July 5th, 2008 (Attempt the 2nd) || Camp-Out!

Soooo after the kids started loading into the buses this morning, Desi and I went up to the Shtab and chilled with Misha (the kompioterchik/Hard-ass) and decided to spend some quality time online. Misha left after about 10 minutes and bop! like magic the internet went out. I saved what I wrote earlier at camp, so I'll post that sometime later--that was mostly about the campfire last night and saying goodbye this morning (tough stuff to think about right now, so I don't really want to revisit it--the whole "I'M NEVER GOING TO SEE YOU AGAIN" thought is beaming bright and loud in the marquee lights of my mind, and if I focus on it there's no way I'll get to sleep happy).
So, instead, I'm going to go through my pictures on my camera from around the time of poxod (campout) and flesh out my telegram-style post from before.
Yes so, there was poxod, and on poxod there are a whole new group of people in charge, people who just live down at the campsite. After we got settled, we were invited to "go guesting" at these peoples' tent (for lack of an apartment) and met the whole crew.
There was "Bol" or Gena, an old salty-sailor-esque man with a gravely voice and squinty eyes. What killed me was his hat, bedazzled with a skull and crossbones. And I really do mean Bedazzled, capital B, with rhinestones and glitter.
Igor, our tentmate, was a very kind and helpful old gent who also spent most of his time in a sailor's striped shirt.
Lena and Anya, helpful guides and the daughter of Bol on vacation, respectively.
"Hedgehog" and "Sparkman," two EMT trainees who were only there in case of an emergency and stayed as far away from the kids as possible.
Sasha, the head of an engineering factory out in Moscow who was also "resting" in the woods.
A guy who's name I forget who always went around in old German fatigues and seemed to enjoy mystery novels.
And my favorite, "Pablo the Pirate," or Pasha--he hardly smiled, and went around in a pirate's tricorner and life jacket all the time. Really, no joke.
Anyway, at their tent, which was more of a lean-to with two tarp walls (one of which even had a window--prompted discussions of "The Bronze Horseman's" Window to Europe and Animal Planet, don't ask don't tell) we were treated to glintwine (read: mmmmmmmmmmmm why is it only in Russia that I can find this drink?), and cucumbers, bread, and some meat (all things that had to be heated were stuck in the fire), and later what Sasha called "Russian Absinthe." I really have no idea what they put in it, but when Sasha put this little thermometer doodad in, he proclaimed it to be over 70 proof. We could hardly handle even one toast of that stuff, so we ended the night with tea and talking Russian literature around the main campfire (Bol lamenting how youngsters nowadays wouldn't even know of Mayakovsky).
The next day we played a lot of Skip-Bo and sat out the rain until breakfast arrived. Thank goodness they brought us our meals from the dining hall back at camp-camp; I don't think there's any way we could've all fed ourselves. We went canoeing for a little bit and then, being cold, played more Skip-Bo and Pioneerball, all a bit lethargically as no one really wanted to drop the ball or slip in the mud. Desiree and I supplemented ourselves liberally with peanut butter (my jar I threw in the trash last night; the kids in the lounge, Desiree and I had a small moment of silence for it before going back to our cards). We played some camp games, mostly clapping and word games like charades (which is a bit harder in Russian--I think the only one I got first was "Plankton" from Spongebob Squarepants--fancy that, the same in both languages, and I don't even really like Spongebob). One Russian one we learned--well, I forget the name of it, but we all stood in a circle close to one another, and the first person turned to the person on their right and did a funny action to them. This got repeated all around the circle, neighbor to neighbor, until someone laughed--then they became the new leader. Fun times there, regardless of the rain.
The car ride home was as equally dangerous as any I've taken with Dmitri, and instead of 6 people in back we had 10. Sardines came to mind.
That night was... a special night of some sort, I forget. But I have pictures from two of my favorite performances--one involved a the theme from Titanic and "Rose and Jack--60 years later," which was pretty darn cute. After, we called the boy (Kirill, who is in "my Misha's" group--Desiree and I have a hard time distinguishing all the Mishas; there's Misha Hard-Ass, who works on computers; Our Misha, who is in the 1st Group of Robin Hood and often translates for us; My Misha, who's the one his friends would shout "Jaclyn! He is love you!" every time I came near; and Robin Hood, Misha the teacher of archery) "Jack" everywhere we saw him--even when he fought in the fencing tournament, he had a pair of fans shouting "Go Jack! Jack, Jack!" all through. The second great performance was "Yellow Submarine" by the Beatles. The Beatles also all come from my Misha's group, the 3rd Group Robin Hood, and Gleb and Pasha we got to know rather well. They did a really good job, and Desi and I rocked out to their slightly-accented version of the song. They sang a version in Russian too! It was our favorite of the night.
The next day Nelly (one of the directors of Carolina) invited us to go on an excursion with some of her girls to a Russian monastery. It was absolutely gorgeous--I've been in Russian monasteries before, but this one was probably my favorite. It was beautiful in every classic way, and it was also completely unique--the first small chapel we went into was set deep in the ground, and tiny narrow staircases led to it (33 steps, one for each year of the life of Christ). We toured the tall fortress walls that surrounded the monastery, went for a ride in a horse-drawn carriage around the land outside its gates, and even drank from a sacred spring kept on its grounds. Most of it was being rebuilt--the main hall wasn't yet open, but we could peek in through the boarded up windows. If you haven't seen an Eastern Orthodox church before, I can't describe to you the amount of color they cram into every usable surface--it's as if religion is rioting on the walls, right in front of your eyes! But this main hall, whose roof had fallen in years before and only recently been repaired, was eerily bare... the walls were mostly white, washed by wind and rain I imagine, and only splashes here and there of color could you still make out. A wind blew out into our faces, and I realized it was singing through the whole church from the all the other glassless panes, just like the one we were using. I--it's hard to describe, the feeling I had resting my hands on its history; like I was looking into something not shameful, but broken. If the altar had a face, and suddenly turned its eyes up to me, I would have felt embarassed to see something I knew must have once been so beautiful and full of life empty and in need of help.
Anyway, that was a pretty lovely excursion; I find Russian convents, monasteries, etc to be nothing if not relaxing... next pictures... fencing tournament, archery, then the last night... Oh, it's already 1 am here, and I've been exhausted from the two nights past. Now that Olga has internet in her apartment, I hope that I'll be able to write a little more tomorrow. We're waking up early to go shopping (Desiree and I are on a mission: a pair of Russian jeans and for her also, a dress) with Lera and Marina, and then we'll see what else. We'd like to go to the zoo, and maybe out someplace, but I think doing laundry might take precedence... on Tuesday we head back to camp until Saturday, when we meet back up with our CCUSA group (I can't wait to hear how they've been!), and on the 14th I head to St. Petersburg (also can't wait for that). I know we won't get anywhere as near as close with these kids as our old ones (listen to me... our kids), but I'm excited to meet them all the same. And at Karolina, the next country we're doing is going to be France! So bien, I'll be in my element... sorta. =P