Week 6 in Russia: "Camping" in a Winter Wonderland

(In typical Russian fashion, I am late on my blogs. Forgive me while I post several times in a row to catch up.)

Last Friday, I set off to go "camping" as a GBT volunteer. Seven of us traveled 3.5-4 hours north to Bolshoe Golustnoe, a small village on Lake Baikal. There, we were to take schoolchildren on a nature hike, teach them about native species, show them how to pitch a tent and build a campfire, and generally have a good time in the great outdoors (in winter). We stayed overnight at the schoolteacher's home, so we didn't actually "go camping." But their house doesn't have running water and we slept in sleeping bags, so it was more or less the real thing. ;-)

On Friday night, I helped to make dinner and we got to know each other over a simple, but tasty meal. I always introduce myself as Лиза (pronounced "leeza") here, the usual nickname for Елизавета (clearly, the Russian equivalent of "Elizabeth"), and avoid saying much about where I'm from. I was cutting a loaf of bread when the schoolteacher asked me a question. I answered, in Russian of course, but she paused, "You're not from here?" she asked. "No, I'm from America." And she laughed and jokingly called me a spy because I had been at her house for an hour and all the while she thought I was Russian. I explained my heritage over dinner, and they went on about how I looked Russian and they barely noticed my accent (probably because I try not to say much). After dinner, the schoolteacher's son, Женя ("Zhenya"), played guitar and everyone sang. They sang many Buryat songs, which I want more than anything to learn.

After the family went to bed--the real work began. Our program leader, Вова ("Vova"), who works at the Nature Musem, began to pull cases and sacks out of his rather large backpack. He opened them one-by-one to revel various animal skulls, pelts, and bird feathers. Our task? To learn them all by heart for the following day's program. Now, I know my fair share of native species of Northern America from my youth, but in English. And here I was to learn Siberian native species--in Russian--in a few short hours. We had made labels earlier, so we each tried (and tried again) to correctly label each item. For the skulls and pelts, I worked with a dictionary (I never go anywhere without it!), but the birds were another story. Imagine my wide eyes when Вова lays out bird heads, feet, wings, and tail feathers on a giant blanket and expects us to label them all by ourselves. I used a guide to Siberian birds that Вова brought, as my dictionary was no good here, and tried to guess from the pictures which species I was looking at. Mind you, this was nearing 1 in the morning. We worked until 2:30am and finally got some rest...only to rise again at 8am.

We fixed breakfast, gathered our gear, and headed to the school. We met with the students and hiked with them to a place in between the mountains to set up camp for the day. We taught the students how to build a fire, pitch a tent, and tested their knowledge (and ours!) of Siberian wildlife. Luckily, I was in charge of the pelts, which I pretty much knew except for mixing up the sable and the mink. We ate lunch, played games, and set up a zip line between two trees. After a few hours, we packed up and headed back home, via the Lake.

I don't even know how to describe the mountains of precisely-chiseled ice that awaited us, so just take a look:

We climbed over these and then walked on the flat surface of the frozen lake. I slipped once, and fell hard on my tailbone--it's just not a weekend in Russia if my body isn't sore afterwards. ;-)

We walked halfway across the lake, and then the schoolteacher and her husband drove up in their truck. (Yes, truck on ice. They do it all the time here). They had a sleigh attached to the back of the truck and intended to give us rides across the ice. ... I need to tell you that my dad had recently warned me about exactly this--that he's seen people in the ER after accidents when the inner-tube or whatever swings around the side of the vehicle and then the rider gets run over. So, I elected not to ride first, and instead sat in the truckbed to watch. Our driver was very alert to keep the sleigh directly behind the vehicle, so when it was time for the second group, I decided to join. Oh-my-goodness-it-was-one-of-the-most-frightening-experiences-of-my-life. I had flashbacks to my weekend skiing in Baikalsk and I can't decide which is more terrifying. I almost fell off the sleigh because we hit a break in the surface, but I suppose all's well that ends well. I'm alive, right?

We walked from the lake into the village to the cultural center, where we reviewed our activities in pictures and videos. We were all tired, but satisfied. We went home to fix dinner and enjoy each others' company while singing, dancing, and discussing weighty subjects until 3am. In the morning, a couple of us went into the barn to see a newborn calf, and we accidentally let two of the cows out into the yard. We coaxed them back into the barn fairly easily, though, and said our goodbyes with our host family before getting on the bus to Irkutsk (on which we all slept like babies). I ended up at home around 6 o'clock, tired, and needing to do homework before starting a very long week.