First Month in Voronezh!

I know, I know, it’s about time I update this thing! I have been sooooo busy and internet time has been limited, so that’s my excuse.

I have now been in Voronezh for a month! Sometimes I think it went by really fast, and sometimes I think it’s been the longest month of my life! So I guess I’ll start from the beginning.

After traveling for upwards of 30 hours, I made it to Voronezh! Traveling, I had some pretty interesting experiences, including standing alone in the Domededovo airport in Moscow while Olga (she’s an assistant to our coordinators) ran around looking for Michael (another person in my group), whose bags didn’t arrive, while some airport official was shouting things to me in Russian. Walking through the airport was kind of scary too, all these taxi drivers come up really close to you and say “Taxi?” over and over again (and follow you!) until you say no (or nyet!). We had to take a train to the bus stop, and then we had an 8 hour ride from Moscow to Voronezh. Finally made it there at about midnight Russia time.

Which is when I met my host family! They’re great. There’s 2 kids, and then the parents. The girl, Yulia, is 15, and her English is good. She acts as my little translator most of the time. Her brother, Maxim, is 8, and adorable. His English isn’t great yet, but he’s getting there, and he knows enough that I can communicate with him. My host mom speaks a good amount of English, but if I talk to fast or forget to use simple words, she gets lost. My host dad speaks no English at all, so the extent of our conversation is my knowledge of Russian, which consists of “Privyet”, “Speceeba”, and “Paka” (Hello, thank you, and bye).

Speaking of the Russian language! I can read the Cyrillic alphabet now, which makes life so much easier. Olga is giving us language classes, which is great. She taught us the alphabet, had us practice reading Russian, taught us useful phrases, and how to count. And, perhaps most importantly, how to say that we don’t speak Russian!

Russians actually really seem to like Americans. We always get complimentary things at restaurants and one time I sat next to this old guy on the bus who, when he found out I was American, kept saying, “America, good!” with a thumbs-up, and then held out his hand to help me off the bus. It was pretty funny. Oh! And I can ride the bus all by myself! I don’t even have to count the stops anymore. I’m very proud of this. I can even guess what people are saying to me on the bus (mostly saying that they are coming through, buses get very crowded here!). It took me less than 2 weeks to figure out how to get from my stop to the school and to the head teacher’s apartment.

So the first couple weeks at school were ROUGH. I had to start teaching on Tuesday, though I had only gotten to Voronezh less than 2 days before. And then everyone got sick. I was pretty sick, but not nearly as bad as Chloe and Adam, so they had to stay home and I had to keep teaching. I even lost my voice, which was pretty bad. But now everyone is better so things are going a lot more smoothly.

Some of the cool things we’ve done so far:

*Tsirka—the circus in Voronezh. It was so cool, there were some really crazy acts! The headliner was these 2 brothers that come from a circus family and they’re well-known throughout Russia, and they do all this stuff with lions and tigers, it was crazy!

*Opera—something by Mozart at the Voronezh Theater. We never really figured out what it was called, but we recognized the music as being Mozart. It was all in Italian, so we were comforted by the fact that even the Russians around us couldn’t understand what was going on. But it was great, and it actually made me miss classical singing.

*Voronezh Zoo—I went with my host family to the zoo one day, and it was really funny. It’s NOT like an American zoo at all. You know how at zoos in the U.S. they try to make it look like the animals are in their natural habitats? In Russia, they’re all just in cages. It was pretty ghetto.

*All-Saints Church—Voronezh has lots of churches with the big dome tops, so Olga took us to one. It’s the only church in all of Russia that is for ALL of the Saints, not just a few specific ones. It was very beautiful, and us girls had to cover our heads with our scarves for respect. We all felt Muslim.

*Voronezh History Museum—Voronezh is OLD, to say the least. People lived here in the Stone Age, and there are tons of archeological digs that still go on in the area. The city was actually established before Moscow. The museum also had this exhibit that was all red, and it was about the Communist era…haha.

Notes on Russian food:

I was pleasantly surprised by the food here. I was really nervous I’d be eating a lot of really gross stuff, but it’s been fine so far. They eat A LOT of soup, and quite a lot of bread, too. My favorite food here is pulmini, kind of like the Russian version of the pot sticker. The sickest thing I’ve had was at a restaurant, when I ordered fish, and got fish that still looked very much like fish—heads, tails, eyes—the works. Also the puroshki I got on the bus from Moscow to Voronezh—it was like a stale doughnut with eggs, rice, and potatoes in it. Sick. My host family feeds me breakfast and dinner, and I have lunch at the school, where our coordinators have hired someone to bring us food everyday. We have some kind of soup every single day, without exception.

Well, I’ll write more later, I have plenty of funny little anecdotes about the kids, church, and just life in Russia in general, but I have to get going for now. Paka!

Russian Superstitions

On Wednesday and Thursday this week, I had a couple 8 hour training meetings for teaching. Thursday afternoon, we split up into our country groups and did some culture training. One thing I learned: Russians are very superstitious. Here's some examples of Russian superstitions:

* If you whistle indoors, your money will fly out the window
* Before leaving for a trip, you must have a moment of silence
* If you return home because you forgot something, you must look in the mirror before you leave again
* Never shake hands under a doorway; it will bring bad luck to the friendship or deal made
* If someone steps on your toes, you must step on their toes, or else you will have a quarrel with them
* If you go outside with your hair wet, you will get pneumonia
* Cold drinks are the most common cause for flus, colds, and general sicknesses
* Single women must NEVER sit at the corner of the table, or else they'll never get married. They also must not wear rings on their right ring finger (where Russians wear their wedding rings)

We also talked about how because we're cute young American girls, the Russian boys will be after us, so if we ever are bothered by them, we can ask the babushkas (grandmothers) to yell at them to leave us alone. Of course, the babushkas will also yell at us if we don't have our hats and gloves on, or if our coats aren't zipped or buttoned. It'll be quite the experience, I'm sure.

After teacher training this week, I've got a lot better idea of what I'll be doing over there, though I still don't know what age group I'll be with. I also met the head teacher, Areil, and another teacher, Tasha, from my group, and they are awesome girls! I can tell we're going to have a lot of fun, and I hope the rest of the group is going to be just as fun, too. I won't meet the rest of them til we're at the airport the day we leave. Tasha and I already talked about having a moment of silence before we get on the plane, like true Russians. :) About 2 and a half weeks to go!

Smitten Blog Designs!

Big thanks to my sister, Kate Rosenberg, for doing some work on my blog! She made it look a bit cleaner and did the title banner at the top (awesome, right?). If you didn't already know, she and our sister-in-law, Heather Peterson, run a successful blog design business, smittenblogdesigns.blogspot.com. I got the basic blog design from their free gallery and then Kate did a little customizing. Check out their site! They are seriously talented--you'll be impressed :)



Thanks again, Kate! It looks awesome!

Land of No Marshmallows

You're probably wondering what the heck my blog title is about. Well, if you were not already aware, I'm leaving January 26th to go to Voronezh, Russia to teach English to kids. I received an information packet about Voronezh, about the program and other random facts. I noticed a list of things that you can't get in Russia. Peanut butter I expected, but I was surprised by some of the other things on there. For example: Lined paper (you can only get graph paper), duct tape, and marshmallows.

Marshmallows? What kind of country doesn't have marshmallows?! You can get all kinds of American name-brand products there, but no marshmallows? For some reason, I find that really funny, hence, the naming of my blog. No peeps this Easter--I'm gonna miss those little guys.

Anyway! Let me answer a few questions I keep getting with a little Voronezh FAQ!

Q: Why Voronezh?
A: That's where I was assigned! I originally planned on going to Kiev, Ukraine, but I was switched to Voronezh, which I'm actually really looking forward to. Voronezh is on the south western side of Russia, kind of by Ukraine, so it's not nearly as cold as, say, Moscow or St. Petersburg. In fact, the weather isn't much different from Utah.

Q: How do you pronounce Voronezh?
A: Your guess is as good as mine.

Q: Do you speak any Russian?
A: Not a word. The program offers free language classes though, so I'm definitely going to take advantage of that. I'll be living with a host family who most likely won't speak English and I'll be going to a Russian branch out there, so I have the incentive to learn it. They actually told us that the missionaries in Voronezh can translate for us at church. I'm really looking forward to learning some Russian.

Q: Won't it be hard to teach kids whose language you don't speak?
A: Yep.

Q: What is this program?
A: It's called International Language Programs (ILP). They send volunteers to 4 different countries (Mexico, Ukraine, China, and Russia) to teach English to kids in schools. It is volunteer work, so no, I do not get paid, but the program cost (about $2,500) pays for my airfare and all food and housing while I'm there, plus language and culture classes. The only things I have to pay for is entertainment costs, like traveling and going to performances and things like that. I found out that most ballets and shows you can get into for about 60 Russian Rubles--about $2 in the U.S.! I'll be living with a host family that lives near the school I'll be teaching at and they'll provide most of my meals.

If you have any other questions, let me know! I'll update as I get closer to leaving, and I'll try to be good about posting while I'm there, but I'm sure I'll be pretty busy, so no promises. I'm very excited to go, but I'll miss all of you!