During my time here in Siberia, I often find myself wondering, "How did the path of my life lead me here?" (In fact, a man from Olkhon asked me this very question on the marshrutka from Irkutsk to Olkhon yesterday.) And as I sit here at my little desk answering tourist questions, ordering marshrutkas for visitors, and booking the banya, I feel espeically disoriented. My job is conducted almost primarily in Russian, and for the most part, I can understand when given direction. Even so, I've found that Russians tend to be extremely vague and pretty much expect you to figure out everything by yourself. For example, this morning I was given a small office in a shed labeled "customer service" and told to answer tourist questions. I was not, however, informed how to answer these questions, nor how long I would be sitting there (so far six hours and counting). It turned out that I spent the better part of the afternoon entertaining and practicing English with the owners' 13-year-old son. I was just thinking of some of my first jobs and how it's always awkward to start a new job because for the first few days you never know exactly what you're supposed to be doing. And here I am, going through that awkward phase, but completely in Russian. For example, earlier today an older Russian woman came up to my little "help desk," introduced herself, and asked me where I was from, why I'm here, etc. Later in the day, I was delagated the duty of collecting laundry for the guests and the lady came up to me, pointed to the pile of laundry on the floor, and asked me something with her strong "village Russian" accent. Because I thought this woman was a guest, I assumed that she wanted to drop off her laundry and I explained the process (you drop it off, pay by the kilogram, pick up the next day). She then mentioned something about picking up laundry, which I assumed meant that she had dropped off her laundry yesterday and wanted to know where to pick it up. I then told her that she should ask in reception because I hadn't been working yesterday, but she kept pointing to the laundry and saying something out of which I could only distinguish the words "Don't be scared." When I saw an employee who speaks English walk by, I asked him to help me, and he told me she was simply stopping by to pick up the laundry. It turned out that she works here at Nikita's and thought that I was "afraid" to give her the laundry because I didn't believe she actually worked here and that she would steal it, when in reality I simply had no idea that she was the laundry lady!
All other things aside, Olkhon is one of the most beautiful places I've ever been and probably ever will be. Believe it or not, the lake is still partially forzen, and if you stand in a quiet spot you can hear the ice cracking like glass. Last evening I watched a beautiful sunset over the lake followed by a strange lightening storm that I watched safely from my front porch. The village of Khuzir is peaceful and simple, and I truly enjoy the chance encounters that I make with the people who live here. Yesterday, my firneds and I met an old man ouside of the village's only grocery store and talked to him for almost 45 minutes about the Ukraine and Belerus's dependence upon Russian oil. This was all before his wife, dressed in a sparkely purple dress, came over and yelled at him, "How old do you think you are?! What are you doing talking to these young ladies?!" The funny thing was, he was a bit senile and for some reason insisted that we were German, and tried to speak to us in German multiple times.
So there's my update for now! Within the next few weeks I'll probably be writing more often than I have been because I'll sitting at my little desk for most of the day refusing to give the laundry lady the laundry!
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