Последние дни / Last few Days

               I decided to spend my last two weeks in Russia in our families dacha. In case you aren't aware, a dacha is a small house in a Russian village where Russians go to live on the weekends and during the summer.

              Someone told me, before leaving, that coming to Russia would be like walking into 1960. Before coming to the dacha for the first time, I thought she was crazy. Now I see the reason. When you walk down one of the 4 streets (yes, 4) in our village, it is hard to tell what time period you're in. If it weren't for the television satelites sticking out of a few of the houses it could totally be sixty years ago. The wooden houeses, kids playing in the street, old babushkas (grandmothers) sitting on their little benches and gossiping about the lives of the people they see walk by.

          The gossiping babushkas drive my host sister Yulya crazy. I can't blame her, seeing as according to their gossip, Yulya has been pregnant about three or four times and is currently planning to elope. Fortunately, the latest gossip has switched away from my sister, and onto the newest addition to our small village.

The american.

         Peoples reactions when they see me are really funny. The little kids don't understand what it means to be from another country, and ask why I speak strangely. An old woman thought I was lying to her, and actually got pretty angry. My favorite reaction of all though, is a friend of my sisters, who upon seeing me, asks my sister "Is this her? A real american! Can I touch her?!"

    Long story short, my last few weeks in Russia are good ones. My days are filled with working in the garden, swimming in the lake, and washing in the banya. My nights with cooking over bonfires, volleyball, and sunlight even at 11 o'clock.

When I arrived in Russia, the sun rose at 9:30, and set at 4:00. Now, as I'm getting ready to leave, it rises begins to get light at about 3 in the morning, and doesn't get dark again until a bit after 11. The drastic difference in the length of my days is cool to observe. It is something we totally don't have in the US.

Friends, fire in the wilderness, this is the way summer should be.

Probably the most awesome cup of tea I've had in all my time in Russia. Everything is from our garden.

РАДУГА!!! (I think its not hard to guess what that means)

Uh oh, can't cross the road right now. Too many cows.

                                            Summer in the village.

Кому: Будующим студентам обменов/ To all you future exchange students

I'm going home in 3 weeks. Seeing as that is the case, I've decided to make a post to all you potential exchange students out there reading this. I remember reading blogs myself, when deciding if I would go, and then again, where I would go. If you are feeling lazy, just read the points I put in bold, they sum up my advice.

          Firstly, I advise all you potential exchange students out there to think very carefully about your country choice. Think what you want to get out of your exchange, and pick accordingly. Russia for example, is not an easy place to live. The people are very hard to get to know. Most exchange students here go a whole year without making any Russian friends. If you would rather not face a challenge like that, it is better to go to a country where people are more immediately open.
        
         Say you don't get along with your host family. Say kids aren't so nice at school, or on the street. These are problems. If you have them, which you without a doubt will, my advice is to go to people in your host country for help. There is little your friends and family at home can do except worry, so with problems I'd turn first to friends, family or voulenteers in your host country. I would also give problems time, because they very quickly evolve, sometimes they even fix themselves. Even if they don't, a week or even a day later, you and everyone else tends to see them differently. Try to avoid frantic emails to parents or skype calls to friends. I had to learn the hard way just how very unhelpful they are.

           Being an exchange student, there are lots of times, especially in the beginning, where you want to do nothing but talk to your friends and family at home. While that is temporarily comforting, it is not the ideal thing to do. Firstly, if you talk to your folks at home while you have a bad mood, you'll worry them. Secondly, if you get in a habit of retreating to the computer it keeps you from fitting into the new culture. So, stay away from the computer, it'll be best for you in the long run. When feeling down on an exchange, I recommend finding a distraction, for example, I usually take a shower or play cards with my sister.  Although most exchange companies disagree with me, I advise you to bring a computer with you if at all possible. I didn't, thinking, that I'd be less likely to sit on it all day, but as it turns out, a large source of tension between my host family and I is my use of their computer. While I advise you to bring your own computer, I also advise you to use it as minimally as possible.

           Just because your host sister or brother studies in your class, that doesn't mean their friends have to be yours. Just because this one girl is really friendly to you the first few days, that doesn't mean you two have to be best friends for life. When making friends in your host country, pick people that you like. They may not necessarily be in the cool crowd, and they may not necessarily talk to you first. It takes some guts, but pick people you think you'd get along with, and start the conversation. I only started doing this now, during my last month. I wish I'd realized earlier.
    
           If you really want to learn the language, then do your school work. As tempting as it is to doodle, sleep, or read in class, try to stop yourself. The reading, writing, and speaking you do in school is unbelievably helpful in the learning of a new language. Of the exchange students I know in Russia, the ones who know the language best, do all their homework, and get graded on it.

            If there is one thing I could change about my experience, it would be the fact that I chose to go for only a semester. A year might seem overwelming, but almost everyone I've spoken to who choose to go for a semester regrets not choosing a year long option. Heres why: after five months in Russia, I finally feel confident with the language. I finally can understand my schoolwork. I finally have started to make close relationships with people. Just as I begin to realize what I've done wrong, and what to do better, just as I'm starting to fit in, its time to leave.  Of course, a semester is better than nothing, but if you can, go for a year.
           If you really want to learn the language, don't let people talk to you in english. Especially at the beginning. If you know someone who really wants to practice their english, make a deal with them. For example, Dasha, my host sister, wanted to practice her english, so I told her for the first 3 months we'd speak Russian, and once I'd learned Russian, we could speak english together. It worked pretty well. Now though, we almost always speak Russian anyways, because its easier to communicate.

If you are considering coming to Russia: Know what you're getting into. If I were to explain exactly how hard it is to live in Russia, you probably wouldn't want to come, and so I won't do that. I won't explain to you, because although it is incredibly hard, it is just as much worth it. You may not have fun here 100% of the time. Honestly, you probably won't have fun 75% of the time. Despite this, you will think and learn a whole lot, about everything.

To sum it all up, being an exchange student is not easy, but I don't know anyone who's regretted it.