Long, Long Overdue

So it's been, what? A month? Well, I'm alive everyone! Just in case you wanted to know. I'm also not in St. Petersberg anymore, I'm in Nizhny Novgorod. St. Petersburg was only a five day trip before my actual program started. Since so much time has passed I'm going to separate this entry categorically. namely Food, School and, Sites. More details about other aspects of my life will be forthcoming.

Food
Since this is what typically comes out in my stories, I'll just start with this topic. I have a love/hate relationship with Russian food. Some of it is amazingly delicious, and other things are downright nasty and/or strange. Take kefir, for example. In concept it is milk that has been intentionally spoiled under specific conditions to create a smooth, creamy drink that tastes exactly like rotten milk. It is one of the more vile things that I have forced down my gullet. On the other hand, they have pelmeni, which is my favorite food that I've had thus far. They are little noodle pockets of meaty joy smothered in sauce (usually sour cream with tomato paste or mustard (all of which are very different from what we have in the States)). Also, besides kefir and a related drink called ryazhinka, Russians have really good dairy. Their milk is super tasty, their cheeses are amazing, and their ice cream is out of this world good (not as good as Italian gelato, but much creamier that most of what we have). Bread is also a fun thing to explore here. Fresh black bread with a big bowl of cheese soup is something I will probably dream about when I go home. So, what are the downsides? Russians don't really mind leaving food or dairy sitting on the counter for hours or even days at a time, so I sometimes come away from a meal with a sour stomach. To wrap up this section, let me tell you about candy!! Russian candy is far, far superior to that of  the U.S.. Imagine with me, if you will, a Snickers bar, but instead of peanuts, hazelnuts! It is the holy matrimony of Ferrero Rocher and Snickers, and is now my favorite candy bar of all time (and it is an actual variety of Snickers that they only have here). A similar candy bar is the Cinnamon and Anise Twix, made in Russia. My suggestion is that we bombard the Mars Candy Company to make them available in the States.

School
 The university I'm attending here in Nizhny is called the Higher School of Economics. I have about 5 and a half hours of class each day covering Russian grammar, phonetics, history, culture, and politics along with a language practice course. The teachers are all native Russians, save the BYU professor who is our program's director. The teachers are also all really really nice and classes are mostly very fun and informative. I have learned a lot thus far and I intend to apply myself a lot during my remaining month. Coming here, I had an OPI (Oral Proficiency Interview) score of "Intermediate Mid" Meaning that with a lot of pauses and explanations, I can understand or convey most anything I would want to. My not-so-tentative goal to go up two levels and reach "Advanced-Low" I feel like I've already made a lot of progress already.


Sites
St. Petersberg was absolutely amazing! We tried to see everything in the 5 days that we were there and we didn't even come close. We went to the most famous sites, of course, my favorite of which was the Hermitage Museum. This place is almost beyond words. You walk down hallways of imamaculately carved walls and inlayed floors while gazing at art by people you've only read about in textbooks. Two full rooms of Picasso, some Da Vinci, some Michelangelo along with  tons that I've never heard of. My favorites were a room full of Medieval armaments and another with cuneiform tablets from Sumeria (for those who don't know, cuneiform is one of the earliest forms of writing). We also went to the Chapel of the Spilled Blood which is like the dark twin to St. Basil's in Russia; it looks much the same, but with a darker coloration.

                                     
Most of the other sites we saw in St. P were related to Dostoevsky, because Matisse, one of the students who was with me, is a HUGE fan of his works. From St. Petersberg we took a night train to Moscow to meet up with our group. This was a really fun experience; we rode 2nd class were thankfully able to get some sleep before what turned out to be a really long day. In P-berg we had gotten a good grasp of the metro system (which is one of the deepest in the world), but the Moscow metro is an entirely different animal. We decided to just keep is simple and go to a park for the many hours that we needed to wait for everyone to fly in. Just about then, we discovered a problem. Derek, the other student who came early, realized that he had left his $200 pendant on the train... So, we got on the metro and went back to the train station. After some rusty and broken conversations in Russian, we finally got directions to where be needed to go, which happened to be right out onto the railroad tracks. We walked, un-escorted mind you, up the tracks to the train yards where we found Victor. Victor then led us to a train engine, which we then got on and rode a bit more up the tracks. He then pointed out our train and left us to our own devices. The entire situation was pretty surreal, but after talking to some gruff Russians on the train's cleaning crew, we actually did get the pendant back!
       
This is turning into a huge entry...Oh well! Here in Nizhny, we have also been really busy going to museums and churches, but we've mostly been to school and back home to do homework. We did however go to a city called Kazan which is in Tartarstan, which is a republic that joined the Russian Federation. There, I saw the most beautiful Mosque that I've ever seen .

 We also got to learn more about Muslim culture in Russia. The mosque is actually in Kazan's kremlin alongside a Russian Orthodox Cathedral. The entire trip was really interesting, especially the train ride, which was 3rd class (a must do for a true Russian cultural experience!)

Well, this is a really long entry, I hope that you all enjoyed (and sorry Mom, for not having done it sooner...much sooner). I also hope you are all doing well; it'd be fun to hear from you! If you have any questions, please ask! До следушего!

Here We Go Again

Well, I'm off on another summer adventure! I am currently in Russia and I'll be participating in an intensive language learning study abroad in Nizhny Novgorod. Right now, I'm in a hostel in St. Petersburg after over 20 hours of travel time and an abhorrently overpriced taxi ride (it cost my group almost as much as our stay at our hostel). Now, with a pocket full of rubles, I am going to simply pass out on my bunk and sleep til the morrow.

There and back again...and there again?

Wow, I’ll tell you what, wow! This has been a crazy week and I haven’t had much time to write it all down. But right now its morning and most everyone is still asleep, so here it goes. I’m pretty sure the last thing that I wrote was something along the lines of me going camping the next day in the jungle. Well, it was awesome! We hiked for about 3-4 hours along the Kanoa Yaku, a small tributary to the Napo. The entire hike was up, then down, in the water, out of the water; sometimes the water even came up to our waists. The cool part about the hike was all of the plants that bordered the stream. It was like hiking through a green canyon, because on both sides there was just a wall of green. At the end of the first leg, we were all tired and wet and happy to be at the platform where we would sleep and to swim in the water hole nearby. That night we mostly just played an assortment of gamaes since it was impractical to bring any schoolwork out there. Sleeping was rough; we all had one blanket, no pillow, a sheet, if you brought one (which I did) and the hard wood of the platform. The next day we went on a nature hike to learn about different plants in the forest. Our guide, Juaquín, explained to us some of the medicinal plants that are traditionally used by the Kichwa people. Two of them were trees that acted as pain killers, one of which we got to sample and guess what? It tasted just like Tylenol that has been in your mouth for too long. Next he showed us a huge vine from which they make monkey poison for their blow darts. The vine was brown, but when he shaved off the bark with his machete it was streaked with black. It tasted really really bitter (Yes, I tried some. He said it doesn’t hurt humans, but it will kill a monkey in about 5 minutes). There were a few other thing he showed us, like snake anti venom and lemon flavored ants but its time to move on to another event. The hike back was short, since we had taken a really convoluted path along the tributary; 3 hours out, 30 minutes back. Now I’m going to talk about some surprises that we’ve had as a group. The first is the discovery that we have a one week break between the two sessions of the field school. Another is the discovery that we had a Kichwa mid term and final that we didn’t know about.  A third is the fact that we would be going to a Quichua dance festival right before the break and the last is the realization that out professor, Janis Nuckolls would not be joining us during the second session. So, the day after we came back from the hike, Dr. Nuckolls left and we started studying. We took the test, and that’s all that really needs to be said about that. Next day, we took a 6 hour bus ride up to a small community called Picalqui, which is north of Quito for the dance festival. We stayed at an abandoned mission that is presumed haunted and I got a horrible night’s sleep. It felt as if there were a black hole off the side of my bed that sucked me down and wedged me between the wall and the mattress. The next day we got up and got dressed in some more traditional clothes and went to San Pedro (the larger town in the area) for the dance festival/competition). Now, I know what you might be thinking, sweet traditional dancing, learning some cool moves, well… you’d be mistaken. The only thing we were required to do was to do a double time shuffle step up the street for about 5 hours. It was fun for a while, but it actually got a bit annoying when we passed the deadline we hade given ourselves. It was cool that it was a competition and that we had sort of been adopted into the community, but it was just too much. And the songs they sing resound in your head for days afterward. Now, we are finally getting caught up. We took a bus to Quito, and our break officially began. Six of us from BYU all decided that we would go down to Guayaquil for a good portion of the break. That is where I am right now. Sitting in my bed at the Nuca Pacha Hostel where we are staying for 13 bucks a night and where we have full access to the kitchen! We’ve done a good amount of exploring, but the purpose of coming here was mostly twofold: one, go to the beach and two, go to the temple. Yesterday was our temple day. We went around noon, but apparently they only do sessions in the morning and in the evening, so we went exploring in a mall until it was time to go back. I listened to the session in Spanish for the first time, which was really cool, and the celestial room was amazing! I highly recommend it if you are ever in Ecuador! It’s been cool being able to make dinner (and cheaper). Last night I made rigatoni, but it was almost a disaster. We had forgotten to buy tomato sauce at the store, and when Cate and Ruski went back, it was closed and the only thing they could find was a bag of salsa de tomate at a Hot Dog joint. Salsa de tomate is ketchup… Miraculously, however, I was able to completely cover up the fact that it was ketchup and ended up creating something that tasted quite a bit like rigatoni! I consider this quite an achievement since no one besides myself and Cate even knew there was ketchup in it, until we told them. Today is our beach day! We are going to go out to Salinas and play for the day! By the way, these are the names of the BYU students on this trip, so that when I refer to them, it’s not too confusing. There’s me, Joey (my roommate), Tyler (also known as Face), Kevin, Ruski (whose real name is Matt), Cate, Rose and Liz. All of us, besides Rose and Liz are here in Guayaquil. There, now you have a frame of reference for this picture I’m painting…Anyway, I’m done now.

Soup of the Day

Welcome once again to another exciting entry of my blog... I'm sure you are all thrilled. Today was super cool. We all skipped Kichua class and took a two hour bus ride into a town called Puyo, which is in the next state over (Pastaza). While there we were able to visit the homes of some of the informants that have come to the field school over the past two weeks. One of them is Estella Doua; she is an expert potter, and has pieces in Ecuador museums and has even been to the U.S. to give seminars and classes on native amazonian pottery. She has been teaching us how to make Mukahas, which are the Kichwa drinking bowls used to drink aswa. I'll come back to aswa in a sec. Anyway, we were able to see her studio in Puyo and meet some of her family. She makes some really amazing pots and figures and the cool thing is how they are made. She mines her own clay, fortifies it herself, forms it into the pot with the coil pot technique, makes a paint brush from her own hair, meticulously paints intricate designs all over the pot with this ridiculously thin brush, fires it herself, and then apples the natural sap that they use for a glaze, then she sells them to make a living. She taught us how to make them too, though mine isn't nearly as cool as hers. The second lady whose house we visited is Luisa Cadena; she was/is our professors principle consultant and friend here in Ecuador. She took us to her chagra, which is a plot of land that she uses to cultivate crops. She took us to two of the ones that she works. At the first, we harvested manioc, which is what is used to make aswa (again, more on that later). Its a tuber plant that grows about six feet tall and you basically just chop down the plant and pull out the tubers. At the second chagra we harvested sugar cane with machetes! What are my two new favorite things? Sugar cane and machetes! If you have never tried real sugar cane, you are missing out. When we got back to the house, she cut it up and gave it to us to chew and I could seriously chew on that stuff all day. Thankfully, she sent us home with all the cane that we had harvested! Now, the moment you have all been waiting for, what the huh is aswa? I'll tell you; it is a drink that is a staple in all Kichwa homes. To make it traditionally a woman would harvest manioc (think stringy potato), peel it, cook it, and then masticate it. Once it was good and masticated they would expectorate it into a jar, cover the jar with a leaf, bury the jar and let it ferment a bit before giving it to guests and family. You serve it by putting water in a mukaha, taking a scoop of the aswa paste/muck in your hand and squeezing the juice into the water. This beverage has a very very low alcohol content (less than cough syrup) and so we were authorized by our professor to try it. Its vile. Simply vile. It tastes like pureed manioc (again, think potato) mixed with plain yogurt, mixed with yeast, mixed with vinegar. It is sick nasty. Fortunately, I sampled the non traditional aswa, which is not chewed, but rather sugar is added to jumpstart the fermentation process. (I had you worried, didn't I?)  All in all, it was an awesome day, with awesome food and great fun. A note on pictures: we have somewhat limited internet access, so pictures will be somewhat sparse for now, but I will try to put some more up.

Happy Happy Birthday!

This Birthday was AWESOME!! For all who don't know, I'm 25 now, quarter of a century, menace to society and searching for an accomplice! Here is a play by play from yesterday, or at least the important and interesting parts. The celebration started with a bus ride into Tena, the nearby town. We very quickly made our way to the Waffles and Ice Cream stand and ate Belgian waffles covered in ice cream (mine was chocolate and coconut) and drizzled with chocolate syrup. While we were eating we noticed this weired guy with a broadcast video camera taping us while we were chowing down. I'm pretty sure that he zoomed in just as I was shoving some waffle in my mouth. We still have no idea why he was taping us, he never talked to us, and we only took pictures and gawked back at him. From there, we pretty much just walked around town buying bootleg movies and candy! Note: South America has really good candy and if any of you find something called a Tango at a Hispanic store up there, just buy it, no questions, just do it and never look back. Movies here are something that I didn't really expect to find down here. They must get tons of bootleg files from Russia, because all of the movies I've bought have Russian subtitles. So, without any theaters, and for about the same price as a redbox, I have bought King Fu Panda 2 (before it was in theaters), Thor, X Men First Class, Robin Hood, and Pirates 4 (the ironic thing is that I thought I would be missing out on the new summer movies). So, after wandering and browsing around Tena and just goofing off in general, we went to this really ritzy restaurant where we all got fillet mignon for less than 8 bucks. It was delicious too; mine was nestled in a bed of penne pasta and drenched in Alfredo Sauce and covered in actual cheese!! That has been one thing that I've really missed, because the stuff down here is just not the same, good, just not the same. That about sums it up. Now that I've basically gone crazy for a day, its time to get down to business and get some work done. I hope my birthday was as good to you as it was to me!

Eaten Alive and Loving It

So, the past few days have been pretty awesome and I feel like I've actually started to accomplish things as a linguist. With my trusty recorder I was able to record some really interesting data in the form of some stories. A lot of these native Kichwa stories have to do with people who permanently transform into plantthis or animals,  mostly because they couldn't cut it as good people. There are three basic laws in Kichwa culture: Don't Steal. Don't Lie. Don't Be Lazy. If a person couldn't follow these in the past, they would decide to turn into a plant or animal that was useful to humans in order to make up for their ineptitude. I was able to record a few of these stories and I'll be analyzing them later for my project. On a more fun note. We went into town yesterday and I bought a hammock!! It was sweet, the guy started at $19 bucks and I talked him down to $8 after some nice haggling in Spanish. I'll be going back for another one and a machete this week.  Those are probably the most exciting things that have happened since my last post. The picture I'm including is a very pretty one, but its for all of you who may think that its just a party down here in the jungle. These are my legs, and they have been the subject of over 300 insect bites since I got here (its only been a week) and this is with bugs spray. Don't worry though, they don't itch too bad, but I am, quite literally getting eaten alive. But in spite of all of that, this is one of the best things I've ever done. Samashun.

From the Banks of the Napo

Wow, I'll tel you what, wow. This is officially one of the coolest things I've ever done. We stayed in Quito for Sunday and left on Monday morning. We were lucky to find a church in walking distance, so we went to the ward and were surprised to find that half the people were American. There was a nursing group, and ROTC group and some church auditing people along with two sets of full time missionaries, two sets of senior missionaries and a member of the mission presidency. One of the girls was alone, so she hung out with us for the rest of the day, and when we went out to eat (cause how else were we going to?) I found some new favorites. I had something called papa rellena (stuffed potato), which is like deep fried mashed potatoes with ground meat, onions, veggies and egg in the middle, it was ridiculously good! New favorite soda: Naranjillo flavored. Naranjillo is a little fruit thats related to the tomato but looks and tastes like a citrus fruit and the soda is like drinking candy. Also, my new all time favorite candy is Tango. Its a chocolate covered cookie sandwich that tastes like vanilla, almond, coconut, graham cracker and happiness, all at once. Anyway, I've spent too much time on food. The trip down to the field school was really long, but we broke it up by visiting some hot springs halfway between Quito and Tena. The water was perfect, and it was super relaxing after spending two and a half hours going through winding mountain roads on a bus. The remaining time was really interesting. The entire time my group and I were kind of geeking out. Our conversations ran the gambit of linguistics, music, geology, cooking, and everything in between. We passed out of the highlands and through the cloud forest and into the rain forest all the while pointing out waterfalls, glacial valleys, cool trees and odd rock formations. The field school itself is beautiful. It is right on the banks of the Napo River (a major tributary of the Amazon). The plants and animals here are amazing (I'll put pictures up later). The groups that is studying here are really cool. We are the only linguists and everyone else are anthropologists. There is a group from Appalachia State and a group of grad students from around the country, and they are all pretty cool and chill. Anyway, this blog is getting long, so... Samashun (Let us end).