Yay, I am no longer officially male.

Of course, the Russian bureaucratic saga continues. My visa was only good until the end of 2007, so I spent most of the month of December trying to convince the secretary at the International Student's office that yes, indeed the four photos I was trying to give her were printed on matte and not glossy paper. I finally ended up getting another round of photos from the little photo-printing store across the street from the university, making sure the clerk understood the difference between matte and glossy. I marched back into the office and, of coure, she said they wouldn't work. If I was a real Russian, I would have accepted this, but my American bargaining skills won out and I began to beg and plead with her. Her main objections was that the ink from the official stamp would smear because the paper was too slippery and shiny. Finally, I convinced her to try stamping an extra pictures to see if it would work. She stamped, gave it about 10 seconds to dry, and then licked her finger and tried to smear the ink. She was determined to prove this all-too-persistent American girl wrong. Well, God must have dried that ink extra fast, because it didn't smear one bit. Small victories, I tell ya.

December 30th, I armed myself with Pride & Prejudice and settled down for a bus ride across town to pick up my new visa. Amazingly, it was ready, and I distinctly remember thinking, on my way back home, "That was way too easy ... something must be wrong." Then, I got shut in the door of a marshrutka (a little bus) while waiting for change and forgot all about it, as I was occupied with wondering whether my arm would ever be the same. A few days later, I happened to have my passport out and glanced at the new visa. My first thought was, "does that seriously say I'm a man?" And yes, it definitely says man instead of woman. My second thought was, "what happens if I get stopped and some policeman sees this? This could get awkward very fast."

About a week ago, I went back into the office to notify them about this little tiny mistake. To her credit, the secretary was very embarrassed and promised to call the police office that very day. Fortunately she had my new registration papers (I was afraid I would be visa-less and hiding in my room at the dorms for a few days). On Friday, I was back to the office again to pick up the corrected document.

My secretary friend unlocks the safe, pulls out my documents, and hands over the visa. It definitely still says 'man'. I shoot her a quizzical look and she says, "Turn it over." On the back, written in blue ball point pen, it says "Correction. She is a woman, not a man. Signed - some unintelligible Russian signature."

What can I say, life is great. In other news, a 15 year old, piano-playing, Seventh Day Adventist Korean girl (who speaks zero Russian but a little English) has moved in down the hall from me. She and I have really hit it off. Last night, we had a team meeting and I was super tired and very excited to head back the dorms and hit the sack (a rare occurance). I made it back to the dorms before 10 pm and was just hanging up my laundry when someone knocked on my door. It was her and she spent the next two and a half hours sitting on my bed telling me about everything under the sun. She is very surprised I can happily coexist with my two Chinese roommates. She thinks Chinese people "stink" and are "mean".

This morning, she was back, explaining she didn't know how to get to class (a three minute walk from our dorms through various gravel-asphalt patches, a construction site, and rickety staircase up the side of a hill). We walked together, found her classroom, and learned some necessary phrases on the way: "I don't understand. I don't speak Russian. Please help me." I think we shall be friends.

Tomorrow is Deanna's 7th birthday (she's in the process of being adopted by the Eshelmans, missionaries I work with). It's an American-Indian themed party and I've heard rumour of a bison hunt (bison played by Cecil, her dad). I will, of course, try to get pictures. As far as I know, there are no rules about interns posting ridiculous pictures of their missionaries dressed as ferocious beasts of the plains on the www. We'll see what I can get away with, haha.

Peace on earth, goodwill toward men!

A few quick fun things

1. First week back in class has been great. We didn't have our new textbooks and I figured we'd wouldn't get them for at least a week or two (after all, this is Russia, where everything moves as fast as molasses). But, one of our teachers mentioned that a bookstore in the city had them, so we took matters into our own hands. After appointing two guys from our class (the only ones with access to cars) to be in charge of the operation, everyone pulled out their wallets, handed over a few hundred rubles and wished them luck in locating the books. They actually found them (a real shocker). It only gets better: I was flipping through one and kept on wondering, "What's so weird about this textbook?" I couldn't figure it out, but finally I realized - it's a Russian textbook for English speakers! It has instructions, a few translations, enormously helpful grammar instruction ... wow, how amazing! After spending three months working out of an entirely Russian textbook, I didn't even realize I was reading in English. Haha.

2. During exams, I was in the beginning stages of a truly terrific sinus infection. One of my teachers is a very stereotypical Russian babushka, as bossy as they come. She heard me coughing and snuffling and wrote down the name of some Russian super-medicine, which she claimed would cure me after two or three lethal doses. I politely thanked her and was silently greatful to my mother's forethought in sending me some antibiotics. I still have a bit of a sniffle and in class today, she was extremely upset that I had not taken her suggestion. She made me promise I'd stop at the apteka (like a drugstore, but you don't need prescriptions, just ask for whatever you'd like) today. I just nodded and escaped as quickly as I could. I guess no more blowing my nose in class.

3. It's cold. Wow. Looking at the temperature is pretty useless (I can't keep track between celsius and farenheit any more either). The windows in my dorm room close almost all the way, but not quite. I wasn't too concerned; it had actually been so hot in my room that I'd open a window for a few minutes. However, with the heat being scaled back for the holidays (most students leave) and taking a while to come back on, as well as a pretty big drop in temperature, my room has been chilly. As long as I bundle up and move around every once in a while, I stay pretty warm, but sleeping has been an interesting experience. The dorm provides two blankets to each student, but anything more is on you. On Tuesday night, I ended up in bed wearing all of my long underwear, pajamas, and a sweater. At 2 am, I was wondering what else I had in my room that could possibly keep me warm. I ended up back in bed, in my wonderfully warm Russian down jacket. Desperate times call for desperate measures.

I wasn't sure what to do; I didn't want to spend a ton of money on another blanket, but certainly wasn't looking forward to spending the rest of the winter sleeping in my coat. That night around 11 pm, the nicest floor matron knocked on my door and said, "I came to check on you. I thought you might not know how to close Russian windows all the way." She inspected my windows, pronounced it very cold in my room, and said she'd call the repairman to come on Saturday and seal my windows up. She was in such a good mood, laughing and joking with me, that I decided to go out on a limb and ask her if I might have another blanket. As I guessed, I got a lecture about how that wouldn't be fair, she couldn't give out blankets just like that, etc. Then, she grinned and said, "I'll see what I can do." Two minutes later, she was back with the biggest, purplest, wooliest blanket I'd ever seen. Hurrah for God's provision =]

4. Sadly, my favorite roommate Sonya isn't coming back for this semester. She and I had gotten as close our terrible Russian allowed and I was looking forward to another couple months of cooking dinner together, watching American movies with me attempting to translate for her, and fighting with the washing machine for several hours on Sunday evenings (our assigned laundry time).

Thanks for all of the cards, e-mails, packages, and love in the last month! I have a grand dream of answering about a billion e-mails, mailing some postcards, and uploading some pictures this weekend. We'll see how itgoes; I have a page long essay about a Russian translator, his doctor wife, and happy family to memorize for class on Monday.

- Elsbeth

Happy New Year (and pictures)!

Life has slowed down in the last couple weeks, which has been very nice. It's been very nice to have a break from classes, but I'm excited to go back on Monday! Almost everyone on my floor in the dorms went home to Korea/Japan/China for the holidays, so it's very deserted and creepy. In more exciting news, I've got some pictures (and the patience to upload them) today!

This is my roommate Sonya. She's 20, from China, and we have a lot of fun together! She is very interested in all-things-American. She recently attempted to dye her hair brown - an interesting process in which she recruited my help. She loves to make me dinner and always refuses to let me help with the dishes (I do anyway). She's been asking a lot of questions about religion and churches in America and was very excited when I invited her to come to church with me.

Here are Pasha and Deanna, both Korean students. They are the hardest workers in my class and keep me on my toes! Deanna is a Christian and often invites me to tea in her room. Pasha speaks the most English of anyone of my floor and asks me every single morning, "How are you today?"

This is my section, or class (missing a few). Most of them look terribly unhappy, I know. On the far left, bottom row, red sweater, is Peter. He is a Korean pastor and we sit next to each other in class. He's old enough to be my dad, and is always teasing me about how young I am. One day after class, he pulled some money out of his pocket and I decided to turn the tables. I grinned and said, "Oh daddy, is that for me?" He laughed and laughed and from that day on has called me 'dochinka', meaning 'daughter'.

My roommate Liza. She's the cook, as you can tell from her apron. She loves it when I french-braid her hair and is currently learning the name of every imaginable animal from anywhere in English.

And here's our illegal cat, named Tao-Tao and secretely called Chairman Mao (he's very pompous) by yours truly. He is very cute but very loud and begins his yowling every morning around 6 am.

Liza and I.

Me, Liza, and Sonya. Anya, our other roommate doesn't like pictures.

On Monday (Russian Christmas), I spent most of the day peeling enough carrots and potatoes for 70 people. That evening, we went to the homeless shelter (what an amazing place - it's impossible to describe) and ate Christmas dinner with everyone. Every time I go there, I'm blown away by a million things: how much I've been blessed with, the terrible effects of sin in someone's life, how joyful these people who have virtually nothing can be ... If I could, I'd take everyone I know and make them spend a week at the shelter.

So, New Year's greetings from four girls and cat! Thank you for all the e-mails, cards, and calls! I am so excited for a new year, new semester, and a thousand more adventures. One of my (probably futile) resolutions is to do a better job of communicating with everyone at home.

It's gotten very cold in the last week. Temperatures won't be above 0 degrees F for the next week. I can't wait for summer!

Much love to all!
Elsbeth