June 22, 2008 || First Disco & Some Funny Stories

Soooo last night was the disco.
You have no idea.

I was soaked with sweat after. Literally soaked. I had sweat marks on my stomach and everything! It was pretty gross, but I figured out why the other counselors wore black. We crammed all those kids into the disco hall and then Adir played all sorts of music. Most of it was techno or house in style, which is pretty much all Russians listen to. Even during the day, music is normally played over loudspeakers so that students know when their lesson is over or when it's time to go to lunch, et cetera, and if it's not camp songs that everyone can speak together it's normally techno (occasionally there's an opera lady singing, but I never realize it's her until I'm swaying to the music). Howeeeeever Adir did play some American music--he really likes R&B and his favorite artists are Eminem, 50 Cent, those sorts of musicians. Imagine my surprise when the "Apple-Bottom Jeans" song came over the speakers. We could sing and dance along! But when the kids asked us to translate American songs, we were both like "Nooo way."
Anyway, after we were done we fond Zhena, master of the pool, and asked (mostly joking) if we could go swimming. He responded with "You want to? Now?" and of course we said yes, so we ended up going to the pool. It was kind of sort of not allowed, so we had to be really quiet and didn't stay too long, but he was really friendly and we talked a lot. We came back to change and watch Russia play Holland for EuroCup, but Desiree and I had to go planyorka instead. We thiiiiiiink Zhena might have gotten in trouble for letting us swim, since we walked back in with wet hair, clutching towels, and all the kids could clearly tell we'd been in the pool. But we haven't seen him since, so we can't really ask.

The weather today was not so nice, so we had our "Sport" class inside. We played Uno and Twister, Hand-Clap games and 7-Up, and I busted out my Blink! cards too (which was definitely a worthy buy in New York). Sometimes it's hard to play when you've got kids hanging off of you who just want to be on your team--then you have to figure out how to say "No teams! Everyone for themselves!" in Russian. I think I'm getting better--my ability to speak in Russian for longer periods of time is improving. After our lessons, a bunch of the girls swarmed us, asking for our e-mails and our "Avtographs," which I thought was pretty cool. We're basically stars. =P Not, but it was really cute. We traded e-mails with Taya (Tasya? Taya is maybe an even shorter name?) and Olga our helper, who asked if we could take Uno or Blink! to planyorka next time. Answer: Of course! It's really great knowing that something we showed them or brought is interesting enough for them to want to borrow it.

Tonight we have our song, and the other performances to watch, but we're pretty much done for the day, which is nice.

I feel like there's more that needs to be said, but I don't know what. I think about the other groups a lot, wondering how they're doing further out in Siberia, wondering if anyone is down to building houses out of mud and sticks. We've got an auditorium, and a ropes course, and a photography class--we're pretty freaking well off here. I would love to know how they've been: if Zack is just wowing kids with his Russian, if Sam is still arguing (by the order of Her Majesty the Queen) that potato chips are really called crisps, if Jacob let his kids shave his head. I suppose I'll find out soon enough.

[Aside: Misha (hard-ass Misha) is playing Mortal Kombat 3 right now and I'm sure he's losing, which is hysterical]
Finished The Poisonwood Bible. Highly recommended for any Book Club (or general self-improvement). Read Heart of Darkness first, and then watch Apocalypse Now after.

For the most part, I'm okay with being misunderstood. Every day there's a new story. Such as:
1: Nelli was handing out scarves to all the girls at the meeting, giving them pink ones. We'd been told we'd wear blue, since we're not quite counselors and we'd be working with both camps. I tried to tell her that we were getting blue scarves, but it just came out as "Blue for us" or "To us, blue" which, considering that "blue" is slang for homosexual, came out as "Her and I are gay."
2: Wandered into the wrong dorm and spent 10 minutes wondering how they had moved all our stuff out of room 4 and moved in another group so fast, and why we didn't recognize anyone, until a group leader told us to go up to the 4th floor and then we realized we had an entirely wrong building.
3: Instead of saying "Those boys I saw writing last night," I put the accent on the wrong part of the verb and said "Those boys I saw pissing last night."
4: When Egor offered us a candy with iron to make children strong, like bulls, and all I caught were the words "blood" and "bull" and thought this little candy bar would start bleeding bull blood as soon as I cracked it in half.
5: Accidentally implying Misha (Robin Hood) is a girl every time I talk to him.