I guess I'll talk about school a little bit first. I go to школа 17, which is right in the middle of the downtown. There are like, 7 other schools in Korenovsk and I guess they're all jealous that my school has us four exchange students. Yes, there are 4 of us in the school; me, Sarah from America, Andrea from Italy, and Rodrigo from Bolivia. It is nice to have Sarah at school to talk English with, and we help each other learn Russian. They try to keep us apart at school so we don't speak English, but that doesn't work too well. Andrea is cool too. He lives near me and we go for walks a lot. We talk mostly in English. I think he is getting better at English than Russian!
The school is very old, but they keep it meticulously clean. Everyday after classes are finished, one of the older forms is on "duty" and they clean the entire school. And I mean clean. They take rags and wipe the baseboards and walls, they sweep everywhere even the front steps, and they wash the windows. Don't tell the janitors in America about this! It's not strictly a high school; it is 1st through 11th form (they graduate at 16/17, no 12th grade). It's kind of annoying to have little kids constantly running around and screaming, but oh well. I'm technically part of the form 11a (there are two parallel classes in each form, 1a and 1b etc...) but I don't really do anything with them. I have my own schedule, which has been a point of contention in terms of my happiness. To make a long story short, as part of my scholarship I am supposed to have Russian Language classes. The students in Krasnodar are receiving these classes at a language school. However, me and Sarah and Phillip are not in Krasnodar and or schools can not provide us with the same caliber of lessons. After a few days of massive confusion and frustration on my part, I finally got some sort of language classes and slowly, I have settled into them. My teacher is very nice, but she doesn't speak English, so it makes learning Russian a little difficult. But we are getting by. At this point, I have deduced that the Russians don't plan well and its a miracle that I'm getting any sort of private lessons. So I'm just going with the flow and doing the best with the situation I am presented with. I talk to Phillip a lot (he's in Ust-Labinsk, but we have little mini therapy sessions and it's great) and we decided that making the best of what we have is all we can do.
Besides my daily Russian lessons, my schedule consists entirely of English classes. Sometimes I help the teach, but I mostly study Russian in the back of the room by myself, which I don't mind too much. I've always liked to study alone. I hope that later on when I understand more I can join my classmates in some other classes. On Thursdays I have труд which is home economics (only for girls, so sexist) and I get to make traditional Russian food which is pretty cool. So far I have made Russian pancakes (basically a crepe, but don't tell the Russian's that) the Russian version of a pirogi, and soup. (I know the Russian names but have no idea how to spell them! I have the recipe for the pirogi things though so I can make them at home!) And can I
just say that the Russians love their soup! We have soup with almost every meal. And also may I add that there are 12 different types of borscht, something I was not aware of until I got here. I eat Kuban borsht, which is basically water tomato sauce with a crap town of onions and peppers and a few potatoes. I eat it, but I don't pretend to enjoy it. Here's a pic.At school, there is an English translator who is working as a teacher (she told me why but I didn't really understand exactly). Her names is Olya (Оля in Russian) She can't be more than 23 and she speaks English really well. She takes me out in the city sometimes during school and she helps me buy stuff at stores because most everything is in a glass case or behind a counter so if I went by myself I'd have to pull a Tarzan as Madame my french teacher would say and speak very crudely saying "это пожалуйста" ("this please") while pointing. Sometimes me and Sarah and Andrea take walks in the city too when we have English class. The teachers don't really care what we do, so it's kinda nice to have a bit of independence because school can get pretty boring.
So yeah, that's school, which is pretty much my life. My family is so awesome, but they don't really do anything. They never leave the house except to go to school/work or church. So it's good that Andrea lives near me so we can easily go for walks together just to get out of the house. The Russians don't really go outside. Like, there is a beautiful garden behind my house that is really pretty at sunset, but there is not where to sit. There's no where to sit anywhere outside. And as most of you know, I'm used to a nice big deck to go out and relax out on. Oh well. It will be winter soon and I guess it's pretty rainy and cold here in the winter so I won't want to be outside.
Because school is the only thing I do and I get pretty bored being home all the time, I'm looking into doing dance classes at an art school near my school. The director at my school gave me a schedule and told me the teachers name, but I'm a little confused. Like, do I just show up? I'm going to talk to my parents about it, and if they say yes maybe they can help me talk to the director to figure out what I need to do. Cause I was talking to Phillip about the whole being stuck at home thing and he says his family is kinda the same way so he started taking classes at an art school and he says its nice to have something else going on. And also, I really miss dancing. I have no idea what type of dance I'll be doing (I don't think its ballet though :() but I don't really care. Dance is a great stress reliever for me and also, its something I can do without knowing a lot of Russian because with dancing you communicate with your body, not your mouth.
And not to mention a little exercise wouldn't hurt. I'm afraid to say I've gained at least 5 pounds since this whole adventure began. They're diet is so carb-centric. Like the meal I just had was bread, potatoes, and these fried pancakes with cheese things. That's it. No vegetable or meat or anything. I feel like I'm going to explode! I eat grapes and apples and bananas often enough, but I'm not getting a lot of vegetables. I don't like tomatoes so all I really eat are cucumbers, which are basically crunchy water. And of course, there are tons of onions in every dish and yes, I actually do eat them. I never would have thought it possible, but they're not that bad most of the time. But the other day, my mama bought lettuce (it was different than American lettuce but i didn't care) and she made a green salad just for me. They put cucumbers and cauliflower (I told them I like broccoli and I think they think cauliflower is broccoli) and they drenched it in oil and put salt on it (They put salt of everything. And tons of butter. And the only flavoring they use here is salt, dill, and parsley) I didn't care though. I was just happy to have some greens :)
I have a couple other dietary notes to make. First, every Russian, at least in the Krasnodar region, loves sunflower seeds and I have taken a liking to them myself. There are tons of sunflower fields around here. Unfortunately I arrived as they were all dying so I didn't get to see them in all their beauty. But there are still tons of seeds kicking around. And they eat the ones with the shell on it. I still haven't gotten the hang of shelling them, but my host family has it down to a science. And also, my family raises there own chickens. I hear them in the morning and they are in my belly in the evening. And one time I made the mistake of walking into the outdoor kitchen when they were preparing the chickens. Seeing chicken feet sticking out of a pot was an experience I could have done without.
Okay, this is a pretty hefty sized post. I'm going to peace out for now. I'll write more often I promise!
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