Travel Column
Maria Toews
Issue date: 12/10/09 Section: News
November 21, 2009
Last Thursday was our last day of classes! Next week we hand in our research project papers, take a Russian language test, and an everything-else-about-Russia-that-we-learned test. I did mine on the Young Pioneers, the children's club that essentially all 9 to 14 year olds were a part of during the Soviet Union. It taught communist/Marxist ideology and good morals. I interviewed some adults who were in it and it was a good way to hear opinions on socialism and the Soviet Union, etc. It's so interesting how in America, during the Cold War, Russians were the enemies. The Russians that were alive back then don't consider themselves the enemies. How strange.
Schools in the city are closed for 10 days because many kids have the flu. (Not Swine Flu, just a flu). Apparently they can just close schools like that if they want. For the last service project we still went to the school. There were no kids, of course, but we had tea with the two English teachers, both of whom I had already interviewed about the Pioneers. We started at 9 am and didn't leave the classroom until 2 pm: five hours of chai, cream puffs, and candy, and talking about everything under the sun. One reason I came to Russia was to have tea with the locals, so it was a good time! I gave Galina, one of the teachers, a book full of propaganda pictures of Alberta landscapes. Mwa ha ha ha.
I went to a Bible study with linguistic-majoring-English-speaking Russian student Christian girls. (In Russian, Studyentka, to communicate "college female students.") It was encouraging to hear their enthusiasm and experiences with God. When people across the world have the same feelings about Jesus you know that you can't be just wrong and crazy. It was cool to sing songs first in English, and then to hear them in Russian. The five girls all speak really good English, and some are fluent in French and German too. Crazy. The apartment we were in also had a keyboard, and I played the piano for the first time in 3 months! I don't know if you can understand the significance of this unless you're a music nerd.
Last Thursday was our last day of classes! Next week we hand in our research project papers, take a Russian language test, and an everything-else-about-Russia-that-we-learned test. I did mine on the Young Pioneers, the children's club that essentially all 9 to 14 year olds were a part of during the Soviet Union. It taught communist/Marxist ideology and good morals. I interviewed some adults who were in it and it was a good way to hear opinions on socialism and the Soviet Union, etc. It's so interesting how in America, during the Cold War, Russians were the enemies. The Russians that were alive back then don't consider themselves the enemies. How strange.
Schools in the city are closed for 10 days because many kids have the flu. (Not Swine Flu, just a flu). Apparently they can just close schools like that if they want. For the last service project we still went to the school. There were no kids, of course, but we had tea with the two English teachers, both of whom I had already interviewed about the Pioneers. We started at 9 am and didn't leave the classroom until 2 pm: five hours of chai, cream puffs, and candy, and talking about everything under the sun. One reason I came to Russia was to have tea with the locals, so it was a good time! I gave Galina, one of the teachers, a book full of propaganda pictures of Alberta landscapes. Mwa ha ha ha.
I went to a Bible study with linguistic-majoring-English-speaking Russian student Christian girls. (In Russian, Studyentka, to communicate "college female students.") It was encouraging to hear their enthusiasm and experiences with God. When people across the world have the same feelings about Jesus you know that you can't be just wrong and crazy. It was cool to sing songs first in English, and then to hear them in Russian. The five girls all speak really good English, and some are fluent in French and German too. Crazy. The apartment we were in also had a keyboard, and I played the piano for the first time in 3 months! I don't know if you can understand the significance of this unless you're a music nerd.
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