Irkutsk
Well, I have been in Irkutsk for over a week now. Today is International Women’s Day. The morning began with my host father and brothers returning from the downtown, flowers in hand. For my mother there was the largest bouquet of roses I have ever seen, and a sewing machine!! My host brothers handed me a bouquet of flowers, much to my suprise, which I promptly put on my windowsill in the sunshine. Within an hour they had opened and were stretched outward towards the sun as if they somehow hoped to reach it. My family was surprised with this and moved the other flowers to the windowsill as well. Throughout the morning and early afternoon people kept showing up at the door with gifts for my mother. My mother and father were engrossed in attempting to learn how to use the sewing machine. I could only sit on my hands at the edge of my chair and try not to laugh. It was quite an experience for them. I adore my family, they have so much life in them.
My group travelled to Angarsk yesterday, a town built through industry, oil and aluminum. The people there were fascinating and fascinated with us in turn, they did not often have foreign visitors. We went to a concert, a sort of talent show/beauty pageant that evening at the “Club”. During Soviet times, true to Marx’s abhorrence of religion, the “Club” served as a sort of social place in which people would gather. We heard a choir sing traditional songs and we were invited back into the dressing room afterwards to hear more. Today they performed at the Philharmonic Hall in Irkutsk and a few of us went to see them. The music is unusually modal and parallel fifths are used consistently, Bach would cringe! The language is a challenge, but the alphabet has become much easier to recognize. Tomorrow I will return to the Orthodox church that my family took me to last week. Since I am no longer sick, I get to have the wonderful experience of bathing in the holy water. The Saint of Irkutsk blessed this water area, and from a pipe comes the water you can partly wash yourself with, drink, and collect, but in the small hut next to it you can enter, take your clothes off, and step down into a frozen tub of water. The screaming can be heard by all outside, and in this way you are cleansed. The water tastes odd, I try not to drink lots of it and simply cross myself a few extra times in hope that God will forgive me! 😉
There is a cafe/bar here with a sign on the door that reads No American Citizens allowed, Serbs from Kosovo. I wonder what the media in the states is saying of the situation there, because it is so obviously one-sided here. I often wonder if there is animosity towards me for that reason. I stick out like a sore thumb with my small merrill shoes or flat black slippers, everyone here wears the fanciest heeled boots. Riding home in the marchutka, I have experienced many an old lady glaring disapprovingly down at my feet. I try to hide my feet underneath, but then others notice the movement. People walk down the streets gawking at my group, especially the smiles on our faces that seem to make us look so unbelievably foreign that there is no hiding our non-slavic nationalities.
Tags: Travel
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