UNDER CONSTRUCTION
Well, the title of this post is actually Polish, but it's still a Slavic language that gets across the message: "Still raining"!
It's kind of incredible that, up until Saturday, the only weather we'd really experienced during our time in Russia was beautiful sunshine--though, admittedly, we often complained because it was so hot. It's rained and/or stormed off and on since Saturday, but today was the worst of it yet. Walking to "school"--the Murom Institute of Vladimir State University--was like an agility course. After a full day of rain, this afternoon coming home was even worse. Huge puddles, more like ponds, formed everywhere, and it was a matter of jumping from rock to rock in order not to succumb to the rainwater and mud. Unfortunately, the only pair of tennis shoes I have are white, as I used my other tennis shoes to do volunteer work in and threw them out back in Vladimir. They're covered in paint, are torn up, and smell like wet dog. Now that I think of it, those are exactly the shoes I should've brought for this weather... :P
Anyway, this morning I woke up right before Emilia walked in to get me up for the day. We then had a huge, filling, delicious breakfast and watched the news before heading to her institute. We walked to the bus, where we met her mom, who was on her way to work but realized she'd forgotten something, so she'd had to come back.
The institute is about fifteen minutes away by bus. We got there, walked in, climbed the stairs to the second floor where the foreign language faculty is located, and met up with some of my group mates who were hanging out in the English language room.
We were introduced briefly to Rebecca, an English professor and the teacher of my host sister Emilia, who's from outside Little Rock, Arkansas. Emilia had told me about her American English teacher, but I didn't realize right away that she and this Rebecca were the same person. For a split second, I was thinking, "Wow, this girl's accent doesn't sound Russian at all!" Then it clicked: This is the American teacher. ;)
Our group then received a tour of the institute and got to see different rooms and facilities. It's a large building that was built in, I think, 1957. To be honest, I don't remember; they have this awesome museum we went into, but after yet another long day of being overwhelmed with information and experiences, I can't recall any specifics. I've got papers and a brochure from the institute, though, so the information isn't lost on me forever.
After a tour--which included a stop in this aforementioned museum and allowed us the opportunity to listen to an old Soviet love and battle song on an original record and phonograph from the period of World War II--we were led to a classroom, where 25 or so students and some teachers were sitting, awaiting our presentation to them about our lives and about our university.
For what seemed like two hours, the five of us talked about Vanderbilt and shared little tidbits of our lives with the Russian students, showing them pictures of Vandy thanks to an Internet connection and projector screen in the classroom, and answering the students' and professors' questions about anything and everything. This was the third time we've given such a presentation--twice at Vladimir State University: once to the history students and once to the foreign language [English] students--and at the end of this one we were each presented with a folder full of goodies by which we will be able to remember Murom and the Murom Institute fondly. It was really sweet, very thoughtful, and completely unexpected--just like so many other gestures of kindness we've received on this trip. We had a bunch of pictures taken, the American students and Russian students together, and for these pictures I grabbed my host sister, Emilia, who was in the "audience," and pulled her next to me. :)
We then took a break for lunch in the cafeteria (or canteen, as they called it) before beginning work in the afternoon on some materials for English lessons. Our assignment was simply to write up about a page-and-a-half on some given topic, using relatively simple sentences, and then to be recorded reading our sentences. I wrote on the topic of education in the US; others wrote on American sports culture, food and dining customs, travel, etc. This was really nothing for us, but we were thanked several times over and assured that we will now be part of the history of the institute. Apparently, Murom received a Peace Corps volunteer over ten years ago. He did many similar projects to help with English lessons, and much of what he created and recorded is still used in lessons. Maybe, ten years from now, our audio clips and writing samples will be helping a new generation of Russians learn English. :) While we were writing our sentences on the computer, a student from the institute--who just so happened to have been named, essentially, "Mr. Murom Institute" this past year--went around interviewing us individually on camera and with a little microphone. These interviews, too, will be used for educational purposes and shown, we're told, to thousands of students. Unfortunately, I was so tired today that I hadn't much good to say, so I'm sure my clip turned out pretty lackluster. This afternoon, I was so tired that I was afraid I'd pass out at some point. Luckily, somehow, I made it through the day. Thankfully, tomorrow, I can sleep in, as we don't have to meet up with the group until 11:30!
After all of this, we left the institute, went to a local center of culture, and received demonstrations of various aspects of traditional Russian life in Murom: dolls, samovars for tea, clay toys, decorative cooking tiles, and--of course, as has become our recent hobby apparently--swords and armor.
At this point, I was just barely keeping awake, and I was trying to hide my crankiness. It was interesting, but my tiredness was winning out.
When we left the center of culture (which I really did like and would've enjoyed more, had I been less tired), we set out by foot--half American students, half Russian students, plus David and some of the Russian teachers of English--for an excursion to some of the main sights of the city.
The weather was still dreary, so the umbrellas were out in full force, but we managed to slosh our way through the mud and make it from church to monastery to monument to park to monastery and back home successfully.
...
Dinner
Village (house of Irina's friend) to visit animals (incl. a turkey!)--ate strawberries off the plants!
Supermarket (mall + what we'd call a supermarket [a big grocery store]) (concept of "supermarket" just a few years old here, according to Emilia yesterday; today, this finally made sense to me--here, it's mostly just individual, family-owned markets; one for bread and pastries, one for pet food, one for purses, one for sports jerseys, one for fruit and vegetables, etc.; I like this system better than the more impersonal, corporatized "supermarket" experience, where you walk in one huge building and can get everything in the same place; sure, more convenient, but different experience; Russians/Europeans, by my observation, less concerned with convenience and speed, more concerned with whether things are sufficient and quality)
Home for ice cream, fresh strawberries, honeysuckle (thought it was blueberry; never had it before), chocolate-covered raisins, chocolate-covered plum candies; discussed politics, got host mom's opinions with Vladim's help interpreting English and Russian
First Doener Kebab sighting (memories/anticipation of Berlin!)
ChocoBoy (candy/cookies in store--funny name)
Fitness (best cereal ever--finally going to buy it again in Germany)
Learned: during Soviet times, the traffic lights used to be flipped; i.e., the order of the colors as they light up to convey message of whether to stop, go, or slow down; Murom older than Vladimir; hometown of guy who invented the TV, though he moved to America.
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