July 10, 2008 || Hedgehog Day, Second Smena

We're back at camp, and man, it feels different... all of our kids are gone (only 4 returned out of the whooooole bunch for this smena), a lot of the counselors are different, the instructors are different, and we leave on Friday.
It's been tough--we feel even more like we don't have a role here, and that we're only punching the clock until we leave. It's not easy to get involved when 1) you know you're leaving in less than a few days and 2) you don't want to get super close to the kids, since you know how much it might hurt when you leave them (and anyways, no matter how hard you try, chances are you won't be able to get that close to them in the end). I feel like we've been spending much more time with the staff and counselors, and even in the computer room--I've been tying up some lose ends on my trip to St. Petersburg instead of posting on here (then again, there's not that much to post).
The first day was just move-in. This time we're living in Carolina, on the highest floor, which is a bit like the attic. There's 6 of us there--me, Desiree, Olga our helper, Lera, Nastya (a new Nastya), and Vika. Vika has become probably our closest friend up there; she's a photographer and not a counselor this time around, so we look through her pictures and spend more free time with her.
The second day we performed our opening show (last time, for Japan we did a fan dance and tea ceremony). This time, I'm a mime and Desiree's a can-can dancer. The shows were kind of slapdash, and both Desiree and I aren't as good this time around, since no one's taking the time to translate everything into English for us (new dance leader, new theater instructor). Oh well. The make-up alone is worth seeing the pictures. Also, Lera made me wear a pair of her black pants instead of Olga's and my god, I didn't know I could even walk in pants that tight. Sally forth, carry on, all that rot. Yesterday was linyayka too, so I went to that and then got invited to watch Natasha's group practice their dance and go to their svechka, and after I stayed in Natasha's room and just talked with her and red Nadya, Katya, Leilya, and whoever else wandered in. When Desiree came we started Skip-Bo (Alyona, a girl who we had let borrow it, got it taken away from her for not sleeping), but planyorka got in the way and we went to bed.
Today was the most eventful day so far, and the real reason I'm on writing.
In the middle of the night, I heard what sounded like someone unpacking right next to my bed. I sat up and looked around--there rummaging through the clothes I had left on top of my duffel bag was a big dark shape, hunched low like a rat. I must have screamed a little, 'cause it ran off along the wall, snuffling all the way, and crawled into a long box lying a ways away. In there, it kept crawling around and rubbing its claws and body on the cardboard, so Desiree woke up, and I told her there was an animal in the room. She didn't quite understand, thought he was in the pipes, but when I finally got her to understand, we both jumped up and started with the "What do we dos?!" We ran all the way downstairs, and even outside, to see if anyone was up--I hadn't bothered to look at my watch, turns out it was around 5 am. When we got back upstairs, Lera heard the animal and looked at us--I tried to tell her there was an animal in the room, but she just rolled back over and went to bed after giving us a glare. Vika woke up too, and we explained to her what had happened. She understood and while we were moving our clothes off the floor she picked up her shoes too, but after we frantically tried to block the box with something heavy, she decided there was nothing we could do 'till morning and we should try to get back to sleep. We did try... well, I finished my book first, and then I lay coiled around my camera, afraid now that if the animal left during the night no one would believe me--I was the only one who had seen it. Everytime it moved, which was often, I would snap up and get ready for a picture, until it calmed down and seemed to go to sleep. I had some fitful dreams--one where it was the rat from "The Great Mouse Detective" and one where it was a tiger cub crawled into our room.
When it was time for lunch, we could still here it, but we went to breakfast. I really don't have all the words for explaining how a mouse or rat or something is in my room (but I do know the words for shooting range, sword-fighting, joint and belay... it's interesting how our vocabularies evolve), but between 2 Russians who could speak English, one American who can speak Russian, one Russian who understands gestures well, and one American who makes gestures well, we got the general idea across--and the verdict was, wait for Sveta or Taras to wake up and tell them.
We reluctantly returned to our room and pulled our feet up from the floor on our beds to wait, me writing a letter, Desiree reading her book. Katya brought breakfast for Olga, and excitedly our room related to her the story of our mouse/rat and how food might be a bad idea. She started laughing and asked where the rat was. We pointed to the box and she walked right over to it and looked inside. In Russian, she told us who she had caught a hedgehog yesterday and then decided to play a joke on us by letting it into our room--she shook the box until the little guy fell out, and sure enough, a scared little hedgehog started running across our floor.
Thank GOD is all I've got to say--for some reason, I'm much more okay with having a hedgehog relaxing on yesterday's jeans than a rat. He really was quite cute, too--of course we had to chase him around the room and catch him again.
Annnnd the whole shtab just started laughing as I told Katya all about how Desiree and I ran outside and how I slept with my camera all night.
Pretty damn good pratical joke, if you ask me (now that I've had a 2-hour nap and put away all my clothes).
As for the rest of today... our performance again, maybe attending a few Karolina lessons or Robin Hood lessons, and then going to bed, starting to pack up. We leave tomorrow evening (so late that we probably won't be able to see Marina do her fire show performance, as we'd been hoping), and probably after the disco has already begun--but we didn't bring any nice clothes whatsoever, so chances are Desiree and I won't be going to disco, one more night at Olga's house--hopefully with more laundry being done--and then back to the hotel on Saturday. Our plans with the group seem to be a river cruise (been there, done that) and then souvenir shopping at Izmailovsky. Marina and Anya told us about a free open-air concert at VDNX park, right near our hotel, so we're going to try to get the group to go to that Saturday night, and then who knows what we'll do on Sunday while they're river-cruising.
Then, well, off to St. Petersburg--I can't wait! Marina even said she'll try to get tickets and meet me up there with her friend (another Marina) so it could end up being even more fun than I originally thought, though I plan on logging some serious hours with a big cup of tea and my journal in some park or cafe somewhere.