Disorientation

September 27th, 2013

At last, I am in Russia! I had a few minor mishaps upon arriving to the airport. I was dragging myself and out my two 50 pound suitcases from the immigration checkpoint to the chaotic arrivals section of Domodedovo when I plunged into one of my anxiety attacks and jumped to the conclusion that nobody was going to pick me up. Fulbright had indeed arranged free transportation for us from the airport to the hotel. I scanned the area and tried to find the driver and, after seeing he was not there, I succumbed to the worst transportation solution: finding a cab driver. It was then that I met Vasya, a.k.a “the ochkarik.” I asked Vasya how much I would have to pay to travel from the airport to y hotel, which was located in some godforsaken place at the other side of Moscow. He showed me the chart of “fix fares” and told me that it would cost me 3,500 rubles. Desperate and tired, I only managed to bring down the fare to 3,000 rubles. At least he helped me with my luggage…

In order to evade the massive traffic jam that extended for miles, Ochakarik proposed taking a shortcut that went around the mess of cars obstructing the entrance to the city. I agreed. Panic started dripping down my brain as we were entering this shortcut road. There was something about the dismal overcast sky and the sketchy black cars parked on the side of the road that made anticipate death by murder. I told ochkarik that to turn around, that I did not want to go to “where he was taking me.” Ochkarik protested and tried to calm me down but, after realizing how scared and pathetic I actually was, eventually turned around and proceeded to merge into the dreaded traffic jam.

“Oh and by the way, I just wanted to show you my dacha*, but I guess I’ll show you the pictures of it in my tablet while we’re stuck in this traffic jam,” said Ochkarik.

And so I bonded with Ochkarik by looking at pictures of his cottage and various garden gnomes ☹

Then I arrived to Hotel Восход (Voskhod), where I stayed five days and participated in Fulbirght Orientation and met my ETA colleagues. On the second day, all I went to an orientation at U.S. Embassy, where we were given a briefing on Russia that the Russian government passed a law that allows espionage on internet users—so Big Brother is basically watching right now as I write this.

In general, we attended this orientation in order to learn how to teach English in Russia and to find out about the The Fulbright office in Moscow organized a series of teaching workshops for which I am immensely grateful; they taught us how to set-up conversational activities, correct mistakes, and classify students according to their speaking level. I was pleasantly surprised when I managed to connect my prior (painful) teaching experiences with what the Fulbright English teaching trainers told us.

* dacha: a small cottage in the countryside where Russians usually live during the summertime.