26 October: De-Denisnasation and Other Good Things

(I know that in some of my posts - incl. this one - the date in the title does not match the date in the bottom. This is simply because many of my posts are writting while my internet is down, and are therefore posted a while after they are written).

What a difference a day makes! Finally Denis has left the build (and Russia)! After Clara moved the Denis only got worse and worse to live with. He’s been telling us off for the strangest things (for example, our desire to dry the dishes after we cleaned them, instead of putting them in the wooden cupboards soaking wet). His attitude went from friendly but insecure (.. as well as illogic and ignorant) to snooty, un comfortable and bigheaded. Clearly he expected to housemaids worshipping him, and not two EVS volunteers with brains. One thing living abroad has taught be about myself is that Danes are much better at being outspoken about issues to people's faces (also known as better at stepping up and being the "mean boogieman/mummy"), so obviously when Clara left I was a little on my own, as Germans are much more quitet and suttle and conflictshy, leaving me to take charge of the uncomfortable conversations with Denis. Luckily for me Sabrina has, since she got here about 1½ month ago, been a little Danishfied in terms of conflict by yours truely. So now, while she is certainly still very different from me, I am starting to appreciate her as person and as a flat mate.

So what else is new? Well first of all, another Dane has arrived in Samara! After over 10 years of existence Clara and I were the first Danish volunteers our hosting organisation has ever had, and now!, half of their volunteers this year are Danes. Unlike the rest of us volunteers here this Dane, Johannes, is a guy. He lives approx. right between Clara´s place and mine. His host “family” is a friend of Clara´s mentor. I have been at this place twice now. The first time was with Sabrina and Katja, nearly two weeks ago, to watch Lord of the Rings in German and eat our first Russian pizzas. The second time was a few days after, to meet Johannes, who had just arrived. The first time was slightly awkward as we were left there alone by Katya for the first long while and didn’t know these guys (however there was one slightly “interesting” couch surfer visiting them from Skt. Petersburg, a rather talented photographer). The second time was quite cozy, we all played “Village” a funny group game, and through that broke much of the ice with both Johannes/his mentor/Katya’s friends. A+ for that evening! (..to be continued)

29 October: Continued..
Additionally I finally settled on a name for this blog (The EVS Adventure!) and now I am boggling my mind to come up with a suitable design. It’s a bit difficult to find time to blog as you can see on the time between my last couple of posts. One thing that did however help going back to blogging is the being sick from work for about 2 weeks now, that would be thanks to a pair of kidneys that apparently doesn’t appreciate the Russian weather, so for nearly 2 weeks (after I was forced to the hospital despite insisting “IT’S JUST THE FLU!!!” to everyone) I have now been heavily medicated, low on energy and so faint that I have been outside only 4 times (excl. trips to the hospital), 3 of the times was just 20 meters to the market to buy food. The last time was when going to the ballet I mentioned in my previous post (by the way, Russian ballet = MUCH RECOMMENDED!).

So as I mentioned before Denis has just moved, and we have now started a project (which we had been looking forward to start for what feels like years!) of “de-Denisnasation”, as I call it, of the apartment (Nikita Khrushchev had “de-Stalinasation” I figured we’d have “de-Denisnasation”). This “de-Denisnasation” represents 3 aspects of change:

1) The most important step is CLEANING! This apartment is the dirtiest thing I’ve ever seen in my life (and I’ve seen some really nasty things), and everything must be scrubbed and disinfected! Since Sabrina and I keep getting sick we decided to start with the kitchen as it is where we storage, prepare and eat our food. Every item in the entire kitchen is literally sticky and dirty. The cleaning has been going for 4 days now, and we’re not even halfway through!
2) Redecorating: The whole apartment just looks gloomy and depressed, and after living here for nearly two months both Sabrina and I have had enough, and started to spot small things that can make a world of difference, for example, the curtains in the kitchen was pinned together so you never saw an inch of daylight in the room. After Denis moved, we no longer have to concern with the fact that he insisted the curtains stays closed, and we now have daylight and a view uplifting the whole room. The redecorating has also called for some investments; we have been out buying things such as a new tablecloth (this was also partially for hygienic reasons as the old one wasn’t just ugly but impossible to clean properly).
3) Introducing a system: “Anyone can control order, it takes a genius to control chaos” is one of my favourite saying, but in Denis´ case there was no such control of the chaos, just pure laziness. And the last of system in this apartment is really both scary and frustrating – so Sabrina and I have decided to create system as we go on the cleaning! It’s now starting to become possible to find what you are looking for (and without touching something sticky!).

Next to me is sitting this nice and newly baked banana cake (in a pie form we discovered while cleaning the kitchen – also the only ovenproof dish in the apartment). This cake is the first thing that’s been baked in the oven since we moved here – and my first time using a gas oven! To make me even prouder, the cake is baked on what we in Denmark refer to as “gefül”, meaning that it is based on estimates rather than aquracy. We have no measuring jugs or anything else of that kind so I’ve been looking up German translations of grams in to cups (not the UK/US measurement units but real cups), only I has no idea what size the Germans expects your cups to be.. and I don’t really understand much German. Nevertheless the cake has come out great! :D

So I’m afraid you’ll have to excuse me, I have a cake to eat!

Пока! :)