Half a World Away

I knew when we moved to Russia that we would be far away from family and friends. The literal truth of half a world away never hit me until I needed to get home in a hurry. Late last month I got a call from my mom and we needed to get home quick. Well, the call came on a Friday, which meant the soonest we could really get a flight home was Tuesday. With the realities of time zones and international flights, that put us in Salt Lake City on Wednesday at midnight.

Our driver showed up at 6:00 in the morning and our flight left at 3:00pm. The seven hours to Moscow were pretty stressful and involved our driver driving on the shoulder of the highway around traffic stopped for road construction. We made it to the airport, got in the wrong line, found the right line, found our gate, found food, and in a hectic mad rush got on the plane only to realize we had two tickets, not three.  That poor flight attendant probably thought I was a crazy lady as I stood there with a baby and a car seat and no place to put them. Luckily the flight wasn’t full so we got a row of four seats to ourselves.

In New York we had to get our baggage and take it through customs and re-check it. Got in the wrong line again. Found the right line, found the bathroom, found the right terminal. At this point Dave and I have come to an impasse. I am sure that it is morning and Dave is pretty sure that it is evening. So, we ask the next person we see for the time. He kindly informs us that it is 6:20, and I say, “In the morning?” and he looks at me like I’m a nut and says, “No, in the evening.” I guess I’m no good at time travel. Dave was momentarily gleeful until we realized that we only had an hour to get through security and get to our gate. Yikes.

We made it to Salt Lake City and AJ promptly got the stomach flu followed very closely by Dave getting the stomach flu. I’ve never been puked on so much in my life.

It was a short two weeks in the states and then we were headed home again. We flew on a different airline this time and they did not let me bring the car seat on board since we still only had two tickets. That was a long eleven hours. I know a lot of moms are okay holding their babies on long flights, but my wiggle worm was not too happy. When we made it to Moscow we got in the wrong line again. This time though it was a Russian line which is very different from an American line and involves pushing and cutting and yelling. Made it through that line and our driver was late so we had to wait two hours in the airport for him to show up.

The time change has been pretty rough on all of us, and the last three nights have involved midnight mommy and AJ parties. I’m pretty well partied out.

  

The potty mouth alcoholic.

                A couple of weeks ago Dave had to go to an impromptu meeting at company headquarters near Bryansk. Since we were going to be so close to the city, Carrie, one of my new American friends, and her daughter Hailey, and I decided to go to the mall. We all met at Carrie’s house and the guys carpooled to the meeting. We were originally going to take our truck since it has air conditioning, but only one seatbelt in the back works, so we couldn’t fit two car seats in there. We had to take Carrie’s truck instead. I offered to drive, I didn’t really think that this would be the day that Carrie found out that I was a potty mouth.

                Driving in Russia is intense. People pass you anytime they feel like you aren’t going as fast as a person could possibly be driving at any moment. They pass you in town, on corners, and around a solid line. They follow really close, and squeeze in around you on dangerous stretches. Luckily, because the roads are so terrible it is hard to go faster than 110 kilometers per hour. Even though everyone around you is driving like a crazy person, you probably won’t die if you crash.  I say everyone around you is driving like a crazy person, but really I have had to adopt a lot more aggressiveness in my driving. 

                The other day I passed a semi in a turn lane across a solid line. Dave waited until I got back in our lane and said, “Well, I think that was really illegal.” I promised I wouldn’t do it again.  When Carrie and I were headed to the mall, things were going really well till we hit the first round about, and I let one of my milder curse words slip. Luckily both of the girls were asleep in the back seat for the other round about. Russia is awfully fond of roundabouts, and I seem to always be in the wrong lane. Carrie heard a few more choice words and we made it to the mall.

                We had a nice lunch, and tooled around the baby store and bought baby shoes. Then we went to the grocery store in the mall. It was awesome. Clean and huge, it has an incredible selection of home stuff, clothes, and camping gear as well as a lot of food. And… and this is a big AND… THEY HAVE CORONA!!!!!!!!!!!!  Can you believe it? Mexican beer in Russia. It was awesome to see. So I put a six pack in my cart. Well, it looked lonely so I put another one in there. And then that was only 12 beers and we only get to Bryansk every so often, so I put another one in there. I ended up putting every Corona the store had stocked on their shelf in my cart, and if my Russian was better I would have asked for all the Coronas they had in the back too. As I was putting all of them in my cart I said to Carrie, “I promise I’m not an alcoholic!”  Hopefully she believed me. I didn’t really understand how they were priced and ended up paying a lot for each of them. So much that I didn’t tell Dave how much they were because if he knew what they cost he wouldn’t have been able to enjoy them.

                We tooled down to the “foreign food” aisle. Tortillas!! I grabbed about 10 packages of tortillas, salsa, and jalapenos. It was like a fiesta in my cart. All in all it was a good trip, even if Carrie now knows that I am a potty mouthed alcoholic.  

The other country in my life...

                Some things about Russia I like so much it makes me feel like I am cheating on America. My favorite bird has always been the crane, and I have been lucky that the ranches we lived on in California and Nevada had cranes, at least seasonally. They are majestic and beautiful. I think they are incredibly graceful and I always considered them lucky. I felt like if I saw a crane my day was bound to be a good one. Here there are storks. Lots and lots of storks. They are everywhere. They are also beautiful and majestic, but in contrast to cranes, they let me get a lot closer to them. I don’t know that I have ever been closer than 50 feet to a crane. Today I got to see a stork take flight directly above me. It was no more that twelve feet away. It was amazing. And they are all over the place. They nest on people’s houses and the top of telephone poles and like to hang out in the pastures by our house. Incredible.

                I also love the different landscapes that are near where we live. Our farm here is in the middle of rolling hills, and there are little groves of trees every so often. To get to our closest American neighbor’s farm you have to drive through a bit of forest. It is a pretty magical forest, and it is easy to imagine fairies and princesses. It is also really easy to imagine witches and evil spirits here too. It is no wonder that fairy tales originate in Europe. There is plenty of fuel for the imagination.

                While there are things I really enjoy about Russia, I appreciate and miss home. The contrasts can be pretty startling.  I often have the chorus from America the Beautiful running through my head. When I consider that a lot of the homes here do not have running water and people grow a garden out of necessity instead of as a hobby, I feel really fortunate to have been born in America. That might be pretty cheesy, but it doesn’t make it any less true. I miss infrastructure and emergency services. I miss abundance and ease. I miss Swiffer products and Clorox wipes. I miss taking for granted toilet paper in public restrooms.

                All these complaints are small and not really significant, and I wouldn’t trade this adventure for  anything. But, and I am really serious here, I am glad that when we are done here I get to go home to amber waves of grain and purple mountains majesties above the fruited plain.

                

On Pillows and Mayo and Burning the House Down

                Here in Russia a lot of products are different from the states. I was truly surprised by square pillows and wide rectangles of butter. In my head there was no other way for pillows to be but rectangular. Here they are definitely square. They are super comfy and I can actually say I prefer them to the pillows from home. The first time I saw the butter, wide and wrapped in tinfoil, I thought, “I wonder what the butter dishes look like.” Surprisingly enough, they are shaped  to fit the butter.

                They condiments come in squeeze  pouches instead of bottles or jars. I think it is particularly genius, you don’t have to get mayonnaise on your knuckles when trying to get the last bit out. And the mayonnaise is really delicious here. I don’t know what ingredients are different from the mayonnaise in the states, but it is richer and more delicious. Magic. Magic mayonnaise. There are a lot of different types of ketchup for sale, but they do have Heinz, which is what we buy because it is the closest to what we expect to taste when eating ketchup.  We found some Heinz barbeque sauce which is really good and tastes very authentic.

                We haven’t really found a good mustard. The first attempt at finding mustard left me with 12 ounces of ground horseradish. I just assumed it was mustard and without even tasting it used it in the dressing for a pasta salad. Did you know that vinegar can come in different percentages of dilution? Well, I did not. I bought super strong vinegar, mixed it with horseradish and raw garlic, threw in a little olive oil and served it with dinner. It was painfully horrible. Pretty darn inedible, and it was a real pity because I used about ten dollars of salami. I have learned my lesson about tasting the condiments before they go on or in anything.

                One of the best parts of my Russian kitchen is the electric kettle. It is incredibly handy to have boiling water at hand in moments. It is awesome for cooking and cleaning. I don’t know why there aren’t more of them in the states, but I imagine it has to do with being more of a coffee culture than a tea culture. Speaking of coffee, we really haven’t had any really good coffee since we got here. We brought a percolator with us, but that took forever to brew and the results were pretty icky. They do sell coffee makers here, but they don’t sell filters. So, we have been drinking instant. It could be worse. It could definitely be better, but I’m trying not to forget that it could be worse. One problem it has solved is the great coffee debate in the Voth household. I make it too strong, Dave makes it too weak. Now we can customize. Thank you, Russia!

                Our house came with a kettle, but we ended up having to buy one to replace the one that Dave set on fire while trying to burn down the house. I guess he was actually trying to make coffee, but he might as well have been trying to burn down the house. He filled up the kettle and put it on the stove and then sat down to eat breakfast. Soon, the kettle started smoking and he thought,  ”That is weird, it usually doesn’t start to steam up that fast.” There were of course flames,  then he yelled, “Meggan, come quick, there is a fire!” Well, I put the baby down in her crib and ran towards the kitchen and he yelled, “Open the front door!” He ran out and threw the kettle on the driveway. So, we had to buy a new kettle.

                

Oh, the humidity!

It seems rather perverse and obscene that it should be hot in Russia. In my mind it there was a constant snow cover on the ground and never got above 60 degrees. I was very wrong, of course, and so we have a lot of long johns, boots, thick socks and sweaters and only one pair of shorts between the three of us. The shorts we do have belong to Dave and are cammo so are of little use to the rest of us.

We had our first really hot day about a week ago and have been suffering ever since. There are no curtains or blinds in our house so I have hung sheets on the windows as a temporary measure. We were advised to buy fans early as they are considered a seasonal item and when the stores run out they don’t restock.  Luckily, we have three, but I think we would probably be better off with thirty. Ugh.

AJ doesn’t really seem to mind the heat. All I brought for her were long sleeve onsies, so I hacked the sleeves off of a couple of them and now she is crawling around like a little hillbilly redneck Russkie. Although, now that I think of it the heat might be getting to her because her new trick is to sit on her butt and spin three sixties while laughing like a maniac. She likes to sleep with a fleece blanket from home, and even though it is a billion degrees (no hyperbole at all) she can’t really get to sleep without it.

Dave and I are melting. Just melting. We are really fortunate that Dave’s work truck has AC as a lot of the other Americans do not. The heat has made it pretty difficult for us to sleep and the fact that it doesn’t get dark till eleven pm makes it harder still. I have told Dave that we need sleep masks. it would certainly help our sleep deprivation. I am all for it, but I can’t get Dave to agree. I think it would be incredibly adorable  for the two of us to have matching sleep masks. Maybe embroidered with ZZzzzs or closed eyes with long eyelashes. He is so stubborn.  

31 in Russia

                Last Saturday I went shopping with a group of American women in Bryansk to celebrate my birthday and Mother’s day. Bryansk is the equivalent of the state capitol where we live and is a city of about 500,000 people. It is three hours from our farm to the city. Dave dropped me off at one of our nearest neighbors, and then we had a driver take us into the city.

               There is a pretty new mall in Bryansk and it was like shopping heaven for me. The area where we live is pretty remote and devoid of a lot of modern conveniences. I suppose realistically it is only the luxuries that are missing. Necessities are pretty much accounted for, unless you consider a latte a necessity.  I have always loved shopping. Even if I’m not buying anything I love the order and cleanliness of a department store. I love the feeling that somebody gave a lot of thought to what I might like and took it upon themself to try and give it to me.

                The mall here has two stories and walking through the door was like a quick trip back to America. Everything was clean and orderly and available for my convenience. It was awesome. There were four of us from our region and we were waiting on the rest of our group from another region at the food court. I had McDonalds for my birthday lunch. I feel a little guilty living in a foreign country and craving the familiarity of American food, but after 11 weeks I figured I shouldn’t feel too guilty for wanting something familiar. The gals got me an ice cream cake from Baskin Robbins and sang happy birthday. It was a really nice surprise.

                For my birthday, I wanted to get some nice lotion and hand soap, I went to a store called Yves Rocher to get it. They didn’t have testers so the store clerk followed me around and opened up bottles that I pointed to for me to smell. After I picked out a few, I said “Horosho” which means good, ok, I’m done and that is all. I thought we were walking to the cash register, but we actually went to the hair care section where she handed me a bottle of conditioner. Not shampoo, but conditioner. She was obviously trying to meet my needs, “Here you are in a foreign land, and you obviously have not been able to do your hair in a long time. Let me help you. Buy this conditioner.”I bought the conditioner. I must have really looked like I needed some.

                AJ was a sport the whole day. She didn’t take a nap on the way there, so she was a little cranky when we got to the mall and then a scary lady made her cry in the women’s restroom. Her diaper did leak while she was in the carrier, so I spent a good portion of the day with a pee soaked shirt, but apparently an unexpected side effect of mommy hood is not caring too much that you are out in public soaked in pee. Happy Birthday to me, indeed.

                Dave picked me up and drove us home. There he had a cake and a card and a balloon and a present. It was a nice surprise because I had given him a pass this year for my birthday and Mother’s day. The cake was not super delicious, there seems to be a Russian law of desserts: if it looks really decadent and delicious, it isn’t. 

I hate bugs. It is a true source of embarrassment to me because it conflicts with the idea I have of myself as a competent grown up. Russia is resplendent with all manner of creepy crawlies.  When we first  moved into our house I had to clean up a lot of fly carcasses and there were still quite a few live ones flying around. I thought it was weird that there were so many flies around with snow on the ground. Then I started noticing more and more bugs in the house. I was discussing it with one of the other American families, and it turns out they come in through the walls. Yes, the walls.

                This isn’t a horror movie, this is my house. I realize it probably isn’t a big deal, but in my mind’s eye I see flies elbowing there way between the logs , “Yep, almost there, gotta go gross Meggan out.”

                The truly unsettling thing is when I've told other people here about it they seem very nonchalant. Apparently I am the only one completely and totally freaked out by bugs with the ability to make it through walls. Yuck.

                So, as embarrassing as my squeamishness is, to a large extent I am able to hide it. Last week AJ and I were hanging out with another American and her daughter waiting for Dave to get out of a meeting. She had just described to me the bugs in Missouri, completely convincing me that I will never live in Missouri, and Dave came in. I saw something on his back moving around a little. It was a tick. I then proceeded to freak out a little and try and get it off his back with a paper towel. I got it off but couldn’t crush it, and I was doing a little icky dance to accompany my panic.  I am a total weenie.

                A couple days later AJ and I were driving around with Dave checking cows, and Dave saw a calf in a pond. He had to wade in there up to his knees to go get him, and when he finally got him out we noticed he was bleeding on his leg. I said, “I bet it was probably a leech.” We looked around and there on the ground was an undulating blood sucking fiend. It was slimy and slick and gross beyond belief.  Well, of course this presented an excellent opportunity for me to tease Dave that there was probably a legion of leeches inside his boots. He had been in the water for all of 2 minutes after all. They work quick.

                Dave feels about leeches the way I feel about ticks. It was a fun 30 minutes before he got a chance to take his boots off. After his boots and socks were off he walked past me in the kitchen and I looked down at his feet and shrieked. There was nothing there, but he jumped up about a foot and a half. It wasn't the nicest thing I've ever done, but it was funny.  Thankfully, he hasn't gotten back at me by neglecting his spider crushing duties.