The Wind Down

Unfortunately, yesterday's beach-friendly weather was too good to last, and I've spent most of today trapped inside by rain and attempting to hide from my neighbor, Ruslan. He dropped by the first time today at 9 o'clock, shortly after I had woken up, and made it impossible for me to get anything done in preparation for my tutoring sessions with Elya and Sasha.

I entirely don't understand why Ruslan keeps coming to visit me. He drops by, but has nothing to talk about, so just sits next to me in silence. Every so often he'll say, “Tell me something interesting.” As if an interesting, well-phrased story in Russian was sitting on the tip of my tongue, and I was only waiting for an invitation to dazzle him with my second-language conversational prowess. My typical response: “Umm.”

If I actually do try to start a conversation with him, he gets frustrated waiting for me to finish my sentence and interrupts me, incorrectly guessing what I was trying to say and forcing me to repeat myself several times until I give up entirely. When he talks, he is absolutely merciless in his choice of vocabulary and refuses to slow down or rephrase anything if I don't understand. Yesterday he asked me to explain to him the system by which people obtain licenses to drive different types of vehicles in America. Yeah, while I do that, why don't you go fetch me a cup of snow from the top of Mt. Everest.

So I've stopped trying to talk to Ruslan, and in general I behave as rudely toward him as I can to get him to leave. Ruslan tells me he doesn't like me when I'm grumpy, and that I'm always grumpy, yet he keeps coming over, untalkative and unrelenting, waiting for me to tell him “something interesting.” I'm certain he is as bored with me as I am with him. Yet he is always here. Suffice it to say, there are some types of people out here I just don't understand.

Of course, not everyone here is as frustrating for me as Ruslan. The majority of people I've met are interesting to talk to, patient with my still-developing language skills, and sensitive to when I have better things to do than sit around trying to entertain them. And then there's Ruslan.

There's always Ruslan.

The bright spots in my day were my lessons with Sasha and Elya. Today is my second-to-last day in Vytegra, and these were therefore my last sessions with them, so it was bittersweet. Elya brought me a gift on her flash drive: an audio book of the Master and Margarita in Russian (she didn't even know that it's one of my very favorite books). At the end of our hour together, she made a short speech about how glad she was that I agreed to be her tutor and that I've helped her so much with English. She just about made me cry.

Sasha, whom I've been tutoring longer, was even harder to part from. Earlier this week, I had designed a special lesson on the theme of Abraham Lincoln and the abolition of slavery in America. I read her an article about his life and showed her various video clips on the internet, everything from documentaries to Family Guy. Then we read “O Captain! My Captain!” and discussed how it related to Lincoln's assassination. She followed this all astonishingly well and really seemed to enjoy it, but when we got to what I thought would be the most interesting part of the lesson, comparing Abraham Lincoln to Russian history (in particular, to tsar Alexander II, who also emancipated the slave class in Russia and was also assassinated), Sasha had confessed she knew nothing about it.

But today, she surprised me by coming fully prepared to talk about that part of Russian history. It seems she had spent the last couple days researching the theme, wanting to impress me. She practically gave me an entire history lesson on 19th century Russia. At the end, she recited a poem about Alexander II from memory. Then she told me she was sad to lose her first American friend. Oh, how I'll miss these students! They're geniuses, both of them.

As soon as Sasha left, Ruslan showed up again. He can see my house from his apartment window, so he knows when I'm home and when I'm not busy. He came in, turned on the Twilight movie that was premiering on TV dubbed in Russian, and waited for me to entertain him. When I complained that I was bored of just sitting around, he told me to watch the movie, because I'm a girl and girls like Twilight. So I chased him out of the house and locked the door. Nobody makes me watch Twilight.

So I had a rather uneventful day to bring my trip to a close. All my work is officially finished; I have done everything I came here to do and a whole lot more. I even finally learned how to get rid of people (yelling and pointing at the door works in any language). Tomorrow evening, I leave Vytegra. So soon. Finally.