Children's Railway

 We noticed signs on the Minsk subway announcing that the Children’s Railway is running. I figured it would be like the little trains I rode as a kid in various zoos and amusement parks. I was surprised, then, to see that it’s a fairly large-scale model of a real Belarusian passenger train. We saw the train running along the edge of a city park where we had gone for a walk, and we decided to see about taking a ride.

Following the train, we found our way to a little  station not far from the main park entrance. The architecture reminded us of many Soviet train stations, though in this case it was scaled down in keeping with the Children’s Railway idea. Whereas in a real railway station they play tinny patriotic music when a train arrives, here they played tinny children’s music continuously. There was also an actor or actress who kept reappearing in various animal suits reminiscent of cartoon characters. My favorite character was the wolf, and the person inside the costume let me pose with my head inside the wolf’s huge mouth.

Since we arrived just after a train left, we had a 20-minute wait for the next train. I toured the exhibits inside the station, which included a fine electric-train diorama operated by kids in railway uniforms. At the back of the station I found a huge classroom filled with kids in railway uniforms, including giant hats like the ones police and military officers wear here. If I spoke more Russian, and/or had paid attention, I might have realized that these kids were in training. As it was, I just figured they were on a school outing, took a couple of pictures, and went back outside to wait for our train.

When our train arrived we realized that there are two of these trains and that they take a surprisingly long excursion. My real surprise, however, was to discover that the train was operated almost entirely by  children in uniform. Each car had at least two conductors, and the engine carried one adult engineer and two or three apprentice engineers. I think there may have been a second adult on the train somewhere, but as far as the public is concerned the operators are all children.

The train cars even have little cabins for the conductors. I believe each car has a separate P.A. system. In our car we saw a conductor in his office talking into the microphone to announce our trip.

When the train pulled out of the station, all the conductors stood in their doorways holding yellow flags straight out. As each door passed the end of the platform, the conductor would lower his or her flag with an authoritative snap. (Later I paid attention when a real train left Minsk station. In real life, most of the conductors take their arms inside the train long before their cars clear the platform. Only the last conductor shows the flag until the last car passes the end of the platform.)

The children’s train runs about three kilometers through woodlands and stops at a secluded picnic area. We debarked there and waited for the next train back, giving us a chance to understand more of the children’s duties operating the railroad. They are very serious and I suppose many of them will end up working in railroad as adults.

Privileged

I always feel special here. Today I started my classes. After my class, I wanted to use a computer but the computer lab in my building closed for a «technical break» as I walked up. I went to the study hall in the next building and asked to sign in. Somebody stepped up to the last free computer just as I was asking for permission to use it, but the supervisor told me I could still use one immediately if I went to the something-or-other hall "down that way." Well... That's as much as I understood anyway. I couldn't even get my head around the words that preceeded the Russian word for hall, so I just walked around in the direction she sent me, looking around for the word "zall" on one of the door signs.

Unfortunately, I misunderstood her gesture and only looked on the right side of the hallway, and found no room claiming to be any kind of "zall." So I went back and confessed that I hadn't understood. This time, the other supervisor took me personally to the hall of computers she had in mind, but we found that they were all occupied.

No problem, I said. I have homework to do and I will just work in the main study hall until a computer becomes available. Or something like that. My Russian is highly imperfect. Anyway, I didn't have to wait. I had barely seated myself when the first supervisor came back and told me that she had a computer for me right now. She led me into a back room I had been curious about from my last visit here. It leads to a hidden hallway that I had surmised from looking at the outside of the building but had never entered. There is a VERY nice computer lab off the hallway, complete with printers (wow!) and even a scanner. I am in heaven.

May Day

There is a pun in the title of this blog. First we had a “mayday” experience of the sinking-ship kind, upon our arrival at our apartment on April 30. While I was getting registered at the university, Alla was working out the final details with our landlord. She called me in the midst of my official business to let me know that I might like to return home as soon as practical.

When I came into the apartment, she and the landlord were struggling over matters of my official registration as a resident. The landlord said that he couldn’t register me at the place we were renting because somebody else was registered there already. Based on previous experience, I really didn’t want to mess around with my registration. We got nowhere, and decided to go with registration at another address as the landlord proposed. But then he said that he’d only register me for one month and he’d extend my registration only upon receipt of the second rent payment. Alla made a call and found that if he did that, the University would be unable to register me for the second month and worst case I’d have to leave the country.

We discussed and discussed the issues, trying to propose protections for the landlord that would make him comfortable about registering us. The longer we discussed things the more we realized that he was doing everything to protect himself all along the way and that he’d never offered anything to protect us. We had struggled from the beginning to get our covenants onto paper. We understood during this process that we couldn’t place our trust in this guy and we wouldn’t commit to living in his place even for a month. Two nights seemed about right.

Alla called a realtor she had met earlier and got an introduction to a rental agent. The rental agent had a few immediate ideas and took us yesterday morning to see the low-priced option. For $800 per month we got a beautiful two-room apartment that we like a whole lot better than the more-expensive place we started in. We will move in today.

Yesterday was International Labor Day, a holiday here. We joined the celebrations at the local park. The city brought various amateur singing and dancing groups onto a rickety wooden stage. We particularly liked the dancers, who presented well-choreographed performances beautifully. Their lavish costumes matched their dances. The only disappointments for us were a couple of hip-hop performances, which weren’t up to American street-performance standards. One of the songs they chose included “motherf___er” in the lyrics, which seemed odd in a public performance in a children’s park. But I guess the censors didn’t understand the charge that expression brings to English speakers. We saw the same word scrawled in the elevator of the apartment building we are leaving. Is this really the best stuff we can export from America?

Almost ready for Belarus

I am almost completely prepared to return to Belarus for two more months studying at the Minsk State Linguistic University. I have my visa, we've found a place to live, and I've even gone so far as to order a cheap bicycle to bring along. I tried to order the bike in Minsk, but the stores we found didn't have many choices in my size and what they had was pretty heavy.

We will arrive on the last day of April, just in time to add a data plan to my telephone's SIM card before the new month. And with any luck there will be another concert at the State Library on the first day of May. We had a great time at last year's concert, and I'm hoping to invite my former classmates to join us for shashleek (shish-ke-bob) at this year's concert. Looking for the concert, I stumbled across a wonderful blog entry about Belarus, reflecting much of what I have enjoyed and observed about the place. Take a look here.

I can hardly wait. Meanwhile, I'm working hard on improving my Russian and already starting to pack my bags.

Back in Mexico

Ik-Kil Mexico—Friday, February 20, 2009

We had a great time doing unusual stuff today. We earned this pleasure by a bit of work getting here yesterday. We flew to Cancun, rented a car, and drove to Ik-Kil. This wasn’t as easy as it sounds. The map we received from Avis was one notch better than useless, and the Avis lady’s description of how to get onto our toll road left out an important detail that led us to drive all over creation before we finally got under way. We created some problems of our own too, primarily because we shot through the airport without getting any Mexican money. I really should have gone back inside when we circled back after figuring out where we really wanted to drive. I won’t tell you about all the troubles this caused, so you’ll just have to imagine.

Our difficulties were exacerbated by the fact that most of my Spanish language skills fled since I started studying Russian. I expect my vocabulary to come back any minute now, but it definitely hasn’t happened yet.

We did arrive successfully at Ik-Kil before the manager went home for the night, and he sent us to a huge and sparkling cabin with a thatched roof and colorful garden. It’s got a “king sized” bed, but the royalty here must be a little shorter than up north. Alla compensated by building an extension on my side of the bed with a luggage table and a pillow. We both slept very well and woke up only when the birds started singing in the morning.

Today made up for all of yesterday’s travail. We drove down to an archaeological site called Ek-Balam and bought a couple of admission tickets. As we turned to walk into the site, a guy behind a desk deep in the office asked us in perfect English if we’d like an expert tour of the site. He said that he was a leader of the archaeological team since 1994 or 1998 and he offered to show us around for a little more than $20 U.S. We’re really glad we said yes.

His name is Juan Canul. Juan warned us that some guests find him a little long-winded and he wanted to know how much time we had. Alla offered him as much time as he wished to offer. So he said to stop him if he talked too much. He did talk a lot, and I worried at the beginning that we’d be bored too. But Alla got right into it and started asking him questions, memorizing statistics, and egging him on. Our tour lasted two and a half hours. I gave him a 33% tip but I still feel a little sheepish about getting such a bargain. The reason he’s leading tours is that the government only funds archaeological work about ten weeks each year. He continues to supervise three guards and oversee the site and its maintenance, but he is seriously under-employed.

He read the hieroglyphics to us, corrected the misinformation we’d received in last year’s tour at Chichen-Itza, and regaled us with stories of which archaeologist made what discovery and when. (The Chichen-Itza misinformation relied on early archaeological theories, discredited by more recent research.)

On our way back from Ek-Balam we drove through a little town where we thought we might be able to buy lunch. A local police officer sent us to a restaurant we didn’t find appealing so we headed out and figured we might just buy some fruit to tide us over until we could get to a bigger town. Fortunately, Alla noticed a clothing store she wanted to visit, and when we turned around we found ourselves facing a tortilla factory. This place ground its own corn and cranked out tortillas. I bought a stack about an inch high for three pesos; less than 25 cents.

The still-warm tortillas tasted great and we were filling our faces with them as we walked toward the clothing store. We saw a meat market and looked in. Not realizing that they had cooked meat, we turned to leave. The owner called us back and said that some smoked pork would be really great with our tortillas and he cut us a sample. Wow, was he right. So we bought a hunk of meat and the owner took us back to see the huge smoke oven where he was cooking another batch of food. We sat on a bridge and ate our food with great pleasure. I think the whole lunch cost about a dollar and a half. It made our breakfast seem particularly ridiculous.

Our last adventure took place when we bought gas. The guy at the station engaged me in conversation and assured himself that I was a tourist. Then he pulled a little trick. I gave him 200 pesos for gas and then fished a coin out of my pocket because the total bill was 210. He pointed out that I’d only given him a five-peso coin instead of ten, so I fished out another five-peso coin. Then he pointed out that I’d only given him a 20-peso note instead of a 200-peso note. This was surprising because I organize my money by size in my wallet and I gave him the note at the very back of my wallet, knowing that I’d just gotten a bunch of 200’s at the ATM.

I drove away sure that I’d just let myself be cheated. Alla made me stop the car and re-count the money in my wallet. Since I’d been broke shortly before and had then gone to the ATM, I knew that either the ATM gave me a 20-peso note instead of a 200 or he had pulled a switch. Alla wanted me to go back, but I despaired because my Spanish is so weak. Still, she was firm and I complied. I asked the guy to re-count his money. He said simply that my 200-peso bill had fallen. I started to argue and then realized that I was happy to pretend to agree to his claim. So I held out my hand and he gave me a 200-peso note. It seems I made 20 pesos on the deal.

Culture shock

When I got home I experienced a bit of culture shock. About twelve hours after getting home I headed out on the subway to visit a friend who lives out of town. For those who know Boston, I was on the Green Line, which admittedly isn't our fastest. In fact, I found it incredibly slow and I'm convinced that at its top speed it was still slower than a Minsk subway train is running before its last car leaves the station.

Now let's talk about who was on this train with me. I felt that the only colorful clothes I saw didn't fit properly, and the few people wearing tailored clothes wore extremely plain and drab colors. Apparently you can have color or fit here, but it's unusual to find both. I'm going to shape up and stop dressing like a slob when I go to the gym.

Some of my return-home contrasts were much less jarring. My health club, for example, offers a dazzling array of facilities in a clean and modern environment unlike anything I saw in Belarus. And I sure did enjoy riding high-tech bicycle I keep at home. I don't know where I could have bought anything even approximately like it in Belarus.

On the way home

I wasn’t sure I really knew Minsk all that well yet, but as we left the city I realized how much I recognized along the main road leading toward the airport. My subway line runs under this road and I recognized pretty much everything all the way from our apartment as far as the State Library. I watched it all go by with considerable nostalgia and longing to return. Of course I will be back; I’ve already filed my application at the University.

Alla and I are trying to speak Russian to each other now. It’s surprising how much I can talk about, and it’s also pretty painful to struggle many minutes to say something simple.

Now we’re in Frankfurt. During the cold months there’s no afternoon flight to Boston so we booked a hotel here. When we emerged into the main railway station we saw vividly the scope of choices in the western world. We probably wouldn’t have noticed it except by contrast to the place we just left. We were amazed even by the variety of sandwiches laid out at a fast-food takeout restaurant. You don’t get nearly so many choices anywhere in Belarus.

We’re enjoying our little foray into Frankfurt. We found our way to a pleasant restaurant beside a church, and we arrived just as the church bells began ringing. I wonder how many bell-ringers it took to play the change-ringing we heard before entering the restaurant. All I can say for sure is that they got our attention and stopped us in our tracks.

Having gone to bed rather late last night and still awakened at the usual time, we’re feeling pretty tired tonight. This is probably a good thing because we guessed wrong about the room we chose at our hotel. We went for a room on the first floor because the upper room facing the quiet courtyard seemed small to us. Unfortunately, the municipal services people chose tonight as the optimal time to jackhammer the streetcar line outside our window. Imagine my disappointment, then, to discover that the hotel has filled up and it’s too late now to change rooms. The woman at the desk assured me that the city workers promised to stop jackhammering after an hour. I hope they keep that promise. Looking out the window, I’d guess I’ll be wearing earplugs all night.