ESL Folk

The Ramblers play ‘Farmer’s Daughter’ for in their underwear curious onlookers by a river near Taganrog, birthplace of Russian author and playwright, Anton Chekhov. Then they kill some mosquitoes.

The Ramblers perform an improvised version of ‘Big Rock Candy Mountain’ for the overheated train passengers during a routine stop in the middle of nowhere.

My watch read 4:20 AM when Matt shook me awake.

“Hey, we’re here.”

Apparently, we had just ended our overnight bus ride from Elista. None of us were really sure what had happened – we entered the bus at 10 PM the previous evening, exhausted after a full day of teaching, and sat with our gear on our laps for the journey. None of us were sure if we had actually slept or not–the whole trek was a sweaty blur of bumpy roads and techno music blasting over the bus stereo.

our gear

Which made it all the more fitting when the bus let us off in front of a nondescript gated building on an empty street as the sun was rising. Confused, we laid our stuff out on the sidewalk and pondered what was going on. To the best of our knowledge, the bus had dropped us off in front of where we were staying. The building we were camped out in front of, however, looked like a university building. Maybe we were to teach at this school? We resolved to find a cafe or park to relax and get our bearings when a young woman with an adorable bulldog approached us.

“You are Americans, yes?”

As luck would have it, she was none other than the incredibly awesome Irina, the young woman who agreed to let us stay at her parents’ house in Rostov-On-Don! She lived a few blocks from where we had been dropped off and just happened to be walking her dog at that ungodly hour. How serendipitous! Thus began our most excellent stay in Rostov.

Impromptu Geography Lessons, and Other Delights

The Rambler's Map of the USA

Our two days of teaching in Rostov were a blast and reminded me of American summer camps. The youth were eager to ask us questions about where we were from, and Matt answered their curiosity with his excellent rendition of the Mercator Projection of the United States, meaning that it was extremely distorted. We were also joined by Alyson, another Fulbright ETA from Kazan who was teaching in Rostov for the week.

Gillian Performs for the Campers

Due to the incredibly nice weather we ditched our lecture hall in favor of the yard where we gave a performance and had the young’uns sing along with us. We also played a rousing round of Big Booty (Awwww Yea!) and sang along with the campers’ own cheers.

I had a lot of fun working with these campers as well. One thing I’ve noticed with teaching in general is that being extra silly and goofy tends to help with opening up a classroom full of nervous and/or awkward adolescents. Add being a foreigner and playing guitar to the mix and you have an instant party!

Bold campers trying out Matt's Banjo

This time around, we relied less on the lectures we had prepared about American folk music and more on hands-on lessons with our youth. We found that by asking more specific questions and by giving them more specific tasks, we were better able to get them speaking and practicing their English. For instance, I played a big game of Pictionary with some of the kids where they had to look at a picture of Woodie Guthrie that I couldn’t see, and I would draw the picture for them. I drew literally exactly what they told me, which challenged them. It looked something like this:

Youth: “He is wearing a hat.”

Me: Ok, so a baseball hat? Is he wearing it on his foot?

Youth: No, a big round hat on his head!

Me: Got it. So it looks like this? (I drew a very large Uschanka)

Youth: NO!!! (Laughter follows)

While I know very little about TESOL, it seems to me that connecting the use of a new language with a positive emotional experience such as laughter would be a good way to help cement the new words one is learning. I am more than happy to play the fool for this part and it seems to come to me naturally anyway!

That about wraps up Rostov-On-Don. Over and out,

-Jordan

(Authors note: As you can tell we need to get better at taking pictures of us actually teaching! We’ve been so busy and caught up during the lessons that photo-documenting has taken a step back. Fear not, parents and friends and friends of parents, we will stage lots of pictures for you soon!)

Group Shot!

Elista!

I was super stoked to be off our Banya/train and actually excited to be on a 5 hour bus ride to Elista. We drove into the countryside and entered the state of Kalmykia sometime around sunset. I was awed by the orange sky and wide plains.

Kalmyk History

The Republic of Kalmykia is unlike any other state or territory in Russia. Its residents are comprised of mostly Mongolian descent, whose ancestors migrated there in the 1630s. As a result, much of the Kalmyk population are practicing Buddhists. Kalmykia also has its own language (Kalmyk) and many Kalmykian s speak both Kalmyk and Russian.

Matt anb Brendan at the Memorial for Stalinist Genocide in Russia

Kalmykia was incorporated into the Russian republic in the 1800s and was somewhat respected as an autonomous state under the Czar, and even under the early stages of the USSR.  After WWII, the USSR decided that Kalmykia had cooperated with the German army and deported most of the Kalmyk population to Siberia with only a few hours notice. They were allowed to return to Kalmykia in 1957 and have been living there ever since.

Kalmykia is also known for its very eccentric President Kirsan Nikolayevich Ilyumzhinov, who is also the president of the world chess federation and responsible for implementing chess curriculum into primary schools.  He also claims to have been abducted by aliens! Apparently his experience was taken so seriously that he was questioned by Russian Parliament and Medvedev about any information pertinent to national security he may have shared with his extraterrestrial captors.

Touring Elista and Partying with camp directors

After checking into our hotel and a well-needed rest, we toured the city with our excellent and friendly guides from the university, a native to Elista and student at their local university. We also teamed up with Bryan, another Fullbright ETA who was spending the week with the English Language camp in Elista. I was pumped to see two middle aged men playing a duplo-scale game of chess in the main square. They moved their pieces so fast and with such confidence that it looked like a synchronized dance. We also got to see the Buddhist temple in Elista, which is apparently the biggest Buddhist temple in Europe.  Inside was a Buddha roughly fifty feet tall, and some incredibly ornate hand painted murals.

After our tour we fetched our instruments and played a brief concert for the counselors and teachers of the Access camp that was hosting us. Here we were welcomed with traditional Kalmyk tea and scarves, and invited to listen to some seriously awesome Kalmyk folk music. It sounds somewhat similar to Tuvan throat singing, and involved a man singing lines from an epic Kalmyk poem while playing a dombr, a two stringed played. We were blown away and honored to the share the bill with such a talented young man.  After our concert, we figured it was time to focus and practice our lessons for the following two days of camp, but the camp directors had a much more fun evening in store for us. We were escorted to Restaurant Elista and treated to traditional Kalmyk fare: delicious lamb dumplings and lamb soup, beef tongue, and Kalmykian donuts, which were so scrumptious that I had a dozen of them. We also engaged in the Russian tradition of serial toasting with vodka, cognac and wine.  I swapped Matt’s vodka with water right before his toast, much to his surprise and our hosts’ delight. Then the director of the English department at the Kalmykia State University replaced my water with a full glass of vodka! My thirst was very quenched.

The night ended with some seriously groovy dancing, and we went to bed fully prepared to teach the nuances of the English language the following morning.

Play by play re-enactment of our first English language camp!

We awoke somewhat refreshed and crammed into a small passenger bus to go the school. When we arrived we watched a presentation with all the campers about how the camp had would be run, introduced ourselves and then it was game time!

Gillian teaching advanced English

After spending so much time preparing to teach people English, it was kind of surprising to finally start. At first the children were a little shy and had a hard time responding to my questions, but I learned to really slow down my voice, simplify vocabulary and give them small, specific tasks as the day went on. By the end of the day we were singing Down by the Bay together and having a grand ol’ hootenanny!

The whole experience was really fun. It has been a long time since I’ve taught in a school setting—the last year I’ve been either teaching at the Bike Kitchen or at the mental health/drug treatment house I work at. The children were so well behaved and generally excited to talk to me just because I was American, so during the lessons it was easy to get along with them.

Our second day teaching involved role playing and a student-authored call and response blues sing-a-long, but we also got to mix it up and play some serious basketball, 15 kids vs. me, Brendan and Matt. We played half court with a bonus hoop on the side, and the youth were awed by Matt’s ball handling skills. Meanwhile, Brian and Gillian were tangled up in human knots and attempting an epic Big Booty game.

Our day concluded with a concert for everyone, and we got some of the kids to sing along at the end too!

After nine months here in Russia and quite a bit of traveling around Siberia, I’ve come to love the Russian train system. In addition to it being the primary way that Russians get around Russia, it’s also one of the best ways to get acquainted with the vast beauty that is the countryside. Being that it is by far the largest country in the world, there is significant amounts of unclaimed open space that stretches literally as far as the eye can see. Rolling hills, unclaimed fields, actual ‘waves of grain’, and the odd cowboy provide a visual program that is second to none. Another major benefit of riding the train is meeting other people, a feat only achieved while riding ‘Platzkart’ aka the general seating area on the train. Here you meet families, exchange food, make friends, and in our case between Tymen’ and Volgograd, bear the sweltering heat. Fifty hours of constant sweating, at least in my case.

Of course I have to mention that we were spoiled; the train between Tomsk and Tymen’ was brand new, with air conditioned cars, electronic displays that let you know the outside temperature as well as whether the bathrooms were occupied. We felt like kings. Upon arriving in Tymen’ we met up with resident Fulbright ETA Kristen and had a ten-hour tour of the city, which was quite fascinating. Having heard about some of the beautiful things in Tymen’ it was nice to finally see them. In addition to seeing the requisite theaters, university buildings, and churches, we also stopped by the local city park, where they have quite a few attractions and rides. The group decided to go on a rather menacing looking octopus ride while I took pictures from the sidelines (carnival rides freak me out a bit).

When our time came, we stuffed ourselves into a cab (always fun with a harp) and got on our train to Volgograd (the aforementioned sweaty one). Due to the heat, it was extremely necessary for us to get off at every stop in order to cool off. During one stop that appeared to be in the middle of the field, Gillian made friends with some cows while the three boys decided it was a good time to attempt a picnic and play some songs. Being the spectacle that foreigners and their instruments always seem to be, a crowd gathered. They listened with apparent curiosity and clapped between each song accordingly. When heckled by a slightly inebriated looking gentleman to play something in Russian, Matt launched into a clawhammer banjo version of ‘Katyosha’, an extremely famous Soviet song. Many people sang along. The man who asked for a Russian song mistook it for a Uzbek song.

The rest of the train ride was somewhat uneventful, save for the moment Jordan taught our train friend Max how to floss. Max had never seen floss before, and was quite entertained by the notion of it. Jordan then presented the floss to Max as a gift.

Brendan and Jordan hanging outside the train

After two whole days on a hot hot train, we finally found ourselves in Volgograd. We walked out the front door, where our fearless taxi driver Slava was waiting for us with Matt’s name on a sign, and a big comfortable GAZelle (Russian minibus) waiting for us. We expressed our joy at the extra space, fantastic airflow, and comfortable seats. Elista was only five hours away.

-Brendan

We are currently in the city of Tyumen, gateway to Siberia, awaiting the next leg of our journey to Elista. We had a 24-hour train ride yesterday from Tomsk. Loading all of our equipment onto the tightly packed train was a bit of adventure (especially Gillian’s harp!), but it all went smoothly and we had very sweet train buddies who happily accommodated our loud and bulky presence. In a few more hours we hop on another train to Volgograd, (formerly Stalingrad, site of the famous WWII battle), and then catch a bus to Elista. This will take us another two and a half days! To give you a better idea of the locations we’ll be visiting and the distances we will be traveling I drew this expert map

Till next time,

Matt

The buses, trains, and planes have all arrived from Novosibirsk, Beijing, and San Francisco, and our team is finally assembled! Once we were all together, Brendan led the Ramblers on a tour of the city. We visited the Old Fort where the city was founded in 1604, enjoying what were for him and Matt the warmest day they’ve experienced this year!

Brendan's friend in Tomsk drew these awesome pictures of us on napkins at the bar.

We got to see Tomsk University’s facilities, including a science lab that reminded all of us of Harry Potter, and saw the city’s central market. Among a vast collection of Adidas products and really cool towels, we found a market where a wide variety of meat was display, including pig faces! (Traditionally used to make a Russian meat/gelatin dish, we used ours to make an American prank on Brendan and Gillian.)

We also caught a performance by world famous puppeteer, Vladimir Zakharov. Down a dirt road in Tomsk where houses have no running water, Zakharov has built a theater entirely out of wood and filled it with his own homemade puppets. Many of them have motion sensors and talk to you as you walk by. Zakharov honored us with a fantastical puppet show involving spiders, caves, and lost magic earrings. Afterwards we talked to his puppets and enjoyed his gorgeous theater.

In celebration of Gillian’s 24th birthday, we met up with some of Brendan’s local friends for shashlik (traditional russian barbeque) at the Akademgorodok (academic city, a suburb of Tomsk.) After the barbeque we all went dancing at Liner and Contra, two of Tomsk’s premier dance clubs. Dance moves were exchanged and general boogieing was had to the tunes of Russian techno and american pop megamixes.

Besides having a grand time in Tomsk, we’ve also spent the last week playing a lot of music together. We hit it off very well and all taught each other songs. After developing a repertoire we threw a big ol’ hootenanny at Brendan’s apartment, where we debuted our band and jammed out with Russian musicians. Everyone had fun and no one got hurt!

In addition, Brendan and Gillian both performed last night at the local bar/cafe, Matador. The place was packed with Brendan’s Tomskian friends and everyone was mesmerized by their incredible sets. A Russian webzine, Afisha, wrote up a neat review of the concert – in Russian! We’ll have some videos of their show and an English translation of the article up as soon as we get a chance.

So far the trip is five stars out of four. In other words, awesome! Next stop: Elista, chess capital of the world!

Over and out,

Jordan