8 March 2009

Just got home from an all day event, well, two events really, at the Hillel. I got up early this morning and went over to volunteer at the YESOD (the abbreviation translates to Jewish Family Community Home) family day. It was aimed at little kids, but it was fun. I did simple jobs like hand out fliers and greet people at the door for most of the day. at one point I was given the job of giving out flowers to all the women as they came in (this weekend is the Russian holiday “international women’s day” where you are supposed to celebrate women). I had a lot of older women give me looks like I must have made their day…and by older I mean women that were mom’s age and older were winking at me and blushing. After a while, one of the directors came over to me and asked me to help out at the food station. She put an apron on me, and I got in the assembly line making falafels. It was tough work…they were giving out one free falafel to every person that bought a ticket, and there were four of us trying to supply a few hundred people that came in huge waves as the shows finished. At one point we took a break and I was able to try my first falafel. It was really good. I’m glad I tried it then, because we ended up running out of everything except pitas and the actual falafel mixture. As time went on we ran out of both the sweet and spicy sauce, cucumbers, tomatoes, hummus, and then eventually we just started putting falafel on plates and giving those out; pitas optional.
After the event ended, they had a mock Jewish wedding. With all of the restrictions in the Soviet Union and the current confusing marriage system here (I had it explained to me the other night…it is several stages and very bureaucratic) most of the people there had never seen a Jewish wedding before. They had a real couple that was engaged act as the bride and groom, and they had someone act as the rabbi and go through the whole ceremony explaining each step, and then afterwards was a big party. THAT was a lot of fun. I had my first Russian vodka of the trip. All the men were drinking loads and loads of it, and one of the guys I met today came up to me and said he wanted to have a drink with his “new American friend.” I had another person I met photograph the event. It was funny, after he found out I was American he spent the rest of the day trying to speak English with me (he pretty much only knew American curses, and didn’t know what any of them meant). It was funny…at one point I saw a guy chugging Fanta straight from the bottle, and as he put it down he grinned at me and put it down next to an almost empty bottle of vodka. The guy next to him smiled at me and said “be careful drinking the Fanta” and laughed and walked away. Basically the Russian wedding was exactly what I would have expected.
I really had a good time. I made a lot of new friends, and I have been invited to a Purim party tomorrow night (I don’t have classes because of the holiday…the Russian holiday, not the Jewish one). I was actually invited last week, but I just found out tonight that it’s a costume party… I told them I don’t have a costume, I brought very limited clothing with me. I decided I am going to go as a stereotypical American. I am going to wear really bright shorts (my yellow and orange swim trunks), a bright t-shirt, sneakers, a camera, and I am going to smile and point at everything. It should be a lot of fun, and I bet I'll get some really good hamentaschen (although from what i was told by several people today, purim (like every other russian holiday) is celebrated by all the men drinking massive amounts of vodka))