And now, for the reflections...

Well this is it. It is 7:00 am and I am sitting in my trusty little blue and white kitchen, cup of coffee in hand, looking out at the gray Russian sky and thankful that I will be escaping before fall really gets a chance to settle into the Urals.

I woke up on my hammock bed to the sound of the hot water fighting its way through the pipes [which sounds frighteningly similar to machine guns] and blaring techno music in the courtyard. In other words, I woke as I do every other morning here at dorm #6. I tried to lay still and drift back to dreams of America, but it was too late—I am too excited about coming home and too anxious about my upcoming cross-continental travels to trick myself back to sleep. And thus, here I am, sitting in this [surprisingly clean at the present moment] kitchen, reflecting on the past year.

Just as I was at a loss for words while I was writing up my Fulbright final report last week, I am for once silenced as I stare at the computer screen this morning. What was this year? How can I sum it up in one page? A success? A struggle? Somewhere in between, perhaps? Despite my best efforts at setting realistic expectations, I certainly arrived last August with grandiose notions of all that I could do in a year: from mastering the Russian language to working my ass off for the women of Russia to somehow seeing all of this massive country. If there is one thing that Russia does well, it is quickly and efficiently bringing one back down to earth and disillusioning the idealists. My goals were quite soon cut down into more realistic, bite size pieces. Throughout the year, I worked on this language that I will never speak fluently with various levels of effort and success. Perhaps that best thing that I can say about that is during my last weekend in Kalinovo, I spoke Russian continuously without grasping or stumbling for words and without a massive headache by Sunday evening. I know that I will never sound eloquent, but I believe there is something to say for simply being understood.

And the women of Russia? I am leaving them in about the same position that they were when I came. And after a year of observing and dabbling in the Russian non-profit world, I think this is probably as it should be. I can support, I can help where help is genuinely needed, I can offer stories of American successes and struggles, but at the end of the day, this is ultimately their fight to fight. I now understand the overwhelming complexities of domestic violence in a country like Russia and I am awestruck with the respect that I hold for women like the founders of Ekaterina, who choose to devote their lives to battling the problem despite these intimidating odds against them. They are brave, they understand the incredibly long road ahead of them, they keep their spirits high and light despite it, and they are damn good at what they do, even on the days when it feels like throwing a single stone into an ocean. Many of my favorite moments from this year happened while watching these women in action: from listening to Anya regularly counsel women over the phone with such ease and experience to watching Olga Nikolaevna take on the stereotypes of some stubborn policeman or lawyer at a training session, irony brewing in her beautiful black eyes all the while. It is in this area of my Fulbright experience that I had to most seriously rework my goals and plans, but it is consequently where I learned the most. I am returning to America with new ideas about our role in organizations like Ekaterina and with problems like domestic violence [that’s a whole separate conversation for those of you who are interested]. If anything, I am proud simply to have volunteered for an entire year. I got the opportunity to regularly explain the amazing concept that is American volunteerism and to show that I, indeed, considered it a privilege to get to spend a year in the Urals volunteering. I will be able to continue my relationship with Ekaterina by doing things like translating and database fun online and I look forward to learning how these women will progress with their work as time goes on.

And seeing all of Russia? Well, that was certainly an unrealistic expectation, but for the time being, I have seen enough. I look forward to someday returning to Russia, to visiting the friends that I have come to love so well and to perhaps again try to tackle the problems I just discussed, only with more experience and resources at my disposal. But for the present moment, I am inexplicably excited to land on American soil, to walk off of the plane and hear all those loud voices booming in the airport, to walk by the McDonald’s and Pizza Hut and Starbucks, to smile at the man who will serve me my first cup of to-go coffee and be smiled back at for the first time in a year and to think to myself “ah, родина”.

And yet I cannot end this last entry there, because here I am still sitting in this kitchen, trying to figure out how I am going to walk away from this dorm that I so fiercely hate and love. I can confidently say that I will not miss the water turning on and off and brown, nor the pipes freezing and sending me into near hypothermia, nor Artyem, our neighbor who has a lovely habit of boiling meat cutlets in his underwear in the shared kitchen. But what success we have had in turning a fading Soviet dorm into a home and an odd mix of international students into a family! Where would I be this year if it were not for Jen, Josefina, and Midori? Probably curled in the fetal position on the curb somewhere, crying and cold. These girls have made this experience worthwhile and, in the words of Midori, they have been my Russia. An American Christian missionary, an American fliberal feminist, an outspoken Swedish writer, and the self-described most-untypical Japanese girl in the world. Yes, we were an odd bunch and that is what has made our family so fantastic. This is undoubtedly what I will miss the most: laying in Jen’s bed with Midori, passing hours with meaningful and meaningless conversations; listening to Josefina and Midori argue through the thin walls and catching the moment when the bickering transitions into laughter; moving back and forth between Biblical analysis and feminist theory with Jen, both of us convinced that there are countless similarities in our respective professions; drinking beer and playing cribbage on the ironing board with Jen on the days when Russia got the best of us; and all those amazing days when the four of us managed to gather somewhere together, be it the road home from the university or the ski slopes or right here in this kitchen. I will miss the laughter, I will miss Russians’ confused faces while watching us interact, I will miss turning to watch Midori’s face after Josefina makes some ridiculous comment, and I will miss the comradery of all of us trying to tackle and survive Russia together.

This self-indulgent reflection has gone for far too long and the sun has managed to work its way through the clouds in the meantime. I am off to enjoy my last three days in the Urals. I cannot wait to see all of you soon—email and call and let me know where you will be in September! Thank you all for listening and reading this year, as well as for supporting me with letters and emails and phone calls and packages : ) I never could have made it without you.

Signing off from Russia,

Byeeetsy Hoooooody [as I am known in this part of the world]

Summer Fun

I have been sitting around Ekaterinburg for the last couple weeks and trying to figure out how to chronicle my summer adventures. I guess we can just jump right in:

After getting back from my travels with Midori way back in June, I started to tackle the next task on my summer to-do list: teaching at orientation sessions for FLEX students—Russian high school students who are leaving for America for a year-long cultural exchange program. I taught at 2 sessions that each included about 35 15-year-old Russian munchkins who had amazing English skills and who were very excited about their upcoming trip. The hilarity involved in teaching about American culture and life from a Russian perspective is unimaginable. We talked about everything from culture shock to host families to the fact that Americans don’t always take off their shoes indoors and can get offended if you are late [this one I took particular pleasure in describing to a Russian audience]. It was a great opportunity to get to do fun “American” things with these energetic kids, such as teaching them to throw a Frisbee or starting every lesson with some sort of icebreaker or energizer, which—to kids who have been educated in the formal Russian system—was both very bizarre and fun. Perhaps my favorite moment was when John, the director of the program in Ekaterinburg, looked up at the “new words” list on the wall of my classroom, and saw that we had written only “ethnocentrism” and “barn”. Enough said.

I finished up the FLEX fun on July 3^rd and on July 4^th I was already back on the train. This time I was headed to Ufa, where I worked as a volunteer for an English camp that is sponsored by the US embassy in Moscow. This camp had about 100 kids with varying levels of English. The camp is modeled like an American day camp, which meant that every day I got to teach something like “English through sports” [yes, we learned baseball!] or “English through arts and crafts,” etc. Although at times both challenging and exhausting, it was an amazing and hilarious experience. After my Concordia Language Villages experiences, it was fun to be a guest native speaker at an English camp, to teach the kids English songs and phrases and words, and just to be surrounded by cute little munchkins with so much energy and who are so excited to get to practice their English with “a real American.”

While in Ufa, I lived with a host family—namely, Gulnara, the director of the camp. She was wonderful! She is 25 and has perhaps the best English I have ever heard in Russia. She and her family took me in for the 2 weeks that I was there and made sure that I got all the possible cultural excursions while I was in Bashkir [the republic that Ufa is located in]. We got to go camping one weekend and for the first [and to date the only] time all summer, I got to go swimming! We camped at a lake that was at the bottom of these gorgeous mountains. For a girl who is accustomed to the relatively flatlands of the Midwest, it was unbelievable. I swam in a lake with a clay bottom for the first time and I spent hours just laying on a raft, looking up at the hills and mountains in awe. During the weekend festivities, I taught the entire crew to throw an American football, instantly gaining the respect of the Russian men, who were quite confused as to why a GIRL could throw a spiral and they couldn’t.

After Ufa, I came back to Ekat for a few days and then hopped on a plane to St. Petersburg, where I met Jodi Wu for the next adventure! She and I spent 10 eventful days in St. Petersburg and another week in Prague. While Petersburg will never lose its place in my heart, I think that Jodi best summed up our stay there by saying “It was at once so amazing and so awful.” Russia was in tourist season, which meant long lines everywhere, which was, of course, matched with that outstanding customer service that the country is so famous for. In the course of the week, I got into a verbal fight with a customer service agent at the Hermitage, Jodi was screamed at by a middle-aged Russian woman on a marshutka, and we both witnessed a museum worker punch/shove a female Australian tourist. Russia, in short, was not at its best. Nevertheless, we had fun. We saw an amazingly dramatic ballet at the Marinskii, took a detour to Novgorod [one of my favorite Russian cities], and got to watch the Rolling Stones do a sound check outside the Hermitage.

From Petersburg we flew to Prague, where we spent five amazing days relaxing in what I would now call European luxury. We got to stay with Heather Keyes, which was for me an amazing Bemidji connection and who showed us outstanding hospitality. From castles to concerts to churches to a tour of a 14^th century mine, this trip was full of beauty. The city is truly gorgeous and I must admit, I think I had goose bumps when we first walked down the cobblestone streets and looked up at the main castle in the distance. We, of course, also indulged in the famous Czech beer, along with dumplings and sausages and lots of meat and gravy. Although filled to the brim with tourists, the city manages to supply enough tiny outdoor cafes to always have an open table for anyone looking for beer or coffee, which Jodi and I took advantage of every day.

And now I am here, at this place that I will only call “home” for another week. I have been doing a little work for the crisis center, enjoying time with Jen and her sister who is visiting from Minnesota, and reflecting on what has been an amazing year. More on those reflections to come in the next [last!] blog. For now, know that I am so excited to come home and can’t wait to see so many of the faces that I have missed so much this past year!