Today is the First Day of Winter

I'm sure of it. There was frost on the grass and fallen leaves when I walked to school this morning, and the sky was that piercing kind of blue you can only see in the wintertime. School was so cold. The temperature was the major point of discussion in the teacher's room today. The season of our students being wild and wearing their coats during class has officially begun. Everyone's slowly adjusting.

Even me. Yesterday I made the mistake of wearing pantyhose that were, according to Tatiana, far too thin. I was going to kill my ovaries and then myself. She encouraged me to wear thicker hose to ward off the dangers of the cold. So today I wore my tights, to much general approval, although I still felt cold. Maybe after a year here I can finally dress myself. She, on the other hand, was wearing one of her pretty see-through blouses. But since she was wearing thick hose, it was okay. Or something like that. I don't know if I ever really will understand.

After Tatiana and I tracked down most of our Olympiad students and awarded them the certificates, I spent most of the day planning lessons at school. According to the arrangements I made yesterday with Elena (my zouch), I figured the electrician would be coming over after school. Oops! In the middle of my two-lesson block, right as the second lesson was beginning at 1:25, Elena came busily into the English room. "Sarah!" she exclaimed. "What are you still doing here? Go home, now!"

I was bewildered. "Um, my lesson...?" I stammered. "Never mind!" she shushed. Pushing me out of the classroom, she continued, "The repairman has been waiting at your house for over 20 minutes. Why aren't you there?" As I stumbled out into the hallway, I looked over my shoulder. Olya motioned for me to go. "I'll take your lesson," she said as the door closed.

Elena moved me down the hallway and saw that I got my coat on sufficiently fast. "I really didn't know anything about this," I tried to explain under her strict gaze. Her eyes softened and she admitted, "I know. I was supposed to tell you, but when I didn't see you all day, I forgot. Hurry! Run home!" she finished.

So I sped-walked back to my apartment. The school repairman, who yesterday had informed me that he was only in charge of the school and I'd have to talk to my landlady if I wanted someone to fix my apartment, was waiting in his car. We made our way into the kitchen, where he proceded to poke a screwdriver around the burned-out socket. I cringed in the corner.

Finally he wanted to turn the electricity off to dig deeper. I showed him my partially-melted fuse box by the front door. "Did this happen a long time ago?" he asked, eyeing the wonky black plastic that had peeled back to expose the wiring beneath with a look in his eyes that I really didn't want to understand but that was nevertheless coming across loud and clear. "Ye-e-e-s," I said.

He leveled a very serious gaze upon me and said slowly in extremely clear Russian, "Bad. Very bad. Very, very bad."

Turns out the wiring in the place is completely haywire. The specialist will have to come and redo first the fusebox and then my kitchen. I just hope it happens soon, so I can go back to eating more than fried eggs and hash and dreaming about what would happen if I woke up to the smoke alarm blaring in the night. As loyal readers of my story may know, I'm particularly partial to my little electric oven and especially when the cold weather strikes, the sun sets at 4:30, and I'm all alone in my bare little apartment, I like to bake. It soothes me. But the repairman said sternly, "Do NOT plug anything into the sockets in your kitchen. If you do, there will be BIG FIRE. Big fire," he repeated, looking deep into my eyes to make sure I understood. I got it.

We rattled back to school in his cool old Russian car (which had a sticker on the dashboard that said, "No Space War All Around the World" in English on a stylized Soviet star background) and the last thing I heard was the repairman telling Alexey, our other zouch, all about the crazy situation he'd found in my apartment. At least that's what I imagined. I heard the words "electrical socket" and "big fire" and "really bad" and, together with the facial expressions and hand gestures, pieced the rest together. In the meantime, I'm practicing the (Ukrainian? Human?) art of ignoring the problem so it doesn't exist.

After school Olya took me to the music school, where she introduced me to the director. He's a kind-looking sort of fellow with pure white hair and a craggy face. He spoke very softly and, like many people do when I first meet them here, avoided making eye contact with me and addressed most of his questions to Olya, even though I tried to answer. Soon enough, having established a rapport based on our mutual admiration of music, he was leading me around the school by the elbow, showing off the banduras and pianos with a gentle sort of pride. I'll meet with the voice teacher and guitar teacher (who Olya assures me is an extremely serious fellow) on Friday and so maybe soon I can start learning Ukrainian songs! I'm stoked.

When I got home, there was about an hour of daylight left. Galya was out raking leaves and so I decided to join her. I put on all my running clothes and just as I got outside, Claudia - the retired former teacher and self-appointed caretaker of our particular little building - was walking up the drive. "Claudia!" I exclaimed. I startled myself by the happy sound of my voice. I guess I'm becoming quite attached to her, ever since she came to my door to offer a packet of candy to remember her sister who had passed away and cried when I kissed her on the cheek, and since she lets me know when they're selling good vegetables on the street, and sometimes she drops off little pies and things. She was so cute today. She had on black leggings, a blue and purple sweater, and a blue headscarf. She looked just like a little old lady from one of the happier Brothers Grimm fairy tales and it was all I could do not to hug her. We quickly exchanged pleasantries.

"By the way, do you have..." I paused, searching for words. "Instruments...to clean...my nature?" I asked.

She beamed and replied, "Of course!" She lead me to her sarai (little garage shed) and got out a big, long-handled rake, a cardboard box, and a tiny, two-foot-long bundle of sticks, which was actually a broom. She instructed me in the use of these implements and told me she'd help me after school tomorrow. I turned on my ipod and went to town, working with my little stick sweeper and joining the legions of Ukrainian women who bend over at the waist to do things to the ground. I thought about how the stick broom was something people could have been using hundreds of years ago, and probably were, and there I was with my modern self, and it couldn't have been more useful. Home Depot should take note. By the time it was too dark to see and Claudia had come looking for me to tell me to stop, I'd carted three cardboard boxfuls of leaves out to the road about 200 meters away, where a giant pile was taking shape. If there's something I like to do in this world, something that just gives me a simple kind of pleasure, it's raking leaves.

Both Galya and Claudia were smiling at me as the darkness came down around us. Finally, they were probably thinking. The American has learned to do some chores!

After I'd stashed Claudia's tools safely back in her sarai, I went for a jog. It was already too dark, but I had so much energy. I ran to the stadium and did laps. Normally I don't like to run on the track, but I told myself it was like swimming laps and just zoned out to my music and the enormous expanse of universe above me. The stars here are amazing. They are so bright, in such a black and endless sky, I feel like I'm falling off the earth whenever I look up at them. To tip your head upward and open your eyes into such a sight is to feel yourself being thrown back in time and sucked into the vastness of everything. Gorgeous.

For dinner I ate leftover liver-and-potato pies from Sunday at Dasha's house. I have to admit, I put mayonnaise on them. I considered melting cheese but that seemed too much, since after all they are basically fried meat with mashed potatoes and fried dough. But they're tasty!

Tomorrow is a long day. I have six lessons and will meet with some of my seventh graders after school. Not to mention the possible appearance of a specialist, who could be coming to my apartment at any time, just to keep me on my toes. I'll also be on my own for most of my lessons, since Tatiana is going to "open lessons" in a nearby village. "I've never been there before," she confessed in a whisper. "Maybe I'll go there, and never come back!" She laughed, but there was something sad about her eyes. I wish I could give happiness to my friends here. I try, but it seems a daunting task sometimes.