Yikes!

14:00 30 September 2008

I just had one of the more wild experiences, and something that I somewhat hope not to repeat. It began when I got to school Monday morning and was informed that the rest of the week’s classes were cancelled to allow students to assist their families in harvesting potatoes. That was a surprise but not totally unexpected because we had heard stuff like this will happen all the time. However, there were still supposed to be classes that day. I went home for lunch after teaching a few classes and was told that the male teachers at my school wanted to get acquainted with me and were having a get-together after school and that I should be there. When I returned to the school, I found out that the rest of the classes were cancelled and that the male teachers were waiting for me in the shop room.

I was a little sketched out at this point- I expected that I would be pressured to drink, but up to the point I had pretty successfully resisted it for the most part and partook only when I wanted. Honestly, I was pretty much inducted into a fraternity last night, the festivities went on for a very long time and I became inebriated past the point of comfort for me. The shop teacher even had a wooden sword that some kid had made and I was worried that it would turn into a fraternity paddle- thank goodness this never proved true. The party started with them informing me that because there were so few of them, the men that work at the school have a very special bond and that I was to become one of their very good friends. Apparently, get-togethers like the one yesterday afternoon happen once a quarter, and they call themselves “Наш Коллэктив” “Our Collective”- apparently they take turns buying drinks for one another at these events. My downhill slide started out fine when we went to the store (obviously as a new member I was first to pay- but I didn’t mind given the extremely inexpensive nature of alcohol here). I told them I didn’t want to drink vodka and so I got some beer to drink instead in addition to the two bottles of vodka we bought. Everything started fine, there was a lot of toasting to me and to manhood and eventually my beer was gone and there was only a little vodka left- I figured the party was winding down so I gave in when they asked me to drink one shot. This was my first mistake.

As soon as the little bit of vodka was gone another teacher ran out to pick up more. I then realized that this party was far from over and then I had set a precedent that would be difficult to live down. This held true as the third bottle of vodka led to the fourth and I became increasingly drunk. Nothing particular bad happened, I handled my liquor well and while I am sure my language skills suffered somewhat, my camaraderie with my fellow teachers rose and they even gave me a pen that had come with the vodka which they engraved with “To Jonathan from us men” and the date in Russian. This is something that I will certainly hold dear. As the hours wore on, I finally, after several failed attempts, I was allowed to go home and I somehow managed to make it without incident- there I immediately fell into bed and slept from six o’ clock at night until this morning. While it is great to have new friends, I hope my attempts to curb my consumption are more successful in the future, while nothing bad happened this time, it can be a dangerous state to be in and I don’t want to repeat it.

Unrelated, but entertaining to me is the various ethnicities people have thought I was. I believe I look relatively “American”- whatever that means, but recently I have gotten a number of odd guesses. English was the first which isn’t so odd- but it was funny how unconvinced he was when I said I was American, he really believed that I had been English. Second was Belgium, which surprised me because of how small the country is and, in my mind, its lack of defining appearance. Third, and most odd to me, was Turkish when someone started speaking to me in Turkish, then paused when I didn’t understand and asked in Russian, “You’re Turkish, aren’t you?”. Most recently, rather then getting “Helloed” in the street, I got “Guten Taged” so I have to assume they believed I was German, not too far off, though still amusing to me.