Eat, Drink, and be Merry

Chapter XXYIIV: In which our hero attends 8 hours of New Years celebrations at the local elementary school while battling a hangover and has no regrets

It was recently Christmas here in Tyva (like in many other parts of the world) and it meant several days of sleeplessness, some festive imbibing of spirited drinks, and even a little charlie brown christmas tree in the corner of our living room. In preparation for the Christmas holidays I screened "It's a Wonderful Life" with my students and read "The Night Before Christmas." We had some good discussion about American Values and the American dream; some of my students were on the side of Mr. Potter and against George Bailey, because respect of elders is such an important part of culture here. Also, we listened to some Louis Armstrong Christmas carols. The students asked me why Santa Claus has no female counterpart, and I got to ask them in a scandalized tone of voice, "What, haven't you heard of Mrs. Claus?" The students were delighted to learn about Mrs. Claus, even though, after reflecting on this, I have concluded that she is a passive figure and not very interesting. I think even the reindeer have more character than Mrs. Claus...

Also, in the week approaching exams I noticed a severe increase in the amount of brown-nosing I received from the students. One of the things I love about Russia is that people aren't at all subtle about flattery when they are trying to get you to do something. My students were showering me in compliments all week, in an obvious attempt to make up for missed classes, etc. One first year girl, trying to impress me with her reading list, told me proudly that she was reading "Pleasure Island" in English (she meant "Treasure Island"). And maybe she is... But I'm a little suspicious of the sudden urge all the students have to tell me this stuff... why not earlier in the semester?

The same student also told me that her favorite genre of literature is: books about animals, but only tragedies. "Where they all die in the end," she said. I like this student...

Christmas Day I taught four classes and gave two exams. I had my classes carol to each other, which was one of my favorite things I have done with them all semester. They made a lot of fun of the Gregorian chant sounding melody of "O Come O Come Emmanuel," but then when they performed it they incorporated elements of Tyvan music, and the result was so haunting it gave me shivers down my spine, right there in the middle of the phonetics laboratory! It was great. The students love to perform, so they made a day out of it, barging in on different classes to sing to them. Apparently this is protocol in Russian universities; I had my boss from the Head Campus barge in on my students during our exam to take pictures of me in action, presumably for some university propaganda/website, although I didn't sign any consent forms; also a Russian Ded Moroz (Grandpa Frost) barged in with candy for us all. This was early in the day and the students hadn't learned the Christmas songs yet, so they sang "We Shall Overcome" to the Ded when he pushed them to sing a song in English. It was one of the strangest experiences of cross-cultural dialogue (and perhaps misunderstanding?) of my life...

Then we went home and I gulped down a cup of coffee before we headed out for round two. The head of my department at the university is a force to be reckoned with and she had decided a while ago that it was necessary for everybody to somehow celebrate Christmas with me so that I would not be lonely. So we got reservations at an exclusive restaurant through a friend of a friend of a friend and we set off on my second "night out" in Tyva--the first was the 40th Jubilee of some uncle I didn't know. This time was different, much more fun, because I was with all my colleagues who I have been working shoulder-to-shoulder with for the past three months.

It was agreed that we should all bring our drink of choice to save buying alcohol at the restaurant. I bought beer, Namdolma bought champagne. We arrived at the restaurant only to find that we were put in the corner in the middle of a corporate party of all the hotshot lawyers of Kyzyl! The Regional Court is probably the nicest and newest building in Kyzyl, and these people were all decked out in stylish finery. We were poor relatives by comparison, but settled down to drink and eat nonetheless...

Seven bottles of champagne later, things were pretty frolicksome and we were dancing with the lawyers. Woo hoo Russian Christmas. My plan to drink beer was pretty ill-concieved, because I ended up mixing it with a lot of vodka and champagne. As we were leaving the restaurant, Namdolma tried to walk through the mirror in the coat room. We have lived for the past three months like churchmice, so this was an off the charts crazy night. My favorite part was at the end of the party, when we went out to stand on the street under the stars. I really miss seeing the night sky here; either I have to be indoors for safety, or it's the Black Cloud of Doom. But it was clear Christmas night, and gorgeous as could be. Plus I was pretty darn tipsy and standing arm in arm with two of the older women professors in my department. All in all a good night. I certainly was not lonely, so the plan succeeded.

However the next day we had an obligation to spend eight hours at Namdolma's daughter's elementary school attending open lessons--kind of like parent teacher conferences, only for an entire day! Namdolma had to be a dutiful mother and I had to be a dutiful American auntie, hangovers and all. We dragged ourselves out of bed mere hours after crawling into them, cleaned ourselves up and headed off to the school! We watched the kids drink tea, then they danced around a very realistic Ded Moroz for another hour. My favorite part was when they did the "Hookey Pookey." Apparently in Russia it's the Hookey Pookey instead of the Hokey Pokey. Classic. After the Hookey Pookey my stamina started to waver, and I barely made it through the two hour long ballet class we got to observe. The only thing that made it ok was that I myself was not being forced to do any ballet. And I have to say that I was really proud of the kid I live with; it seems like in all respects she is one of the best students. I mean, I would love her even if she weren't. But it's just generally a good thing to see the people you live with do really well.

But rest is definitely not for the weary, so after the day at the elementary school, we pulled ourselves together and headed to the concert of Huun-Huur-Tu, the internationally famous throat singing group. They were performing in Tyva for the first time since 2003, so the concert was a huge deal! The Premier of the Republic was there and he gave two of the four musicians the coveted title of "Hard Working Artist of Tyva." Lamas decked them in holy scarves and the atmosphere was at once celebratory and solemn. My exhaustion faded to a dull roar in the back of my head and we settled into enjoy the music. We had good seats which we got through connections... connections are really the way to go in Russia! Everything is done through connections.

The concert was mind-blowing. And what was even more mind blowing was having Namdolma sitting next to me, whispering in my ear that this song was about her Grandmother's village, this song was the song of a man with no family at all in the world, this one about a beautiful young woman who spurns the man who loves her. The musicians emulated the wind, clacked together horse hooves to evoke the horsemen of the step, and made raven calls that made me believe I was walking down our road in Alaska hearing the ravens fly home in the afternoon. Some things in nature are universal. And music is certainly universal. I think I learned more from listening to this one concert about "Tyvan Dusha" than I have in the past three months combined.

And, finally... today I met one of my third year students at a cafe for some make up work, and we ended up having a long conversation about life and my impressions of Tyva, and finally I asked her about the 'Poop Dream Prophecy,' and she said that it was certainly so, and she had had such a dream herself. Apparently she was supposed to get some kind of a transaction to her bank account and was waiting and waiting for the money to arrive. Every day for a month she walked to the bank to check, but there was no result. Finally, one night she had a dream where she saw a toilet. In her dream, she opened the toilet and there she saw a whole lot of poop, simply a ton. An ogrommnoe kolichestvo (for the Russian speakers out there...). She tried to clean out the toilet, but the poop got all over her hands. She tried to wash her hands but the poop wouldn't come off... And lo and behold... The very next day her transaction came through! When I retold the story to Namdolma she just looked a little smug and said, "There you go! It's true."

...I guess it is true!

That's all the news from Kyzyl :-) Peace, much love, and a very happy new years to you all!