Traveler, Writer, Aquarius, Peace Corps Volunteer
The evidence
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Life isn't always fair. This isn't a new lesson. Most of us learn it by the age of 1 or 2, when we start running around saying "no fair!" because we have to eat cauliflower or go to bed at 8pm or stop playing our video games (in my case, an Atari 2600 -- God, I'm really dating myself. I remember when Pac Man came out and they sold out for weeks...). In my experience, this "unfairness" usually presents itself through someone else exerting control over our independence. This can come in the form of a parent, a boss, a government, a God (if that's your millieu), the police (remember my problem on the bus?), or in the worst case, Peace Corps training directors who capriciously assign groups of people to live in a cluster together for three months without a scintilla of vetting the candidates to make sure they won't strangle each other at some point.
It's not easy living with three complete strangers. Reality TV has been teaching us that ever since MTV gave us The Real World. In my case, we're not living in the same house. We just spend four hours -- four torturous, painful hours -- every day together learning Russian.
Now, Cassio and I get along well. He's 23, just graduated from UMichigan (a huge Wolverines fan), and a very chill dude. If you've been to the gallery, you've seen a pic or two of him. Personality? The best way to describe him is happy-go-lucky. As long as he sleeps sixteen hours a day and drinks beer and watches soccer during the rest of the time, he's in heaven, and even if that doesn't happen, he's always got a smile and something nice to say. It's a little strange how much he sleeps, and he yawns every two minutes, but it's not an issue. Either is his five Cokes a day or two cups of tea so strong that it needs to be eaten with a spoon. In fact, the only issue I have with him is that he doesn't like pickles. Imagine! How can someone not like pickles? Strange...
The other thing I'll say about Cassio is that he speaks Russian very well and the two of us are at about the same level. It's always a pleasure in class to pair up for dialogue practice, because we can take the basic dialogue and go off on our own tangents, replacing verbs and nouns and expanding the situation to suit our needs. Usually, those conversations end up in the toilet, but hey -- ya can't talk about buying underwear without bringing up the edible kind, ya know?
Unless, of course, you're Michelle. Now, first and foremost, Michelle is probably the nicest person in Peace Corps. Well, there's this other girl, Lorena, who's her "twin" and good friend here. When those two are together, I need a toothbrush, 'cause otherwise it's so cloying I'm afraid cavities will start bursting out spontaneously. You've seen her pic in the gallery as well. Michelle is what I call a marble. She ain't got no edge. She walks through the world with her fingers in her ears singing "la la la la la everything is happy la la la la la I din't just hear a curse word la la la la la I hope that person isn't drinking alcohol la la la la la I can't believe those bad people listen to music that's fast or has curses in it la la la la la the Simpson's is evil and is the Devil's television la la la la". You can supply your own melody, but you get the point, eh?
Lewis : "Excuse me, teacher, how come this rule contradicts the last rule?"
Tanya: "Because that's just how it is!"
Lewis: "Well, it doesn't make any sense."
Michelle: "Everything makes sense and is good and is just fine. We just have to see the positive sides la la la la la."
Michelle and I sit next to each other on the couch and usually do a lot of exercises together. Okay, I don't talk about edible underwear with her, or fecal matter for that matter, but I do try to embellish the dialogues and enhance my speaking ability. Michelle is not fond of this. It makes her upset. But it's sweet to see her repress those angry feeling way down low to the tips of her toes. In with the funk, out with the love. I expect she'll end up in a Womens' Prison for the Criminally Insane half way into service.
And then, my sweetness, my love, Jennifer.
Tanya: "Jennifer, how are you today?" (in Russian)
Jennifer: "Oh... I don't know." (in English)
Tanya: "Are you okay?" (in Russian)
Jennifer: "Yeah, I guess." (in English)
Having a conversation Jennifer is like talking to a mewling cat in heat. Every word is an elongated whiny high-pitched "I don't wanna". Her favorite word in Russian is plocha -- awful. That is when she even tries to speak Russian, which is like pulling teeth. I think of the two monsters on Sesame Street who each take half a word and slowly pronounce them several times until they make the one big word. That, in a nutshell, is how Jennifer says EVERY WORD. And she's a Penn grad. 'Nough said.
Ah, I know, it sounds like I'm bitching. Truth is, I was looking for something to write about and it's pretty slow now, with only two weeks left to go, so I figured I'd do a character sketch of my clustermates.
Finally, there's Tanya. She, like Michelle, was cast from a mold of purity and goodness. And is there anything that rubs a supercilious prick like me the wrong way more than that? No, not much.
The other day, Tanya asked for written feedback on how we could make the classes better. I had two main points: the cross-cultural sessions should be optional, not manditory, and more class time should be devoted to the more complicated topics.
Tanya: "You don't learn anything from the sessions."
Lewis: "No, I just think they should be optional. I didn't get anything out of the trip to the museum." (the museum, in the small town of Obuhiv, was a small schoolhouse with some Ukrainian peasant tools and poetry and paintings).
Tanya: "So you don't want to learn about my culture?"
Lewis: "No, I didn't say that. I get culture from living with Claudia, and from talking to Ukrainians, and from teaching in school. I don't want to spend my Saturday's doing redundant stuff if I don't have to."
Tanya: "So you don't think there's anything you can learn?"
Lewis: "Jesus Christ! You asked me for feedback. I gave it. It's like I'm caught in a friggin web!"
And so on and so forth. Ah... two more weeks. For those of you who asked about Donetsk, it really is a cool town and I have lots of friends there already and I'm very psyched to go. It's probably the best place for me in Ukraine. And it's not that far from the beach in the summertime.
Hope y'all had great Thanksgivings!
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