At this point, I'm able to read just about anything written, though I often butcher pronunciation (mostly as a result of stressing the wrong syllable[s]), and reading cursive remains difficult. I'm also familiar enough with the alphabet now to be able to attempt spelling words in Russian based on pronunciation, though my spelling is almost always incorrect. What I'm finding most difficult about Russian is still (1) the Cyrillic script, as it requires retraining the brain to interpret, transform, and think in symbols different from those I've known and used my whole life (to me, a "P" is a "P," but in Russian, a "P" is an R," for example); and (2) the non-vocalized "hard" and "soft" signs, which I neither like nor care to figure out at this point in time.
Random: This morning, Lena and I watched Spongebob Squarepants in Russian. I knew it would be a good day. :)
Following our lessons, the group headed downstairs for a second lecture by the graduate student, Timur, whose thesis is focusing on migration, particularly on the part of Central Asians, to Russia. Today, the theme was darker: the tradition of some Central Asian cultures, like in Kyrgyzstan, wherein women are kidnapped and forced to marry. On this point, we learned the shocking statistic that every 40 minutes a woman is kidnapped and forced to marry in Central Asia. Furthermore, almost one-third of married women in Kyrgyzstan were kidnapped into their relationship; approximately 16,000 women are kidnapped every year; and, in 2012, only 596 cases of such kidnappings were reported to the police, and only one of the perpetrators in one of these cases was actually charged with a crime). The maximum prison sentence for someone who kidnaps a woman is 7 years (previously 3 years)--for stealing livestock: 11 years. Hearing that this practice exists and is so popular shocked us. Further disturbing is the fact that girls can't abandon their unloved husbands, lest they bring curses upon themselves and their families for such an act of dishonor and such a rejection of "fate." As one individual explained, talking about the kidnapping of their friend for a forced marriage, "What could I do? It was fate." (This was another moment I realized that people everywhere are alike: Every culture has its superstitions that give people a sense of security while at the same time depriving them of their agency and creating a sense of powerlessness, of being at the mercy of someone or something else. We craft stories of blessings and curses in order to justify practices that would otherwise make no sense, and through sincere belief in such stories we often lose the ability to recognize our own cultural idiosyncrasies. Everywhere in the world, what we do seems right; what they do seems wrong. And our often near-sighted certainty about our own beliefs is what prompts us to spread them to others with the same, unthinking zeal.)
We learned about the marginally "better" practice of women being sold as brides rather than kidnapped, but we also learned about something called Open Line, which is a project to help eliminate this practice and to educate women about what to do in the case that they are kidnapped.
We were urged to remember and appreciate the American values of "love, law, and liberty," even though the US has its own, many and urgent problems. We were told that, in the opinion of this graduate scholar, the hardest legacy left behind by the USSR is a "clash of mentalities" between the revival of traditions (which had been largely prohibited during Soviet times) and the progressivism of young Kyrgyzstanis (who are more enthusiastic about the ideals of "love, law, and liberty").
A final point from the lecture was drawn from a short video we watched, called "Stepmotherland." The topic was about how Russia serves as the "step-motherland" of many Central Asians, who have continued to flee their countries (such as Tajikistan and Uzbekistan) following the total economic collapse brought about when the Soviet Union fell apart. An ongoing problem is that husbands will leave their families, go to Russia to find better-paying jobs, stop sending money home to their families, and instead find another woman to marry and have a family with in order to get citizenship to be able to stay in Russia where wages are higher and quality of life is thought to be higher. As a result, of course, the wives back in the motherland must then also go out in search of work to continue to provide for their children.
Following this sobering lecture, our group grabbed a quick lunch at a Czech goat-themed (why not?) café. We then made the familiar trek out to the dog shelter, where one of the women had brought us delicious homemade Блины (blini) and apricot marmalade to thank us for our help. This afternoon, we continued picking up trash--particularly shards of glass, which are literally everywhere--and helped to post and build part of a fence to keep the doggies in the yard. We also played with the puppies a lot, but it was serious work; after all, somebody's got to socialize them! ;)
We learned about the symbiotic relationship that exists whereby, at night, a homeless man gets to stay in the little room built within the plot of land in exchange for serving as a security guard to make sure that no one trespasses, tries to steal or harm the dogs or property. So, a homeless man has a home for the night, and the vulnerable dogs and shelter-in-the-works have protection. We were surprised to hear about this arrangement, but we thought it's a good and practical model. As I saw on a bumper sticker inside the bus we took back to the center of town: "Russians helping Russians."
Something I've been wondering and thinking about a lot since we started working at the shelter is why it is that people often seem to show more compassion for animals rather than other people. I noticed it in myself, too, when we went from working at the Association for Parents of Handicapped Children to being told that we'd be working with puppies. I asked a couple of my group mates about this, and we guessed that maybe part of this is because we view animals as helpless, but we view people as responsible--for themselves and/or for other people (namely, their children). A dog on the street is a dog on the street, but a child on the street--well, where are the parents? I understand this line of thought, but at the same time, dogs possess instincts that humans lack. A two-year-old dog is more likely to survive on its own than a two-year-old human. Dogs can forage and have no need for jobs or education. But humans have built a world where money matters, and not all people are in a position to acquire resources adequate to care for themselves or their families. "Keeping up" has a different meaning for dogs than for humans. For the sake of our species and the future of our world, the lack of compassion for our fellow humans--regardless of how we justify it--is problematic.
It had been another long day, and we were dirty and smelled like dog, but we had a dinner party to go to. Some of the foreign language students at Vladimir State, who study English with Alexei (who helps run the American Home), wanted to host us, so we met at Alexei and his wife Galya's apartment, where we got the chance to shower and change before the students came over to cook.
When they arrived, they taught us how to make пельме́ни (pelmeni). I prepped the salad with a few of the girls, and other than that we got to sit around talking. Everyone was shy at first, and we Americans stuck together speaking English while the Russians stuck together speaking Russian. It's hard to break the ice, and it's awkward because you want to meet people your own age from a different culture; you want to practice their language; you want to have a conversation--but you don't know where to start, and it sometimes feels like a forced play-date. It wasn't really until about halfway through dinner, which lasted a long, long time, that we started really warming up to each other and talking more naturally.
By the end of the evening, it was a bummer to have to leave, but it had been raining hard and was already past 22:00 by the time we finished up. (My host mom actually called David, our professor, to check because she was worried since I wasn't home yet. I felt so bad!) Admittedly, a highlight of tonight was that several of the students also spoke German, and one particular girl and I talked for a long time together in German. Finally, I told David and my group-mates, I was speaking a secret language they didn't understand! :D
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