Language and Lives

“You live a new life for every new language you speak. If you only know one language, you only live once.” – Czech Proverb

When I first read this quote maybe four or five years ago and added it to the collection of quotes I maintain, I understood the concept, but not the true meaning. This was because I didn’t know another language other than English like I know Russian now. To be honest, my Russian is not great. In fact, I would say that it is much worse than I thought and hoped it would be at this point. However, the point stands that I can now say that I can express myself and interact in another language other than English, a first for me.

Sitting here now in West Point, NY, I feel as though the past five months were just a dream, and that I’ve only now woken up. Maybe it was the lack of immediate connection to life here, maybe it was culture shock, but I do indeed feel like I have lived another life. I am reminded of the episode of Lost, where Jack (in a flashback) remembers meeting Desmond in a stadium before they reach the island, and before they part, Desmond says “See you in another life.” I wouldn’t say that I was a different person there, because I hope that my actions were guided by the same ethics and principles that they are here in the US. However, being immersed in a culture as different from ours as Russia’s fundamentally changes your view on things.

I discovered a lot about Russian culture there in only three months, both that I liked and despised. Therefore it is impossible for me to say fully that I was not impressed by the Russians, or that I was completely disappointed in what I saw. For example, I really enjoyed the Russian interest in all things intellectual and abstract. I think this is why they are regarded as so good at chess. They read to a point I would call obsessive, though their educational system is based on oral tests mostly. They read for pleasure and to learn about things that interest them, and they have no shortage of places to find them. Every day I walked past a small market where salespeople set up tables of books, and take them down every evening. Book stores tended to be small, but absolutely packed with people and shelves of books in all available space. They love to discuss politics, the economy, world and local affairs, sports, all equally. They have strong and sometimes stubborn opinions, which at times is unfortunate because they do not always receive completely accurate information from news sources (though this is improving, and who claims to read unbiased news in America?).

But back to the quote. In the end, after thinking about the meaning of this quote for a long time, I disagree with it as written. Another language does not give you another life, and of course learning nine languages doesn’t make you a cat. However, learning another language does add something to you. I believe that what this proverb is trying to relate is that learning another language gives you another set of eyes, another filter perhaps, through which to view the set of experiences we call life. For some people this is not a problem, and they can go through life ignorant of how others live and be happy because of it. For myself, on the other hand, I am glad that I got to see a little of how others live (though it would be arrogant and naïve to claim I know everything there is to know about the Russian culture).

First Thoughts From Russia

First off, I apologize for letting this sit for so long. Once I got out of Honduras I thought that I'd finish that up, but I kinda already did on my official West Point one and so I've just been trying to figure out what I wanted to do with this. I finally decided to let Honduras go for now and just go with what's happening in Russia now. So, without future ado...

I know that some people wanted me to post on things in Voronezh, the city I'm studying in, but I think first I should detail the journey, the trials, the tribulations that went into getting me here. We left West Point at around 1130 in the morning on 27 January 2009 on a 15 passenger bus. Now, in this bus there are two seats in the front, and 4 rows of seats in the back. Two of those rows were completely filled with our enormous amounts of baggage, leaving the remaining 5 of us to squeeze in the remaining space. This was a theme which would continue throughout the trip.

We made it to JFK Airport early and checked our bags. We got through security and ate, of course, at Chili's, because 5 of us hadn't just come from Honduras or anything and wanted more Latin food. We still had a while so we loitered around in the airport, shopped around, and tried to remember anything resembling Russian. Soon enough our flight boarded and we got on the big plane bound for Russia.

The flight was 9 hours long, and unfortunately I was unable to sleep during it. Nothing very exciting happened, there were a few movies but I didn't really watch them and just studied over some Russian phrases that I figured I'd need in the time when we got there, such as the word for Embassy (which it turns out, didn't really help that much). Finally we landed in Moscow. However, the airport we arrived at is on the outskirts of the city, so the drive to the American Embassy is around 45 minutes. We had been told to ask for MosCab for transportation, and they were supposed to be there to pick us up. They were not. Not only that, but no one there had even heard of it (or couldn't understand our questions). We ended up getting a small bus for around 5000 rubles. This was good, however, because I'm pretty sure this is the only way we could have gotten all our bags and ourselves to the Embassy without around 4 or 5 taxis.

We made it to the Embassy and went in what we thought was the main entrance. The Russians provide their own initial security for the Embassy, and of course there are Marines there as well. In the entrance we went in, there was a guard with a Marine watching from behind a glass wall. We nearly created an international incident here because all of us started piling in with all our baggage, but we weren't allowed to bring our bags in the actual building. So the bags keep piling up in this tiny room, and the Marine was laughing from behind the glass, asking "Where's he going to put it all?" Around 4 or 5 of us got through the screening (most of our bags wouldn't fit through the x-ray machine either, and the guard was getting very frustrated at all our computers, cameras, and other electronics) when we realized that we had come through the wrong entrance. Therefore, we all trooped out, leaving a very angry Russian gate guard.

Finally we found the right entrance and dropped our bags in a lost and found closet. We had a little time before our briefing, so we were cut loose to tour around Moscow for a couple hours. 4 of us took the metro to Red Square, which was nice. Seeing Lenin's Tomb and an ice skating rink juxtaposed was kind of ironic and appropriate at the same time. We also ate lunch at a very good cafe in the Гум, the mall right next door.

Quick video game vignette: back in middle school I played this game that I really liked called Ghost Recon. The reason this is relevant is because the last level occurred in downtown Moscow. In fact, part of the fighting took place in the Гум and Red Square. I feel embarrassed and uncultured, because in that level there was a large square building which I used to get on top of so that I could snipe the Russians on the other side of the square. Well, that building is Lenin’s tomb. Oops. Anyway, the other interesting fact about this game is the situation that it encompasses: in the back story, Russia invades Georgia in 2012 and the US sends an armored division to drive them back, and does, eventually capturing Moscow and the Military Coup that caused the whole thing in the first place. I think this game came out sometime between 1999 and 2003. The point is, they might have been a little off in the year (and the US’s involvement), but they predicted the Russians invading Georgia! Someone at this company must know something. Interestingly, the same company also produced the Halo series. Sure, say what you want, even that those events didn’t happen for another hundred years or so, or that it was just dumb luck, but I say: they were off about the year on the first one too.

Video game vignette complete. Eventually we had our briefing in the Embassy and were on our way to the train station, where more hilarity ensued. We couldn’t find our train, and didn’t know which подъезд (entrance) we needed to go to. The result: us dragging our baggage between two of the entrances. Turns out you probably shouldn’t get there 2 hours before your train leaves, but we didn’t want to hold up the embassy staff from going home anymore. About 40 minutes before the train was scheduled to leave we looked again, found it, and boarded without too much of a hassle, although fitting all our baggage in the car was again an adventure. Finally we arrived in Voronezh, and Libby found our POC. We loaded up yet another bus and we driven to our homes for the semester. I spent the day relaxing, unpacking, settling in, and catching up on sleep to try to adjust to the time change.

Well, my battery is almost dead and I suppose I should end this. I know there wasn't much about everyday life in this one, but if you want to hear about any aspect of life in particular, feel free to post here or send me a message on facebook or email.

Пока -
CJR

My First Couple Days in Honduras

Hey all,

Here’s just a quick update about what how my transition to life in Honduras is going. I flew in around noon on Friday into the city of Tegucigalpa. Landing there is interesting because the runway is not as long as it needs to be, and we stopped with only about 25m of runway remaining. I was sitting next to a warrant officer from the 1-228^th, the helicopter aviation unit here, and he told me that an investigation was going on because a plane had ran off the runway a couple months ago.

I got through customs fine and met up with a Captain and found the bus that runs to Soto Cano Air Force Base. The ride took about an hour and a half and here are some of the things I noticed:

Tegucigalpa is very hilly, and the city itself seems to be built by hewing away from the hills and building wherever there is flat land. This creates an interesting look with lots of steep unpaved roads up and down from the main paved roads to brightly painted houses.

Honduran drivers are insane. Someone told me that Honduras ranks in the top of the world for most fatal traffic accidents, and I believe it. Not only are there no guard rails for the majority of the roads that I’ve travelled on (which supposedly is the best road in Honduras), almost all of the roads are 2 lanes. This wouldn’t be a problem if the Hondurans didn’t like to pass so much. On an average trip, I would estimate that a Honduran vehicle is in the wrong lane just as often as the right one. We saw one head on collision on our ride to the base, and I was very surprised there weren’t more.

I got to the base and settled in with the other 4 male cadets that had arrived into our “Hooch.” This is a wooden one room building with 10 beds, 3 wall lockers, a fridge wall air conditioning, and TV. To be honest, it’s not a bad situation, especially since we had been told to expect much worse.

The next day (Saturday the 3rd) we took a bus down to a place called Lake Yojoa and took out a pontoon boat. We swam in the lake for a bit even though there was a bunch of algae, and in some places the sea grass came up to the surface. We ate lunch at a Honduran restaurant which fried fish whole, and also had fried plantains and cabbage salad which was pretty good. Since then we've just been learning our way around the air base, and enjoying the 75 degree, sunny weather.

Anyway, I better cut this off, if you need to contact me, just send me an email or facebook message. I go to my unit for the first time tomorrow, the Joint Security Force (or MP's in conjunction with the Hondurans), which ought to be a fun experience.

Later,

CJR