, 2007
* The Church in this picture was taken at Tutaev, an interesting village we visited. The town is situated on both sides of the Volga River, but it has no bridge. During the summer, townspeople cross the river by boat, but in winter, they have to drive to a bridge about an hour away, then drive back to the other side of town another hour! The people on the side of town we were on still live as they did in the 18th Century. They have no electricity and no running water. Wells & pumps are on the corners, and you can see the women there with their laundry baskets washing their clothes. To think that people live like this only 250 km from Moscow! But it was incredibly beautiful and scenic, and the people are happy. The streets are full of children playing with their skis and sleds. I loved this church! It looks like a big birthday cake standing majestically beside the river!
* The snow here in Yaroslavl is like sugar. It sparkles at night. It’s so fine you can’t even make a snowball with it! You just have to toss handfuls at each other, and it scatters in every direction!
* We took the kids at the Hospital for Kids outside Monday, a rare treat for them – it’s a burden for the staff to bundle them all up for winter weather, and some of the kids don’t have gloves at all, or shoes that fit. It’s sad to see some of the kids shuffling around in shoes that are a size or two too big. But the kids had a blast! This is the second time we’ve taken them outside and they love it. We brought some balls to play with too. Little Vanya was goofing around and nailed me right in the eye with a baseball! I mean, HARD! He told me he was sorry and I gave him a big hug. Next thing I knew, all the kids were telling me (in Russian) “I’m sorry.” Took me a second to figure out that they all wanted hugs too. (They got them, but I’m going to have to teach them that they don’t have to apologize to get a hug from me!) I was sure I’d have a black eye today, but thankfully, I don’t!
* Yesterday we got to work with the girls at the regular orphanage, and I hope we get to do it again! It was the first time volunteers have ever worked with the girls there. Until yesterday, this orphanage only allowed volunteers to work with the boys ages 5-7. But when we arrived to work with the boys yesterday, they all were “in drawing class” (despite our scheduled appointment), so Dascha talked the officials into letting us work with the girls. Today we worked with the boys again at that orphanage, and they’re delightful too. But working with the girls was kind of a big deal to us. It was a great success, and now we might get to work with the girls once a week and the boys once a week at that orphanage!
* The girls at the regular orphanage are grouped into family-type pods. So for example, a “pod” (my word) will consist of one girl each ages 5, 7, 9, 11 and 14. The boys seem to have a different structure. We work with five to eight boys at a time, all ages 5-7. They all have nice facilities, relatively speaking. The girls even had a computer. We’re puzzled by the boys’ indoor clothes: sort of thermal-underwear bottoms with feet and shorts over them. I should get Dascha to explain. We worked with one 5-year-old girl there yesterday who has four biological siblings at the same facility!
* Had a moment that took my breath away yesterday. We went to another little village called The Big Salt (won’t even try to write the Russian name of this village). We entered this charming little provincial church that’s notable because it actually remained open during the entire Soviet period. Well, we flung open the church doors only to be met with the most amazing, dazzling splendor (elaborate frescos, guilded icons, gold and silver fixtures) — and a young Russian Orthodox priest standing there to greet us in full Russian Orthodox robes and regalia. Flinging open those doors to be met with that sight will be a memory that lives with me forever. It was like being struck by lightening. The priest was one of the coolest people I’ve met here yet. He was in his 20s and looked like, in another place and time, he’d be driving a VW van and following the Grateful Dead from show to show. He was amazing. He personally gave us the tour of his church and actually asked us if it was OK if HE asked US questions. The priest, to my surprise, wanted to know about our perceptions of Islam and whether we perceived Islamic extremism to be a threat to our respective faiths. He was clearly very concerned about Islamic extremism threatening the Russian Orthodox faith just as the church is rebuilding and free to thrive and flourish now that the menaces it endured under the Soviets no longer exist. Another interesting thing the priest told me: He believes the Soviets allowed his church to remain open because it is surrounded by a cemetary. “Even the Soviets respected the dead,” he said. To mess with the church, they’d have to mess with the cemetery.
* We went to another church that the Soviets turned into a warehouse that is now being revitalized. It was heartbreaking. It was full of these magnificient 300-year-old frescoes, but the Soviets had scooped out big chunks of these masterpieces painted on the walls to put in shelving when they made it into a warehouse. (This is a common story and sight throughout the Golden Ring of Russia.)
* Top 2 things I miss (aside from my friends, family & pets): 1. A comfortable bed; 2. any vegetable besides cabbage, cuccumbers and beets . MY KINGDOM FOR SOME BROCCOLI! I’m really over the food here (except the chocolate and ice cream, which are excellent.
* Supemarket surprises: Tide detergent, Friskies cat food, Snickers & Milky Way bars, Halls’ cough drops, Lays potato chips. Black caviar: 37 rubles (less than $2). Red caviar is cheaper. We haven’t bought any yet, but we’re planning a caviar night. We’re amused by one particular candy bar: Nestle’s Chocolate For Men! (Seems like they’re marketing to the wrong gender, if ya ask me!)
* This weekend I’m going with three other volunteers to the towns of Vladymir and Suzdal, which are supposed to be especially beautiful. Look for pix here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/45027431@N00/.
“We Are Just Now Learning How To Live”
January 27, 2007
It takes less than two weeks of living here to begin comprehending why the Russian people are so tough.
Conventional wisdom says it’s the weather, and I’m sure that’s part of it. Winter blew into Yaroslavl about a week ago. When I arrived here the week of Jan. 15, there was a little dusting of snow on the ground, and temperatures were in the 30s. The Russians kept asking each other, “Where is winter?” (I, of course, could clearly see that winter was all around us — or so I thought!) Today the snow is ankle-deep, and the temperature is 0 degrees Farenheit. (Personally, I find it more comfortable than Atlanta in August!)
I’m sure such harsh weather does help a society develop a certain macho. But I’m gradually seing that, for the Russians, the challenges posed by the weather are just another drop in the bucket.
The service in our hotel restaurant has amazed us. Within seconds of pouring the last drop of water from a bottle or putting the fork down on an empty plate, it’s whisked away with startling efficiency. Some of the volunteers are trying to save water bottles for projects to do with the kids, but the waiters keep whisking them away before we can stop them. We’ve begun holding empty water bottles in our laps at mealtimes so the waiters can’t get them. It’s become a joke among us.
On Friday, one of our translators, Julia, was baffled to see us holding our water bottles in our laps at lunch. “We keep trying to save the water bottles, and the waiters keep taking them before we can stop them!” we giggled.
“Ahh,” she replied, nodding. “In Russia, we have a superstition. It is bad luck to have empty bottles on the table.”
It was a startling moment of comprehension for me. This is a country, I realized, where empty bottles on the table evoke painful memories in the national psyche. Too often and too recently, the tables of Russia were filled with empty bottles and devoid of full ones. It makes perfect sense that the people of this land, who have suffered so much in the last 70 years, would view empty bottles on the table as bad luck. How spoiled we are, I thought. How insensitive we are to be laughing at what we perceive as an obsessively efficent wait staff!
These “ah-hah!” moments have dotted my two weeks here like little pock marks. None are any more deliberate or premeditated than Julia’s offhand explanation. They’re just remarks and insights that pop out of the mouths of the Russians we meet here that, when taken together, start to illustrate in increasingly vivid colors the hardships the people of this country have endured.
During our orientation when we first arrived, our program director, Nadia, was teaching us about Russian money. Nadia is a young woman, I guess in her early to mid-30s. During her lesson, she mentioned that the ruble has bottomed out a number of times since the early 1990s. “When I was born, my parents began a savings account to give me when I became an adult. Every week for 18 years, they put a little money in this account. It grew into a very nice nest egg. Then, just as I turned 18, glastnost began and our Russian currency had no value. The money that my parents had saved for me every week for 18 years was worth nothing. I’ve never seen any of it.” She said this with all the emotion of somebody who’d just accidentally broken an egg, like this incident was just one of those unfortunate facts of life that happens sometimes. In Russia, everyone has such tales, even young people like Nadia.
Our second day here, we were given a tour of Yaroslavl by Irina, a lady in her 60s with an obvious passion for this town and for Russian history. She showed us City Hall, with the hammer & sickle still etched into the facade. “As a child, my school would bring us here on state holidays to participate in the demonstrations,” she told us. “You are all Americans. You have probably heard about such demonstrations that schoolchildren participated in during Soviet times.”
We corrected her: We are not all Americans, we said. Some of us are from Canada. Some of us are from England. Irina laughed and shook her head at us. “You don’t understand. You are all Westerners. To me, you are all Americans.” It’s a comment that’s disturbed me ever since. To me, such thinking shortchanges the accomplishments of other Western countries and puts an unfair burden on the U.S. But I understand what she meant: “You come from a land of luxury and freedom. You are all Americans.”
Last week, I was asked to work at a senior citizens center one day instead of at an orphanage. I didn’t want to, but I didn’t want to say no, so I went. The center asked us to bring nail polish to paint the ladies’ nails. They lined up in droves. They treated me like I was a professional manicurist. I was amused by how many of the elderly ladies chose opalescent green polish.
One lady sat down and began speaking effusively and enthusiastically as she presented me with her unpolished hands. I didn’t understand a word she said, but fortunately, my translator Dascha was nearby.
“She wants you to know that she’s never had her nails polished before. This is her first time,” Dascha said. The lady spoke some more as Dascha translated: “My daughters, they get manicures all the time. But I was born in 1941, and those were very hard years …” Her voice trailed off, but I understood what she didn’t say. It had taken her more than 50 years to allow herself to do something as frivolous as put polish on her nails.
I wish I could describe the look on that lady’s face when I finished painting her nails. You’d think I’d just given her a diamond ring. She just looked at her hands and beamed the rest of the time I was there. (I’ve since asked to go back there once a week. I really loved those people and their stories.)
The women here dress to the nines – their clothes are unbelievably gorgeous, and they take enormous pride in their wardrobes. They chase trams through ankle-deep snow wearing 4-inch stilletto heels. Every day the translators show up wearing a different fur coat, a new brocade scarf, a new pair of magnificent boots. Julia told me she has so many shoes and boots that she literally keeps some on top of her TV because she’s run out of closet space.
And our translators are typical — they’re just dressing like the other Russian women dress. Sitting on the tram is like sitting in Barbie’s closet. I feel like I’m living in Vogue magazine wearing a Hanes sweatsuit. (So do the other volunteers). My theory is that the women here dress so amazingly beautifully because, finally, they can.
We were astounded to learn at orientation that we are the only volunteers working in orphanages in Russia. “You have to understand,” Nadia told us, “that the people of Russia think you’re crazy. You want to come here on your vacation and work for no money and pay your own expenses? Why would anyone do that?
“We don’t yet understand the concept of feeling so fortunate that we want to give back. We only understand that, for many years, we were forced to work without pay. When I was a child, we’d have Saturdays when we’d all have to come to school and wash the walls and plant flowers or do whatever had to be done. It was our day off, we didn’t get paid, and it was mandatory. In college, there were days when we’d show up for class and instead of learning, they’d put us all in a truck and drive us to collective farms. We’d spend the day digging up potatoes and carrots instead of learning in the classroom. We didn’t get paid, and we didn’t have a choice.
“So yes, the people here think you are crazy. We don’t yet understand the concept of volunteering, but we will. We have existed for so many years, but we are just now learning how to live.”
Glenn & Julia. Note Julia’s elaborate fur coat, hat & purse – very typical of how Russian women dress daily.
City Hall where Irina and her classmates demonstrated on Soviet holidays. The hammer & sickle are still etched into the facade.
Click any photo to enlarge. To see more photos, click here. I’ve taken all these photos since I arrived but was having issues with the date stamp on my camera, so some have the wrong date. I think I’ve straightened out the problem now.
An Orphanage Lesson
January 21, 2007
Last week we had a lecture about the orphanage system in Russia, and it was fascinating. I thought I’d share my notes …
There are 700,000 orphans in Russia. 15,000 are adopted annually; 12,000 to 13,000 children are orphaned each year. In all of Russia, there are a total of 6 volunteers working in orphanages at this writing. I am one of them. Not even the Peace Corps is here. (More on volunteerism in Russia in a future post).
The U.S., Spain and Italy are the main sources of adoptive families. International adoptions became allowable in 1991. To adopt a child, you must come to Russia and meet with the child at least twice.
Economic conditions in Russia are starting to encourage foster care, but orphans bear some stigma here, so widespread foster care will require a shift in the society’s mindset.
There are three categories of orphans: (1) true orphans, who have no biological parents. (2) social orphans, which make up the largest group. Their families are unable to care for them, ususally due to alcoholism. Sometimes the babies are simply left at the hospital by the mother. (3) Temporary orphans. The parents are hospitalized or imprisoned or for some reason can’t care for the child for now. When the parents are released, they have 6 months to get their act together and claim their child. After 6 months, they lose their parental rights.
Perestroika created a big increase in the demand for orphanages. During Soviet times, everybody was poor but equal. Everybody was guarranteed a job and a place to live. There was some communal living with bad conditions, but nobody was homeless or unemployed. In fact, you were watched, and if you didn’t work, you were called into a public meeting and scolded and punished. Russians lived under that system for 70 years. When the Soviet system collapsed, there was no substitute for the rights to a job and a place to live. Post-Soviet life has been difficult economically, and when Russia went to a freer society, alcholism skyrocketed. (The most expensive bottle of vodka I’ve seen here costs less than $5. There are vodka stands on every street corner). Several new orphanages were created in Yaroslavl at this time, during the early 1990s.
How do children get placed into orphanages? (1) New mothers don’t take their babies home from hospitals. (2) Teachers notice a problem and report it. There is a whole subsystem within the Department of Education assigned to deal with neglected childen. (3) Relatives or neighbors report the problem to authorities. Often the child is 12 or 13 before anybody notices a problem and reports it, and by this time, the child is used to living an unstructured and independent life, and adjusting to the expectations and routines of orphanage life are very difficult.
All orphanages in Yaroslavl are owned by the government, but the orphanages still have financial needs. The money doesn’t cover everything, but it does cover salaries of caregivers and counselors; healthy and nutritious food for the kids including snacks; kids’ clothing and other items they’re supposed to have, like toothbrushes, etc. The kids generally go to public schools with regular kids, but one orphanage in Yaroslavl has its own school. That orphanage has 200 kids and the lowest success rate among children who leave the orphanage. Authorities believe the orphans benefit from seeing the habits of children with families: how they study, participate in class, groom themselves, etc.
All kids go to school starting at age 7, but if the orphanage psychologist thinks a child isn’t ready, he or she is held back. Kids cannot leave school before age 16. The orphanages have people to help kids do their homework, take them to museums and on field trips, provide art lessons, etc. Every orphanage has a doctor or a nurse on staff, and an isolation room for kids with contagious medical conditions. Orphans get some privileges, such as free admission to some cultural events. The kids have responsibilities at the orphanages, such as making up their beds and keeping their rooms clean.
Some common problems: (1) The kids aren’t exposed to family patterns and roles. One psychologist had kids in her orphanage draw a picture of a family and was shocked by what they drew: fish swimming, birds flying, or dark, cloudy, unidentifiable figures. The kids just didn’t know what a family was. (2) Underdeveloped work ethic. They’re used to everything being given to them and are unprepared to provide for themselves when they age out of the orphanage. (3) Practical difficulties of a place to live. Children own part of any property their parents have and have a right to live there when they age out of the system, but it’s often an impractical or unhealthy situation (see post, “First Days in the Orphanages.”). In the summer of 2006, a new program was implemented that provides aftercare and support to kids when they age out of orphanages — sort of coaching and counseling for coping with the real world during the first year or two after they leave. Upon outgrowing the orphanage, each child is given a nest egg of about $1,000.
Orphanages are sometimes dedicated to particular types of kids. For example, the Hospital for Kids where I work houses kids with mental and emotional problems and runaways from other orphanages. In Yaroslavl there is alsoa baby orphanage and a “musical orphanage,” which was originally founded for musically gifted orphans. Now it’s a general orphanage, but it still has a sophisticated music program.
A little about the social system in Russia: parents can enroll their kids in “kindergarten” – what we’d call nursery school, either at age 1 1/2 or age 3. Cost: about $150/month, including crafts, music lessons, a nap and three meals a day. The average salary in Yaroslavl is 8,000 rubles per month — about $300. Men retire at age 55; the average life expectancy of a Russian man is 56-57. The elderly are having an extremely tough time adapting to post-Soviet Russia. (We’ll learn more about this later.)
Q&A
January 21, 2007
A quick Q&A to some of the questions you are asking me.
Q: How can I send something for the orphans?
A: We don’t provide material or financial support to any of the organizations we work with. All we provide is our time and any supplies we want to use in our activities with the kids. The organization I’m with is based on the philosophy of assisting the kids (and others in the community) by relying on local resources. As volunteers, we get kicked out of the program for doing things like handing out candy or money. Those activities create a dependence on foreigners, according to the organization’s philosophy. When the foreigners leave, there is frustration that the goods they passed out are no longer available. Also, it creates internal conflict within the local organizations. For example, in India, a volunteer donated money to a women’s center, but the women argued about how to spend it with such fervor that the group disbanded. I was able to give the kids the rings that my cousin Lisa gave me (mentioned in an earlier entry) by using them in an art project. We talked about American Indians and made dreamcatchers, and the kids tied the rings to the ends of the dreamcatchers. Then we hung them up in the playroom. Some of those sly little devils went back and took the rings off their dreamcatchers and so they could wear them on their fingers!
Q: Why aren’t you taking photos?
A:I am! Click on this photo and you can see the photos I’ve taken – I was finally able to upload them! I’m not taking a camera into the orphanges, at least at this point, because I want to get to know the kids before I start walking around with a camera taking pictures. There are some culturally sensitive issues involved, and plus, I think it’s just a matter of being polite and respectful. And last but not least: I’m not a very experienced blogger! I’m still on a big learning curve when it comes to keeping this blog! I’m having a little difficulty learning to work with photos (and working with Internet Explorer in Cyrillic doesn’t make it any easier!).
Q: How’s the food?
A:Abundant! Our meals are included in the program, and the volunteers all eat together in the hotel restaurant. Every breakfast has yogurt, ham, cheese, bread, coffee, tea and either an egg dish, blini (Russian pancakes), or blintzes. Lunch is the biggest meal of the day in Russia: salad, soup, a main course and fruit. A typical lunch is chopped cucumbers and tomatoes with oil & vinegar, pea soup, chicken, rice and giant persimmons the size of oranges. A typical dinner is a chopped cabbage & carrots in oil and vinegar, chicken Kiev, mashed potatoes and ice cream.
It’s an enormous amount of food! On top of it all, the sweets here are unreal, especially the ice cream and the chocolate — better than the stuff we get at home!
Q: What is the hotel like?
A:Spartan but clean in a very middle class section of town. Each suite has an entry hall with two rooms on each side and a shared bath. I have my own room but share a suite/bathroom with Victoria and Debra – two adorable 21-year-old volunteers who are awesome! Victoria is from Sacremento; Debra is from Canada. They’re roommates but didn’t know each other before we came here. The room is clean. There is a twin bed (two in some rooms, like Victoria & Debra’s), a desk, an armoire, a TV. Victoria & Debra have a refrigerator. The windows open, which is handy, because it gets incredibly hot when the heat’s on full blast. The heat is centrally controlled from some black hole in the city. It’s either on or off in the whole town! It’s that way in all of Russia. The furnishings would be considered shabby by American standards, but they’re clean and the carpet is new. One of the biggest adjustments I’ve had to make is to the bedding. They don’t use sheets the way we do. They have a thick pallet on top of the mattress with a heavy wool blanket in a duvet cover attached, so you lay on the pallet rather than on the mattress – sort of like a sleeping bag on the mattress. Also, the pillows are square. I’m still not completely used to it.
Dima, Maxim, Pasha & Steven Spielberg
January 18, 2007
There is a boy we’ve been working with in the Hospital for Kids named Dima who has dazzled all of us. He’s older than the other kids – maybe 14 or so. He’s amazingly smart and sharp and creative. He happily participates in everything we plan and does a great job. He helps the other kids. He helps US when we need help. He’s just a darn cool kid. We keep asking ourselves, “Why is Dima here?” But Dima has been in our group for the 3 days we’ve been here.
Today when we were leaving, an amazing thing happened. We were all sitting on a bench changing into our outside shoes and coats, etc. We do this in an administrative area where the kids aren’t allowed. Well, Dima comes in and casually sits on the bench with us, fighting a grin. An administrator handed him his shoelaces, and he starts putting on his outside shoes with us as if he does this every day, ignoring our curious and nervous glances. Glenn, one of the volunteers who speaks almost fluent Russian and has become rather close with Dima in the last 3 days, had a quick conversation with him, then turned to us and said, “Dima’s going home!”
DIMA’S GOING HOME!
I’ve been pretty stoic for the last three days and have held it together really well, but when I heard this news, I lost it. I got in the van and just looked at the window with my big hood over my head so nobody would see the tears flooding from my eyes. I’ve done a good job of bracing myself for the tough stuff I was gonna see here, but I wasn’t prepared to see the wonderful moments. If there’s a kid who doesn’t belong in the hospital for kids, it’s Dima. And today, Dima went home. Good luck, Dima!
I’m hearing Justin Timberlake and the Pussycat Dolls in all the stores and internet cafes. Today we saw a vivid illustration of the profound influence American media is having on Russian kids. We went to a place for kids who actually live at home but in extreme poverty. Two boys there, Pasha and Maxim, performed a play that they wrote for us. Maxim played a grandmother, and Pasha was the grandson.
It was performed in Russian, but we understood exactly what was happening because it was so influenced by American culture: Steven Spielberg calls the grandmother, says he wants to pay the grandson “two and a half million dollars” to be in one of his movies. The grandmother says, “I don’t know a Steven Spielberg. This is a crank call. FUCK YOU!” Then slams down the phone.
I thought our interpreter was going to have a heart attack! The British volunteers were shocked. The Americans gasped but laughed nervously. I actually asked if he said something in Russian that sounded like an English curse word, but nope, he was using English. That’s what these kids in Russia hear in our movies, just like the kids in America hear. They think we say that all the time.
Afterward, the interpreter told the boys that the play was really good, but they shouldn’t use those words in performances for foreigners anymore.
First Days In The Orphanage
January 17, 2007
I’m here and it’s been crazy! It’s surprisingly hard to get to the Internet cafe – a tram ride about 20 blocks, then a walk about 10 more through the snow! But I’m having a great time. There’s so much I want to write about, but I’m pressed for time — they keep us on an incredibly packed schedule!
We just left the opening of Yaroslavl’s Orphanage Festival. Sounds like a misnomer, doesn’t it, “The Orphanage Festival?” But it’s really a good thing that they started 5 or 6 years ago. Artists work with the kids at the 11 orphanages in the city and teach them crafts and mentor their artistic talents. Their work and performances are displayed at the orphanage festival and you can buy the handicrafts they make. We watched a band of boy orphans perform, and of course I bought some neat stuff the orphans make. It’s at the major exhibit hall in town, and TV cameras were there. I can’t understand what they’re saying, but there is obviously some buzz that Americans are here. We were running late and they held the opening ceremony until we arrived. You should see the look on these childrens’ faces when they see you are buying something they made. OMG. It’s just impossible to describe.
I began working in the orphanage yesterday and it’s already changed me for life. I began in the morning at the Hospital for Kids, which is a psychiatric hospital, but we’re not seeing kids with any extreme or even any particularly obvious mental problems. Nadia, our program director, tells us that runaways from other orphanages are sent here, and I think that’s mostly what we’re seeing, although maybe there’s a bit of ADD and dyslexia — but certainly nothing obvious that you would see in an American psychiatric hospital.
Not being able to speak the language is a major handicap for me – I’m frustrated that I can’t communicate with the kids as well as I’d like. All the kids appear to be about ages 6-9, but a few are older. We use the toys to teach, but they’re teaching me much more than I’m teaching them. Today two boys named Sasha and Nikita were teaching me colors and numbers in Russian using Uno cards, without much success. Still, we had a ball playing Uno. They’re fascinated with the way I shuffle the cards, and I’ve been teaching them and a sweet girl also named Sasha to shuffle the cards Las Vegas style. Sasha the boy would carefully stack the deck of cards so that he always threw down a “draw 4″ card at me. I’d act frustrated and he’d just howl with laughter. He thought that was hilarious! My cousin Lisa gave me some rings with feathers and flowers on them to take to the kids. I brought them yesterday and they were an overwhelming hit! There were just enough for each of the kids we were working with, but today I saw the rings on some fingers of kids who we didn’t work with yesterday, so I think there may be some feather-ring pilfering going on!
It’s only been two days since I started working with the kids, but there have been some gut-wrenching moments. There is a little boy named Vanya who is so friendly and sweet. Yesterday, he was the first child to come to me. He wanted to see the hair on my arm! Then he showed me the hair on his arm! Our translator, Dascha, says he is always interested on the hair on people’s arms, and she translated what he said to me, “You have no hair on your arm, but I have lots of hair on my arm.” (He does!) A little while later, Vanya started crying and wailing, even threw himself on the floor. I asked Dascha why he was crying, and she told me she didn’t know what was happening. I thought maybe another kids had something he wanted. Later, another volunteer who understands Russian pretty well told me that he was saying, “I want to go home! I want to go home! Why can’t I go home?” Today a child asked another volunteer in my group, “When you were young, did you cry?”
Yesterday afternoon, we were supposed to go to another orphanage – just a regular orphanage to work with kids ages 3-5. We drove up to the place (it looks straight out of Oliver Twist or Bleak House — really grim) and were immediately turned away. Turns out that the entire orphanage is under quarrantine because the kids ages 3-5 who we were supposed to work with have “itching disease” (mange? scabies? We’re not sure what itching disease is). We couldn’t even work with another age group, but we hope to be able to go back there in a week or so.
I have no pictures to post at this point because the computer in the internet cafe doesn’t accept memory cards. I’ll have to have a CD made of my pix and post from there. I’m not taking my camera to the orphanages, at least at this point.
Tomorrow I’ll be working at a “boarding school,” which is actually a weekday orphanage. Most of the kids can go home to their families on the weekend, but even then, they’re often neglected. In the afternoon, I’ll be at a different assignment — not an orphanage at all, but a recreation center for underprivileged kids.
This afternoon before the Orphanage Festival, we had a lecture on orphanages here. I was surprised to learn just how many rights children have here. For example, if you own a house or an apartment, your children automatically own half of it. When kids outgrow the orphanages, they own half the home of the parent(s) who abandoned or neglected them. One of the problems orphanages have is that when kids age out of the system, the kids go back to resentful or absent parents, and their property often in terrible shape, so it’s not really a workable place for them to live in many cases. The orphans go to regular schools with regular kids, and one of the things the government does is provide the orphans with clothes that are comparable to clothes other children wear so they’re not marked as outcasts among the kids with families. I was surprised that such sensitivities and pecking orders among children are recognized by the government.
I have to go – my Internet time is up and I my group is leaving the cafe in a few minutes. Please leave your comments!
I LEAVE TOMORROW!
January 12, 2007
Yaroslavl
January 4, 2007
Leave it to the Gray Lady to bring me the latest news from Yaroslavl, the city where I’ll be based. I found this in an article that ran on Dec. 31 …
“It has been so warm in Yaroslavl, a city about 150 miles northeast of Moscow, that Masha the bear, a resident of the city zoo, woke up last month from his hibernation after only a week.”
I have a feeling that my big Northface coat is gonna be overkill. (To read the entire article, click here.)
The only other interesting article I’ve found about Yaroslavl is about a crackdown on people who don’t pay their traffic fines, which involves randomly stopping drivers and taking anything from spare tires to the whole car if it turns out they have unpaid fines. The article itself is interesting, but the photo that accompanies it has me downright baffled. Check it out by clicking here.
Some facts about Yaroslavl:
* Population: 620,000; 11 orphanages.
* Located on the Volga and Kotorosl rivers.
* Home to the oldest theatre in Russia, which remains one of the country’s most prestigious today.
* Named for Prince Yaroslav (Yaroslav the Wise), who built a fortress on the site and conquered the native pagan Ugro-Finnish-Slavic tribes. According to legend, the prince killed a bear, the natives’ sacred animal. Consequently, the city’s symbol is a silver shield depicting a bear holding a pole-axe in its left paw.
* Rich medieval merchants financed the city’s many colorful, onion-domed churches. The city was Russia’s commercial gateway to the west and also a major supplier of seafood (including sturgeon and beluga caviar).
* In the 18th century, Yaroslavl was one of Russia’s largest and most influential cities. It once was Russia’s second-largest city in population and was temporarily the nation’s capital during wars with Lithuania, Poland and Sweden in the 1700s.
* The founding of St. Petersburg and its seaport cost Yaroslavl its importance and prestige as Russia’s main commercial waterway to the West. Today it is a major textile manufacturing hub but remains full of architectural and artistic treasures. It is known its abundance of medieval frescos, wall paintings and masterpieces of medieval Russian art.
* U.S. sister city: Burlington, VT.
10 Days ‘Til D-Day!
January 3, 2007
OMG! 10 days left to go! I honestly don’t think I’ll ever be ready!
The visa survived the requisite bureaucracies and Fed Ex holiday deluge, thank heavens! It’s here! I can’t read a word of it except my name.
I received my initial placement: I’ll be working at a “hospital” for mentally troubled kids ages 7-14. It is 100% owned and operated by the Russian government and home to about 40 kids. Many of the kids are moved there from the orphanages. The kids receive medical treatment, schooling and meals there, but it’s also their residence. The volunteers who are assigned there assist the counselors, play with the kids, teach English, and plan recreational activities for them. I’m told these kids need lots of attention and are very affectionate, and that they like activities that are results-oriented. I’m not sure yet if I’ll be at this facility for my entire stay – it’s possible I’ll be reassigned to different facilities throughout my stay.
I’ve been emailing with the other volunteers in my group. There are seven of us, all different ages. I’m one of two Americans. There is one Canadian and the rest are Brits. We all arrive the same day and are making arrangements to meet at the Moscow airport before our pickup. We’re also having some discussions about what to wear, what to bring, the best ways to call home, etc.
I’ve been really freaked out about the weather. I have cold weather gear that ensures I can survive an avalanche: a down coat the size of a bedspread, down-filled gloves, insulated boots, all kinds of liners and longjohns. Turns out that the weather there is unseasonably warm — in the 20s and 30s — so I may be shooting ants with a machine gun with my wardrobe. But I am determined to stay warm!
I received an email from the volunteer organization saying that January and February are a great time to be in Yaroslavl because there are lots of festivals there. January includes Fortune Telling Week, when fortunetellers come to our offices, and Baptizing Day, when Russians jump into frozen rivers (I’m assured that I don’t have to join in)! February festivals include Men’s Day (no idea what that is but I look forward to finding out), Pancake Day (ditto), and a big jazz festival. Look for photos coming soon!
My Nieces & Nephews (L-R: Eric, Morgan, Jamie, Rebecca Lynn), November 2006
