Couchsurfers

I met some couchsurfers in Saint Petersburg who made life quite interesting for me.
Margo , a russian girl who moved to SPB from Yeketerinburg organized an outing to Pushkin.There were initially 7 of us.But somehow , everyone met friends and other couchsurfers coincidentally at the park and our numbers snowballed to 12 people!

Margo later came over to my place to help me with learning Russian!She's a strict vegan and does not even eat сметана( sour cream ) anymore the comfort food for all russians and hers when she was younger!

Another couchsurfer was Sasha!
On my first week in SPB ,through CS , i met a researcher and curator of the Tibetian Collection at the Institute of Oriental Manuscripts.Sasha .
He is a russian who specializes in Tibetian buddhism and enlightened me about buddhism in Russia ,the travel opportunities that his specialization has given him and his hitchhiking experiences around Europe.As we debated and discussed over tea and cakes , i made it a point to myself to read up a little more on this field for I have already been to the 2 republics in Russia where buddhism is the main religion.Buryatia and Kalmykia.And although ,I have absolutely no inclination to travel via hitchhiking , i am always keen to hear about their crazy adventures

Sasha called me a few weeks later to check on how I was doing in SPB!And I invited him over for a dinner at my place with Shakina and Xusu.Acha had to get her thesis done and was unable to join us.

We discussed about practiceses of different types of buddhism and corruption in different countries over chicken rice and wine :)

For those curious , here is the link to his website.

http://www.sashastr.narod.ru/

On Russian TV

I had a really exciting opportunity to appear on Russian news on the 4th of July !
There was a message sent to me on the Couchsurfing website about an opportunity to be on Russian TV .They will interview me about my experience in couchsurfing in Russia and other countries.

Russia is the country where I couchsurfed the most and I was more than happy to talk about it.I had some really fantastic times staying with locals and learning so much from them about local life.Not only that , i made some good friends through the website too!

During the filming experience , I learnt how to make blinies ,shared with them a pack of spicy tapioca chips that i brought along from Singapore and showed them a book on Singapore Heritage food.

They found my story very fascinating.
A girl from Singapore ( far far away ..tiny island/country/city )who studied in Moscow and Petrozavodsk and now is doing volunteer work ,teaching english to orphans in Saint Petersburg.

Unfortunately , the TV producers chose to show snippets of me looking quite frantic and exaggerated when i was talking.NOT COOL.( Do i look like this all the time? )

http://www.rtr.spb.ru/vesti/vesti_2010/news_detail_v.asp?id=4007

Cringe to the max.But hey , i was still on Russian news!

Flea Market

Stacy, the American volunteer for the HIV project with AIESEC told us about a really HUGE flea market near station Уделная selling all sorts of 2nd hand stuff and junk.

I never thought that a flea market of such a huge scale will exist in a big city like Saint Petersburg!If you like old books , old spectacles, shoes any kind of scrap and junk , COME HERE.

One spunky seller  gave a retro Scrunchie to Acha as a present even when she insisted on paying.She just wanted to give away all her things because if she doesn't she has to bring them back home.

English lesson 3

On the last session with the kids , I wanted to make the lesson fun for all of us
We will revise colours with them using a game and they will learn names of fruits,days of the week ,numbers and months and the phrase "I want .."

It was alot of work writing out the materials and the phonetic translations!

Us hanging out at the beach before lessons at 4pm.

The final lesson
We divided the kids into two teams and got them to stand in 2 lines.There was a pile of markers of various colours at the end of the room.One kid from each team will run to the pile and grab the marker of the right colour after I scream the name of a colour in English.

The boys were extremely distracted this time round and couldn't keep still.It was only until we played the fruit game when they calmed down .
Each kid will be blindfolded with kitchen paper.We will put a slice of fruit into their mouth and they have to tell us the name of the fruit in english.They really enjoyed the game.This was also the first time we were giving out sweets .These were fruit candies and the kids will only receive it if they can name the colour of the fruit and the name of the fruit on the fruit candy that they wanted

I had a soft spot for 2 boys , whom i saw as the most promising of the 10.Vitalik and Yegor.And for the enthusiasm they showed in learning , i decided to reward them .

When I was a child , my mom will reward me if i did well for my examinations or tests.I would get these star stickers ,accumulate them and oncei get more than a certain number , my mom will buy me a present!Although kids brought up in this generation are different from the kids brought up in my generation, I am still pretty sure that they will be happy being rewarded for something.

Knowing that Vitalik loves reading , and got excited when he thought i had an english book in my bag, i bought him a book of english stories with russian translation .The book came with an audio cd where he can listen to the narrations in both english and russian.It was 200roubles(10sgd) from the bookstore but if 200roubles can inspire an orphan to study hard , win a scholarship and pursue higher education in university , then my 200roubles is totally worth it.At the front of the book , i wrote him a letter in both english and russian ,hoping to inspire him to continue learning.Marina, a good friend of mine from Moscow had helped to correct my grammatical mistakes the night before.

Yegor on the other hand is a fan of soccer and is not interested in books.I went down to the Zenit football store ( his favourite football team ) and bought him a bar of Zenit chocolate and a pen.If he doesn't read , at least , he can have fun writing with a cool pen.the best part , it came with a Zenit plastic bag.His presents are going to make most of the boys in the orphanage very jealous.But he deserved to receive it anyway.

The letter that i wrote for Yegor

Дорогой Егор,
Я знаю ,что теье нварвится футбол и поэтому я дарю теье эту зенитовскую ручку.Пусть этот подарок будет побуждать тебя заниматся хорошо в школе.Когда жизнь трудная,борись упорно и преодолеешь затруднения и проблемы.Ты большой малчик и у тебя большие мечты.Будь приежным мужчиной и достигнешь свою мечту.
Ты можешь это сделать!
:)

Kyril after requesting to receive my umbrella as a gift , went bouncing around happy.

It took so little to make them happy and that was what made teaching orphans so satisfying.To know that what you teach them actually makes a difference.It may be just a few english words , laughter and company but that was what made the 7 weeks in Saint Petersburg totally worthwhile.Not only that , Yegor and Vitalik were constantly correcting my russian pronunciation and repeating it many times with me so that i got it right.I was their english language teacher and they were my russian language teachers.

As the boys bidded us farewell, i wished that i had the money and time to come back to guide the interested few on english language through the school term.Perhaps in the future , I will come back again but it will be for the longer term :)

English lesson 2

For our 2nd trip there , Masha from Serbia and Maria from Latvia joined us.They were from the other projects but decided to join us because they....like many international volunteers had no work and the young project organizers were not doing much about it either.

Some activities we planned for the autistic children

We tried playing TAG with them , but they were so distracted that they ran around hitting everyone and climbing up the wooden slide.

Put your right hand in, put your right hand out ,put your right hand in ,and shake it all about!

Our Break at the Beach

There was a 2 hour break before our english lesson with the 10 boys.And there is a beach near the sanatorium where the kids were staying.

This naked baby kept crawling back to Shakina even after his parents carried him to another spot!

Us lazing at the beach

English Lesson
For the 2nd lesson , I had an idea to buy notebooks for all 10 of the children.

One of the project's objective was to share with students about my country and culture and I thought the best way that the kids will know the existance of a tiny country like Singapore is when they receive something that will constantly remind them about it.

On the first page of each notebook, i pasted a playing card with a photo of a tourist attraction in Singapore.The words Singapore and Сингапур were also writen on the page. I also got the Indonesian girls to help paste White Dove logos on the book .10 notebooks costed 20roubles (1SGD) in total .A useful and cheap present!The kids can write english words on these notebooks as well.

The kids were indeed really happy to receive the present and kept saying "O....Singapore!!!Singapore!!!"
That alone made my day!10 more children in Russia now know the existance of Singapore :)

THe notebooks!

During the previous lesson , the volunteers noticed one very restless boy.Vitalik.He had the best command in English and was unwilling to hang out and speak with the other kids.Before I left the last lesson, I spoke to him for a while about the various drawings on the wall left by the Australian volunteers who came last december and realized that he was actually the most promising kid out of the 10.He actually loves to learn and read [ That's the benefits of knowing a bit of Russian.]

So during this lesson , i made sure that he was in my group ,so that i can speed up his learning progress.
We taught the different colours and the phrase "I love you "

Ben and Kola

Me testing each kid on the colours

My star pupils Vitalik and Yegor

This time , Vitalik got alot of attention from me , as I taught him more vocabulary.

After the lesson ended , while the kids ran off the play soccer or laze in the shade , Vitalik had the privilege of having 3 other volunteers  teach him english phrases.

Yegor , grew quite attached to me and followed me , brushing the logs before i sat down , even giving me a chair so that i won't sit on the floor during the lessons.He won my trust over and I allowed him to play with my ipod and bob along to the tunes of his favourite russian and international songs.

Kyril entertaining Maria from Latvia

While talking to the other volunteers , they were surprised that despite majoring in accountancy in my university , I appeared to have alot of experience teaching and educating children.

I have never given tuition to any students in my life.But had paid alot of money to receive ALOT of tuition when i was younger.But 3 months working as a counselor in a summer camp in Ohio , 6 months learning the  Russian language and a huge passion for the cause did make a huge difference .It got me thinking about doing volunteer work during my annual leave from work and after retirement in the future.

Yes.Yet another satisfying day!

English lesson 1

The next 3 trips to the orphanage to teach english was made by Ben , Shakina , Acha and I.
4 international volunteers and 2 russian translators.The hard work eventually paid off and we 4 volunteers had a great time with the kids.

We gathered a group of girls from the orphanage and the Indonesian girls taught them Balinese Dance

The headmistress selected some children to learn english as well.

And this is apparently what she screamed to the children ,
"Where are the 10 most intelligent and normal boys.They will learn english at 2pm"

What a way.,...to select...

For the first lesson, we taught them simple phrases
hello
how are you?
I am good.

What is your name ?

My name is....

Preparing materials for class

Ben teaching Kola .1 on 1

carrying out conversations

One of my favourite pupils , Yegor!

I was teaching 2 kids , Yegor and Kyril.Their enthusiasm for learning was extremely encouraging!

 It was then we realized that these kids learn really fast!Some of them had learnt some english words in school or from previous volunteers.

We showed them 3 different cartoon movies on our laptops to entertain the kids.The purpose was to let them listen to English audio and read the russian subtitles , but eventually , the kids chose the russian audio instead.

Guess what?
We didn't bribe them with any sweets and they didn't ask for any.They were very well behaved children who exceed my expectations.

Before we left , we went to say goodbye to the rest of the kids in the orphanage.They came running to us , hugging us ,touching us and asking when we were coming back.It feels really nice that they appreciate our company ,attention and the things that we teach them.

On the very sad side , our russian translators who are the organizers of the project were not very fond of children and was rather unwilling to join us and say goodbye.Interacting with the orphans was something new to them.

Russian Orphanage 2 : Games Day!

After 2 trips to the orphanage with 16 year old boys , I called Dasha , the project leader up to ask her about the situation.To my horror , she thought the kids at the orphanage were children 10-12 year old.It was then i realized that there has been a huge communication breakdown.On the 30th of June , the russian students finished their examinations and promised to find a solution to the problem.

Dasha and I visited an orphanage in March ( when i was in SPB for 1 day ) .And she called this orphanage and managed to secure an agreement to hold an event on a saturday for the children to let them play some international games.

During the trial run  ,we ironed out the details and the translations for the games from Indonesia , India ,UK,China , Singapore and Italy .And then,we were all set to make INTERNATIONAL GAMES DAY a success.

The others trying to be retarded

pieces of Italy

The children at the 2nd orphanage were also staying at the same sanatorium complex as the boys from the previous orphanage.So it was another long mashrutka ( minivan ) ride on bumpy roads to our destination.

THere were about 40 children waiting for us when we arrived.About half of them were autistic and this made the games alot more challenging for them.But despite the difficulties , the kids really enjoyed themselves and the headmistress was keen on having us to come back and teach the children english!The 12 volunteers : 8 international and 4 russians turned made this event possible

Russian Orphanage 1

I went to Russia in June and July with an intention of teaching english to russian children.I figured that this is a great way to practise Russian, clock some "compulsory" volunteer work hours required by my university and have some fun.
The kids at the orphanage go to the country side during the summer season.They stay at a sanatorium complex in the Leningrad Oblast which is 1.5 hours by marshutka ( minivan ) from the 2nd last metro station on the blue line in Saint Petersburg.To add to the pain , our russian organizers were unable to pay for the transport cost.that will be 200roubles per trip (SGD10).The money wasn't an issue for some volunteers, but the travelling time was ridiculous because we came with an impression that the children will be in the city.

The first orphanage that we, 8 international volunteers went to was not what we expected.The "orphans" were 15-16 year old boys who didn't care about learning english.We were expecting children ( 7-12 years old )

There were about 15 boys sitting on the bench waiting for us.We introduced ourselves to them and gave them candies.I have no idea why we had to give candies to 16 year old boys but the ukrainian intern,Natalia bought them and insisted that candies have to be given.

During the introduction session , as we shared with them something interesting about ourselves and our countries.a few boys left us and went off on their own .

The international volunteers and Vitalik, the birthday boy.
After finding out that i practise yoga ,Vitalik asked if i have been to "the other side" through yoga.He claimed that he had been there when he was in a coma a while back.
We ended up just playing sports with the rest of the 8-10 boys after that.

There was this very sweet little girl , Lisa who was extremely keen on learning english.But the strange thing was that she is a 6 year old girl hanging out with the 15-16 year old boys.We later found out on the 2nd trip there that she was only there for one day.

Volunteers with Danni and Lisa

Acha teaching Lisa dancing

For the 2nd trip to the orphanage, out of the 10+ boys , only 4 turned up to entertain us.The lady watching over the boys changes every week and she asked us what was our purpose of befriending the boys since we were not teaching them anything useful.This left us extremely confused.A huge mix up, confusion, awkwardness and money wasted.Our russian organizers didn't turn up on our first 2 trips to this orphanage either and that was extremely frustrating.

On this trip , we played Charades with a twist
Ie.
An old grandmother running after Putin and poking him with a stick.
Mafia that drinks milk and fart non stop.

The good thing was that the 4 boys who participated had a good laugh over the things that they had to act out.

The organizers ( 19 year old students ) promised us russian speaking students who will work as translators when we were at the orphanages.But promises were broken.Out of the 8 people who went,all of us were international volunteers and only the ukrainian intern speaks russian.

This is my first taste working with young russians on a project.And it was a disappointing start.