Orphanage and the Ballet Day (December Part I)

        I was pretty much gone all day from home. I went with a Rotarian named Tatiana and her to help her deliver some things to the orphanage. First I went with Tatiana and the new Brazilian exchange student, Fernando, to a man's apartment, where the guy was donating a ton of toys.
     He was from Portland, OR. What in the world? He went to Lincoln High School! He had quite a bit of Russian, as he had A.) been living in Russia for the last two years, B.) studied it in high school and in college, and  C.)was an exchange student to Russia in High school. He is here on business, expanding his lumber company or something. I guess he hasn't really been living in Oregon all that much, as he lived in China two years before Russia and somehow met his wife there, who is from Taiwan. That woman sounds extremely interesting and intelligent. She was in China teaching English, as she has a perfect American English Dialect.

<<Fun Fact: it is usual and almost traditional for Australians and New Zealanders to go to China and teach English for one or two years before starting college. China's students want to learn American English, not British.>>


He and she have had two little girls together, and have moved back to Oregon (or in the process, he goes back there in a couple months I think), so I don't ever get to meet her. She is in OR with their two girls, ages 4 and 6. So he was donating all of the kid stuff that they aren't going to ship back to the US because they just don't need it. It was pretty amazing to see all that was accumulated over a rather short period of time! I don't know how we managed to fit a ton of toys, clothes, a bike, and a scooter,  into a car no bigger than a Ford Focus. 

After some confusion and a few phone calls, we finally got to the children's house. I helped carry the stuff into one of the offices on the second floor of the building. It wasn't the home I went to for America day. In fact, it was for special needs children (more on that later). After carrying all of the stuff in, we sat at a table (awkwardly) and drank tea and ate sweets. Then my fellow Oregonian (even more awkwardly) showed the office ladies what he brought them. There was a lot of stuff, so he just went over the highlights.
We then took some of the toys into a class, where I was really surprised to see the special needs kids. I just didn't know that was the kind of orphanage we were going to. It seemed to me that Down Syndrome was the common one, but there were others with physical issues or other mental issues. We also visited an art class, where there was a young man with severe physical handicaps painting. It was amazing to see, because he was doing a great job. Tatiana talked to him for a long time. We then went back to the car and subsequently to the Oregonian's apartment building, where he left the car running, ran up, and brought me back a nice, lovely jar of peanut butter! AAAAAAAAHHHHHHH! He made my day right then and there. Then we all went back to Tatiana's house, where I stayed much too long. I had to be home by 5 to go to the ballet, but was half an hour late because I quite frankly lost track of time.

Of course, Julia and I made it just in time and the ballet was excellent. It was beyond anything. Beyond. You know how the last one felt short to me? This one felt way shorter! The lead chick was far and away the best. The guy that played the nutcracker okay, but she totally became her character. She carried you away on her adventure and all of her dancing seemed like effortless expression. Like she was telling us the story personally and it wasn't really dancing. It just was awesome!

Not the Only Exchanger and a Difficult Presentation (November Part II)

We were all kind of worried. All of the Rotarians and I were at the Krasnoyarsk airport waiting
to meet Fernando (the exchange student from Brazil) when he got off of the airplane. Some
Rotarians in Moscow waited for him for two hours to meet him during his rather large layover there and he never showed. They even called over the loudspeaker for him. But, what they didn't know, was that for two hours Fernando couldn't leave the back part of the airport because they had lost his checked bag, and he needed
it to send it through customs. It was on the next flight, which was two hours from arrival. So he
waited back there. He heard his name called once, but he didn't know what to do, because he

Everyone at the Airport with the newbie, Fernando (except for his host mom).

didn't know what would happen if he left that back area without his bags. Kind of unfortunate.
We knew he went through Moscow only because Rotarians called Customs to
make sure he went through.
We waited for what seemed like forever at the airport. We arrived there at 7 (I was picked up at 6:30) , and he didn't get off the plane until 8:25. Needless to say, I got super anxious and no one else really cared. I don't know why I was so excited to meet him. Just happy to have another Exchanger around I guess! It is really difficult to be the only one in the group of people I see regularly to not understand Russian all the way and have to adjust to this wonderful and different culture.

The 30th of November was an interesting day. I gave a speech (or, er, a lecture?) on Non Profit
Organizations in the United States to a charity organization. A Rotaract member had been working for this organization for a couple months. It's focus is to assist parents who have special

Me with the group I gave my presentation to.

needs children.
I also talked a little about Rotary, but didn't know that I was supposed to talk about it before my actual
lecture, so I literally had to wing it.
My presentation was over an hour long. Almost two. Can you believe it? I felt bad for my translator (a Rotaract member who is the same age as me) because it truly is a difficult subject and I talked in kind of a confusing way.
Not on purpose, but I was nervous, too, and got kind of tongue tied sometimes. Poor guy.

Цирк и Детскии Дом (November Part I)

My Pizza

I went to the orphanage with a group of Rotarians in late November the same day I went to the circus. It was for an America day that Rotaract and Rotary put together. I was asked to give my presentation and bring pizza. I made the pizza the night before, from scratch (except for the dough), and it was the best pizza I have made yet. I was pretty proud of it. I was also asked to bring with me some games to play that were "American children's games." I remembered all kinds of games to bring: red rover, heads-up-7-up, ring around the rosie, London Bridge, duck-duck-goose, mother may I. . .But (and this is the worst part) no one could understand me when I was trying to explain how to play the games. So, what ended up happened after the presentation was a few awkward rounds of heads up seven up (not played on tables),  and then they all just played charades for about 15 minutes.
They were then split into two groups. The younger kids stayed inside and watched Tom and Jerry while the older kids went outside and played soccer. I suck at socker, and it was cold so I hung out with the little kids. I brought USA themed stickers my parents sent me in my birthday care package, so I cut them out with one of the Rotarians so that we could give them to every kid.
Of course, the usual havoc ensued of "hers is bigger than mine," and "I didn't get one, I swear." But I was just happy to get rid of those stickers and see some USA paraphernalia.
After a little while the kids started coming up to me and trying to talk to me. That didn't work out so well, as I could hardly understand them when they said words I know, and they couldn't understand me. It was funny that I stillI know less Russian than a five year old! We played some games and I taught one girl how to play the hand slapping game, where you try to pull your hands away before the other person slaps them. After a while it was lunch time and people were starting to go into the kitchen to get lunch, so I went into the little kitchen area where everyone's pizzas were all cut up onto plates. I was not the only one that brought pizza, but mine was the only one being given as "American" Pizza.
You know the comment I heard the most? "Wow, Americans sure like a lot of  cheese, ham, and sausage on their pizza!" I don't think they knew I could understand all of what they said, and I am sure they were just making an observation.I wanted to tell them about the "meat lover's pizza" so many people in the USA are familiar with, but I just stood there and ate my meaty (okay, there was a normal meat amount to me) pizza.  After the tea (Russians drink a lot of tea!) and pizza break I noticed some Rotarians were getting ready to go. It  was about an hour before I really needed to leave, but since I was desperate to get home in time and not be late to get to the circus, I went with them.

 When I got home I was able to chill for about an hour and 15 minutes. Julia told me that Andre's wife (Andre is Julia's cousin and we planned on going with their family in their car) is in the hospital, so we had to take the bus and purchase tickets ourselves, making us leave a full hour earlier than anticipated. We waited for 15 minutes for our bus, and when it didn't come we took a different bus to the center and a second, correct bus to the Circus. When we got to the circus we waited in a line to get our tickets. It was very different than what I am used to. We waited in a line that led to a door. The door led to a small room that had a small window at the very end, where you talked to the woman to buy your tickets. The room was heated, so that is probably why it was constructed in this way. The door was right next to the main entrance though, so who made this I don't think really thought through it all the way (a lot of people weren't happy about trying to push through a line with their small children to get into the building) . There were also some people trying to sell their extra tickets, but it was usually only one ticket, so we didn't buy one.
By the time Julia and I got through the line and into the building and got through the line for the cloak lady (it is common in all buildings to have a cloak place where you hand the clerk your coat to hang up, and in return you get a little key thing with a number for when you come back for your coat) the show was juuust about to start. We were off to the side, so a lot of the performers didn't really pose or perform in our direction. That was my main critique as far as showbusiness goes. They only catered to the people on a balcony straight ahead from the entrance into the ring.
The first people to perform were some dancers. About 8 ladies dressed in "adapted for circus" traditional Russian clothes came out and did a little choreographed shindig. It was basically an intro, as at the end all the performers came out and bowed. The first actual act was a guy on a unicycle juggling. He wasn't sooo good. But he went on different sized cycles so it was really cool to watch anyways. He started out just standing, the juggling being the main thing at first. He dropped stuff a lot. Needless to say he didn't get much applause. He also fell once trying to get on a larger cycle and often failed the first time when switching (he switched 3 times) to a larger cycle. He later came out to perform as a clown. After the juggling cyclist, another juggler came out. Then a couple came out. He was on a bike and she was on foot. It was kind of a love story, where she wanted his bike and so she kept tricking him to let her ride with him or let her steal it by hula hooping. She, at one point, had like ten going. It was mostly amusing. The kind of thing you see on America's got Talent.
Next was the dog lady. She came out and did some dancing and flipping, and then called out a bunch of huge Saint Bernards, which were mostly going to be obstacles for the rest of her act. One of these dogs, when they were performing (just running around the ring with their paws up on the circular fence/barrier) just did NOT want to work. She gave him some negative reinforcement. Not so bad, but I could tell what she was doing. Then, when she had made the dogs lay down in four separate points on the rings, she called the poodles out. There were then different tricks with the poodles- jumping, conga lines- and even a few tricks with toy poodles. The finale of her act was the toy poodles running around on the lip of the ring (that circular barrier) racing the larger poodles. The larger poodles had to jump over the big dogs that were still lying on the ground. There was one poodle that was dyed orange to match the trainer's outfit. In the end, this poodle was the one that ruined her. Instead of returning to backstage, he kept running around and around the ring. She had to kind of herd him back there while resisting the huge urge to chase him and beat him (like how we all feel sometimes with our dogs when they are being stupid, not like she would actually abuse him). I felt for her. She then made the big dogs all line up and bow.
Then was the snake lady. She did awkward sexy dances (remember, this was a circus for kids!) and just carried around different snakes. At one point she had over 100 pounds of snake she was twirling around. Her hair was also  creepily long. She ate fire at the beginning of the dance.
Next up was the cat people. They were just impressive because they were able to train cats! It was a man-woman team. The cats walked across different poles in different ways, jumped from great heights, and even twirled fire and jumped through flaming hoops. Pretty good.
Next was a little delay, or stalling. Two clowns came out (one was that unicyclist) and did some stupid little bits while the stage hands were getting the stage set up for the acrobatics. They were pretty cool. It wasn't acrobatics, simply tight roping. But it still was cool to watch. Those people are fit! Walking at different angles, carrying people on your shoulders (one guy did it with three), walking with heavy things in your hand. They did have safety ropes, but they weren't prevented from falling, simply not hitting the ground hard. No one fell though. Although, when they brought the bears out (about three different times) I was sure that the bear was going to fall. That would be bad. Having a hurt muzzled bear in the middle of a swarm of children. The bears had a very minor part. They only walked the tightrope a couple of times or were walked around the ring by handlers.
Then was the intermission. I learned that, indeed, I was probably the only one over 13 with their mom there. Some people came on dates I think, but as for people with their moms, I was the oldest.

After the intermission was the lions and rope dancer. The rope dancer was, once again, amazing because she was just so strong! I think her act must be where Cirque De Soleile got their inspiration. Although she didn't really dance and make her performance pretty as much as just plain show off. Or at least to me that is what it looked like. Man she was impressive! She even spun from ropes hanging only by her neck!
The lion trainer was the snake lady as well. Her hair was done up super tight though, so it looked like she had a normal amount. The lions were pretty interesting. It was mostly just an exibit on how, like the cats, she indeed trained them to not eat her. So they walked around a lot. No flaming hoops. She did go on a platform and was lifted into the air with one of them. The one kind of gross-interesting thing that happened was there was one lion and he seemed fairly territorial. While he was on his stool thing he kept marking his territory and vocalizing. It was funny because he was situated near the exit, so if there was people down there with their kids watching, then they probably got a little sprayed.
A little anecdote that happened in November:
There have seen two people who I have been getting private Russian lessons in one of the classrooms in the International Department at the University (which is where I study). I always wonder who these mysterious people are, and if they are more advanced or speak a different language that needs more catering to. Or if they are super rich and don't want to associate with the normal class. I can't tell you which is correct, but turns out they are Aussies! I was able to FINALLY meet them. They have been here since June. When they asked me how much I understand and I said about half (they are a couple here solely to learn Russian), the man said he was jealous and that he could only understand about 2 percent. I was blown away! I wonder how, being here since June, you can't know more than 75%?! They only come to university twice a week like me, so maybe they have no other outside source of Russian where they can practice. Or maybe they are going a slower pace. Not sure. I found it really difficult to not speak in Ranglish with them. I feel like this is going to be me when I come back to OR. Ranglish is my totally my new language! One of my friends told me she saw some English people at the market trying to buy something and struggling hard core, so I can only wonder if it was this couple.