Monday, 22 June 2009 07:08
When we were in our first year of language school, one of our teachers, who lived a long time in Russia, advised us to take a regular day off from the language. "Spend at least one day a week speaking no Russian at all," he told us. "Language learning is exhausting, so do what you have to do to get away from it, or else you will never be completely resting." He might as well have told us to take a nice, leisurely walk on the water once a week: that's how impossible it is to escape the native language of the country you live in. On our days off from language school, we're grocery shopping, or getting the car registered, or having medical testing, or going to church. At the very least, there are neighbors who have rather fluid ideas of boundaries, and show up on the doorstep once or twice a day, bearing bowls of strawberries and giving Russian advice on everything from how to cure a head cold by soaking our feet in hot mustard water, to not letting our children sit on the cold cement steps (lest they be unable to bear children themselves, in the future.)
Tim & I really don't mind it. For one thing, we love the language, and for another, we speak it fairly well by now, so it's not as much work as it used to be just to live in it. The kids really feel it though. When we have friends over, or we're invited somewhere else, 7 times out of 10, we're all speaking Russian. It's bewildering. It's, as the Russian's say, "chuzhoy:" alien. Our kids have been long overdue for some all-English time.
Last weekend, we took a big breath of fresh air and went with another America family to the Black Sea town of Anapa. There, John & Naomi Musgrave run an American-style Bed & Breakfast for ministry workers in Russia. We spent 2 days frying ourselves at the beach. (Why is the Black Sea called "Black?" It's the most glorious shade of aquamarine, sparkling under the sun like some enormous jewel God dropped onto the sand.) It was just warm enough to swim, which was a pleasant shock to our Maine notions of a day at the sea. (Wade until your ankles lose all feeling; run back and huddle on your towel the rest of the afternoon while the purple-lipped children bob around shouting, "It's really warm once you get used to it!")
The third day was overcast, and frankly, we were all too pink and tender to think about going back to the beach anyway. We were reluctant to leave early though: none of us was eager to go back home to the city and the neighbors, and all the wet towels that would need to be unpacked. When John & Naomi told us we could stay and hang out there, we spent the day watching movies, playing games, and at one point, rolling back the rug and doing a little line-dancing. We made it home around 9:00 that evening, crispy and sandy, and ready--just maybe--to speak a little Russian again.
Our All-English, All the Time weekend wasn't quite over though, because on Monday, we were visited by two American couples who were passing through Krasnodar. Both couples were about our parents' ages, and had served and worked in Krasnodar fourteen years ago. They were on a trip back through, re-connecting with old friends, and along the way they spent Monday afternoon with us. Both couples were those kind of people you feel you've known and loved all your life. We loved their stories, and their enthusiasm for the work here. They encouraged us too. We felt stronger after they left: ready to plunge back in and fight the good fight.
That was last week. This weekend was more of a "service" weekend, and in a way we're starting the week feeling like it's still Friday. Rumor reached us, on this side of the world, that it was Father's Day in America, so we each called our Dads last night, but I can't say we really celebrated other than that. We feel disconnected from American holidays somehow, over here, so not only do we find ourselves missing the birthdays of people we love back home, but the "changing holidays"--the ones that fall on a different date every year (Mother's Day, Easter, Father's Day, Labor Day...) completely baffle us. Add to that the fact (I've mentioned this before) that the Russian calendar week starts with Monday and ends with Sunday, and we're lucky we even make it to language school or church on the right days. If we've overlooked you somehow, it doesn't mean we don't love you, it just means we're time-and-date challenged.
And now, onward to the week ahead! Let's hope we can be where we're supposed to be, when we're supposed to be there.
