Interpreters…
Today is yet another installment from spring 2002. I have been reprinting letters I had written during this time to go along with the fast approaching fifth anniversary of being stopped in Poland for a year long course in Polish Police and Administrative Corruption. That episode of course the reason for everything you see here. Today's letter has a bit more about the beginning of the play Pod Kablukom. The play is still on the net and you can read the original three language version here, and the English language translation here. Oh, and for what it is worth, Yulia didn't stick around.
Wed, 13 Mar 2002 04:14:21 -0800 (PST)
Speaking of plays, I am getting pretty close to finishing a new piece and I am starting work on a Belarusian play. I think that this could really be something good for Belarus and for me, and also to be a lot of fun. I am going to try and write it in Belarusian if you can believe it. No, I suck at it, but I am making friends and the story is mine. I have told the premise to a few people and they seem to think that what I am seeing is dead on for here in terms of telling a story that could get produced here as well as something I can actually get behind. So, life is good.
You know my grandmother was from here and this morning I went out on a bike ride into the country. Well, it's not really country because the soviets pretty much set everything up as a great big factory, you know. But I went out into one of the smaller agricultural villages a few kilometers from Pinsk, Stichitsi, it's called. And you know it seems as though I am looking at what was probably the village that my grandmother lived in at the turn of the century. It was really something. I talked bikes with the locals, and they're feeling was that moi velesyiped was not very practical for their roads, but that they liked my work and thought it was a pretty cool machine. We seem to be getting along pretty well Pinsk and I.
Anyway, I think I am going to be sorry when I have to go. I think I am liking this trip, and my body right now feels as though...well, it is hard to say, I might have talked about what this is like for me and why I remember it so fondly, but this place, Stalin or no, was my home for...a few thousand years. It is just getting all over me and I like it...it is hard to explain. I mean, it's like...you just know.
Or maybe it is something else.
Last night my English teacher friend Marina stood me up at the hotel bar. And I am feeling pretty poorly about this, you know. I think she got angry because I asked her to help on the Belarusian play, and I think she wanted me to just fall in love with her. Anyway, I am at the bar having some potato pancakes and coffee, and I am blathering to these two girls in pigeon Russian about my family and all, when this knockout at the next table grabs me and speaks in reasonably perfect English that I should join her table because she wants to speak English with me! Well Yulie (Julia) is a gas, and is in agreement (we'll see, right?) on helping to translate the play with me.
Well, yesterday I met this incredibly beautiful pool shark from Moscow named Tatiana and she asked me to come by the pool hall later to talk after nine. So after we worked for a while on the play, I brought Yulie and had the coolest time. For the first time since I have been here, I have an interpreter, and a hot one (hopefully) and I actually got to talk to the chelovicks. And, and I mean this, I actually won a game of Ruskie billiards to boot!!!!
So last night, everything changed for me here and all for the better over the simple fact that I now, and again, if she decides to stay, I now have a golos, a voice, and I am here! Well, so after the billiards and the talk, I drop Yulie off at her place, I stop for a bite, and I run into Oxanna, a lovely girl who was in our party at the billard hall. She joined me for a snack, we seemed to hit it off rather quickly and after a short but bitter battle with the hotel manager (no guests!) I...
Well anyway, I feel pretty good today. I went to the bank to cash some money in (the Belarusian ruble is in freefall! it has gone down over one percent since I have been here! 1% in one week!!) and I am good to go for the weekend. Hopefully Yulie stays in it with me, hopefully the play goes smooth, hopefully all of these girls don't show up at the same time, hopefully I am not thrown out of my gostenutsa...but you know, that annoying kink in my back seems to have disappeared...
Life is beautiful...
Adam
Wed, 13 Mar 2002 04:14:21 -0800 (PST)
 |
| Oxanna, Tatiana, Yulia, Marina... |
You know my grandmother was from here and this morning I went out on a bike ride into the country. Well, it's not really country because the soviets pretty much set everything up as a great big factory, you know. But I went out into one of the smaller agricultural villages a few kilometers from Pinsk, Stichitsi, it's called. And you know it seems as though I am looking at what was probably the village that my grandmother lived in at the turn of the century. It was really something. I talked bikes with the locals, and they're feeling was that moi velesyiped was not very practical for their roads, but that they liked my work and thought it was a pretty cool machine. We seem to be getting along pretty well Pinsk and I.
Anyway, I think I am going to be sorry when I have to go. I think I am liking this trip, and my body right now feels as though...well, it is hard to say, I might have talked about what this is like for me and why I remember it so fondly, but this place, Stalin or no, was my home for...a few thousand years. It is just getting all over me and I like it...it is hard to explain. I mean, it's like...you just know.
Or maybe it is something else.
Last night my English teacher friend Marina stood me up at the hotel bar. And I am feeling pretty poorly about this, you know. I think she got angry because I asked her to help on the Belarusian play, and I think she wanted me to just fall in love with her. Anyway, I am at the bar having some potato pancakes and coffee, and I am blathering to these two girls in pigeon Russian about my family and all, when this knockout at the next table grabs me and speaks in reasonably perfect English that I should join her table because she wants to speak English with me! Well Yulie (Julia) is a gas, and is in agreement (we'll see, right?) on helping to translate the play with me.
Well, yesterday I met this incredibly beautiful pool shark from Moscow named Tatiana and she asked me to come by the pool hall later to talk after nine. So after we worked for a while on the play, I brought Yulie and had the coolest time. For the first time since I have been here, I have an interpreter, and a hot one (hopefully) and I actually got to talk to the chelovicks. And, and I mean this, I actually won a game of Ruskie billiards to boot!!!!
So last night, everything changed for me here and all for the better over the simple fact that I now, and again, if she decides to stay, I now have a golos, a voice, and I am here! Well, so after the billiards and the talk, I drop Yulie off at her place, I stop for a bite, and I run into Oxanna, a lovely girl who was in our party at the billard hall. She joined me for a snack, we seemed to hit it off rather quickly and after a short but bitter battle with the hotel manager (no guests!) I...
Well anyway, I feel pretty good today. I went to the bank to cash some money in (the Belarusian ruble is in freefall! it has gone down over one percent since I have been here! 1% in one week!!) and I am good to go for the weekend. Hopefully Yulie stays in it with me, hopefully the play goes smooth, hopefully all of these girls don't show up at the same time, hopefully I am not thrown out of my gostenutsa...but you know, that annoying kink in my back seems to have disappeared...
Life is beautiful...
Adam
posted by BEING HAD at
3:08 PM
