Friday, August 22, 2014

Plant Homicide and Singing Dragons


                It has been a long couple of weeks. The realities of rural Russian life set in pretty hard, and I have been missing friends and family and the conveniences available in America quite a bit. It has been pretty lonely. A lot of Americans have gone back home at this point, so those of us that are left are pretty scattered around the country side. Dave has been really busy at work and our truck has broken down again so AJ and I have been sticking pretty close to home.
                My brain is getting acclimated to reading signs in Russian. Yesterday I was in town shopping and I was trying to read a big sign, it was a tricky word and I was really sounding it out, “Mirrr… mirrr… mirr ackle. Mirr aakle.” My friend Misty was with me and she looked at me, “Miracle?” The sign was in English. I was trying so hard to read it in Russian it didn’t even occur to me that it was a word I did know. In my defense the word “mir” in Russian means world, so I thought it was some kind of store that sold one particular kind of thing. Shoe world, or borscht world.  Something along those lines.
                I’ve been plant sitting for a friend that was on vacation, and I managed to only kill two of them, one indoor plant and one outdoor plant. I don’t know what it is about me that makes plants want to give up the ghost, but they do not generally last too long in our house. I am starting to think that maybe they are like horses and can tell when you are afraid of them. I guess I have better luck with dogs and babies because they let you know when they want something. Plants just sit there looking all beautiful and stuff and then the next thing you know, bam, dead. If reverse Red Dawn happens while we are over here, I hope our Russian neighbors will be willing to share their harvests because I don’t think I would be a very good subsistence farmer.

                The guys that work with Dave on this farm are pretty generous. One of them bought a toy for AJ. It is a stuffed dragon that does a little dance and sings a song in English. It was really sweet of him and AJ really likes it. The only problem is that though I can’t quit make out all the words, it is a pop song and it does use the word bitch at least once. We have also been given a gigantic bag of cucumbers and recently some spun honey that is totally yummy. The gift giving culture here dictates that you do not want to be the last person to give a gift. One of the guys recently had a baby we gave them a couple outfits. The next day he came back with a bottle of vodka and some wafer cookies.  

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