perception of domestic animals across cultures

Hmm...I guess that sounds more like the title of a thesis than a mere blog posting. Maybe I should rephrase it: most people in & around Zakamensk seemed to have a different view the role of domestic animals in their lives than I, or many of the Russians I know.
I've been doing my best to withhold judgement, and accept it as just part of a different set of cultural values from my own, but at times that proves difficult.
Fortunately, people were amused by my child-like fascination with the throngs of animals that wandered around town at all hours. While I didn't come across traffic jams caused by massive herds of sheep & cattle in the street to the full extent I did in Kyrgyzstan, I was granted many an opportunity to wait in an idling car as heifers engaged in full-scale shoving matches with their owners in the middle of the street, in hopes of Team Brawn scoring one against Team Brain this time...
I guess I've never spent much quality time on an economically functioning (i.e. not a small family project with no interest in profits), so I couldn't speak about what level of personal attachment people have for their livestock in those instances.
My only basis of comparison at all, now that I think about it, is the apartment I rented in New York while at Bard. I lived in a cozy studio above the garage of a family who was very much involved in 4H projects. For that, they raised goats, pigs, chickens, and kept around the occasional duck to populate the pond. If I recall, the kids (two teenage girls who'd been raising livestock their whole lives) gave every single animal- including those they planned to eat- names and paid them personal attention.
While most people in Khamney, Zakamensk, etc, didn't seem especially interested in the emotional well-being of their stock, I saw no outright animal cruelty, either. Nobody beat, kicked, or starved an animal, as far as I could see, nor was there any killing without a specific purpose. Albeit, many animals died for the purpose of serving as food for humans. As my pictures have also shown, they let not a meaty organ from the slaughtered beast go to waste- an efficiency level I applaud them with for not only stomaching each and every organ, but thoroughly enjoying it piece by piece as well. It's rather humbling to consider for a finicky American like me.
What I also observed is that in the village, most any domestic animal that people keep has an occupation, or reason to kept, as it were. My host's cat, for instance, spent much of his time prowling around in the basement managing the mouse population there. Dogs are often on-call watching chickens and other small stock against potential predators. They primarily live outside & stay in barns, sheds or dugouts for shelter against the elements.
For me, keeping dogs outside all the time feels a bit strange & sad, mostly 'cause my beloved golden retriever, Linzy, who was with me most of my childhood was very much a member of the family who went most everywhere and did everything with us. It seems people here don't generally take the time to socialize their dogs much. Whenever I showed a dog any attention, as if to very cautiously coax it to come over, people always said, "don't do that- it bites!" Needless to say, whenever I saw feral dogs there (and there were a ton!) and I was alone, they always fled timidly from my beckoning, and never showed a sign of aggression towards me at all.
With domestic dogs (i.e. those with a name, a reliable source of leftovers and a dugout to sleep in) I had a bit more success. Again, when I was alone in the front yard with my hosts' dogs, I ever-so-slowly and gently extended my open-palmed hand forward to let them have a sniff and know I came in peace. After a few minutes of sniffing me out, they each let me pet them on the head. After a bit, Bovik decided he was ready for a new activity, while Lucas was positively transfixed by the patting. He had originally belonged to a neighbor who abandoned him after moving away and died before anyone could contact him about the dog. Poor Lucas wandered around the neighborhood looking for scraps for a few weeks before discovering my hosts' house, making fast friends with Bovik, and effectively moving in. I give all this background info to explain that it's quite likely poor Lucas had never experienced affection or overt kindness from a human before.
Pretty much overnight he went from being skittish and anxious to being energetic, friendly and blissfully happy. Granted, in his happiness he also took to jumping up on me -as a small terrier mutt, he didn't have the might to knock me over, thank god- and getting mud all over my legs & pants. People kept saying I had some sort of 'magic touch' with animals, though I argued all I did was show him a little love, and let him reciprocate in kind :) The poor guy had also never had a bath, and not a haircut/brushing all year, so I took it upon myself to release him from the dirty-dreadlock shackles, and brushed him down till he was practically silky to the touch. The piles of fur on the lawn were enough to make a dog hair shirt for the most high-maintenance of masochists ;-) I next gave Bovik a similar treatment (again, he was less enthusiastic about it) before moving onto Barsik, the cat, who from petting, I realized had some ferocious dreds to be dealt with. As I brushed him down and felt for the biggest hair balls, I was struck how they didn't move independently from his flesh. Pressing a bit harder with my fingertips, I discovered that his body was covered with deep flesh-wounds, which never properly healed, and the fur just grew in on the scar tissue. Before you lambast the owners for animal negligence and cruelty, there's something else to keep in mind: Barsik is a 10 year-old tomcat who's free to roam wherever he chooses, and consort with, knock up, and fight with whomever he's inclined. Given the circumstances, I'd say it's impressive for a tom to live that long in any condition. The only thing that perturbed me really was the relative indifference people expressed to my "discovery" of the depth and multitude of his scars. Also, I was unsettled imagining poor Barsik wandering home after a fight covered in blood with torn flesh, while nobody even notices him. I understand that people don't generally bring their animals to veterinarians here, but the fact that they never bothered to clean the wounds, and set them as best they can made me uncomfortable. I know I'm just being a squeamish Westerner, and I don't mean to judge locals for their treatment of domestic animals, but I will simply have to reconcile that their cultural of animals in life is just entirely different from my own.

backlog entry: Khamney HS graduation

I had the good fortune of being invited to attend the graduation ceremony & celebration of Khamney's twelve 11th graders. I haven't really been to a graduation in Buryatia, Siberia, or Russia as a whole, so I can't really compare it to any of them. I've also never been to a really small-town HS graduation in the States, so I can't really compare it to that, either. All in all, I enjoyed the relative lack of pomp & circumstance the event maintained throughout, say compared to graduations I've been to in the States...and most every structured event I've been to in Russia. Maybe I'm just the overly cynical, sardonic, drab, relatively-privileged westerner, but I have a bit of a hard time with over-the-top ecstatic genuine sincerity when exposed in large doses. Sometimes I wish I could just embrace things whole-heartedly like a lot of people here tend to do. At the same time, all the brouhaha of fancy awards and long, drawn-out speeches at fairly minor events is still gonna be tedious, no matter how you slice it. As I mentioned, this particular event had only a limited number of short speeches (including an on-the-spot nervous well-wishing from me!) before the diplomas were given out. The students recited a poem which expressed their appreciation for their teachers, family & friends. It was quaint.
Following a nicely choreographed & carried-out waltz by the graduates, they launched an extensive slide show set to a steady-pulsing techno-beat. This took place around 7 PM which in mid June in Siberia was still very light out, so the slide pictures were often hard to see. I felt bad for losing interest after awhile, and made a point to pay attention till the end, or at least try to (meanwhile, many guests had already started eating what was on the table, and no longer looking at the faded screen at all).
I took special notice (and pictures!) of the food served, as it was what they considered "top quality" for "special occasions." There was more fresh fruit available that one day than I'd seen in my previous week and a half in town. As no one sitting near me showed any particular interest in the fruit tray, I imbibed rather heavily in it...which later proved not to be such a good idea, given the pouring rain that ensued and followed me to the hole-in-the-floor outhouse through the stinging nettles every time...
People seemed a lot more interested in digging into the sheep innards in front of us. It had been slaughtered the day before and prepared that afternoon to perfection. BTW, I've asked around, and nobody seems to eat the sheep's liver raw, fresh off the carcass. I guess our time was a bit of a fluke ;-)
Eventually the shot glasses came out, as with several bottles of vodka. I'd hardly drunk a thing since I got to Russia, so I did feel the effects of a couple shots, but not too badly. Some of the parents, teachers & the like were getting quite boisterously loquacious from the drinks, which I must admit, I found rather amusing. I've only come across a couple of stereotypical "town-drunk" individuals, who each struck me as lonely and a bit off-kilter; I wish there were something I (or most anybody else) could do to help...
The teens were allowed to take shots of sweet plum & apricot wine (which tasted like juice and, compared with the vodka, had no real effect on me). I sat w/ the grads & did a couple shots with them before Galina suggested we head home. I figured that was a good cue to take my bows and exit stage right, and let the real teens (i.e. not me, no matter how much I like to think I'm still 17) enjoy their newfound freedom.

I ::heart:: Ulan Ude

I kindof want to get that written on a tee-shirt "I ::heart:: NY" style, but in Cyrillic. I found one that read "I ::heart:: UU," but figured no one would know what "UU" was, and probably wouldn't bother asking. I tried it on all the same, but it didn't fit. Just as well. For some reason, the shop attendants all think I should wear clothes several sizes smaller than I do. While I appreciate the flattery (they could just offer me the exact same garment in a bigger size and make the same profit margin from sales- choosing not to is a question of fashion, not money), there's a couple of problems with their choices. Yes, literally a couple, if you really want to get specific. I don't say this to brag- it can be a pain when clothes shopping. I also have really broad shoulders, or maybe all the shirts on sale here are made for women with narrow little shoulders. Oh well.
I'd seriously like to stick around here awhile (a few months or a year) if, of course, I could find gainful employment. Ain't that always the case? With the scary-ass loans I'll have to manage, small-time English teaching gigs probably won't suffice as "gainful" anymore :-/ I guess I shouldn't complain; if I wanted to make teaching English my career, I'd be studying TESOL, rather than IEP & business. I may have to stay States-side for a few more years before working my way into a position that brings me back here more. It's too soon to say for now, though. Maybe I'll even apply for Peace Corps in a few years for a personal challenge and escape from whatever American life I'm carrying out at the time.
As for the city, maybe I'm just drawn to it as the 'alternative' to Irkutsk: the smaller, less wealthy, more obscure Jan to Irkutsk's Marsha...okay, that last bit was lame. My bad. Still, though, I'm always drawn to Option Two, Choice B, the runner-up who loses by a hair, and their story is forever lost in favor of winner-worship. Or maybe they do get fame & fortune of their own, but still always known as "second to ___." It's not out of underdog support, but a desire for the road less taken that draws me to the Leon Trotskys & Peter Toshes of the world, as it were.
Or maybe I'm just drawn to the "exotic," "Asian" feel of things here. It's just a vibe and I know I shouldn't exoticize the place or people too much in my attempt to find somewhere "different." Really, I don't feel all that culturally challenged here in the city- so people have Asian features and pray at datsans instead of churches...so what? The village was a challenge for me, culturally and otherwise in ways which the city can't compare to. Perhaps my love is rooted in a feel of newness, simplicity and basic creature-comforts all rolled into one.

back in internet land at last!

So I'm off to a lousy start with keeping up this blog-thing, but in my defense, I had no internet access at all for these past two weeks. Granted, if I'd really been committed to the blog, I'd've written on the comp routinely and just cut & paste it all now, but I felt it'd be anti-social to spend all my spare time on the computer writing in English about people who are sitting in the same room as me. Granted, I certainly spent time reading & playing Sim City when I wasn't entirely alone- albeit, I don't think I was ever completely alone at any point there. Seriously, the outhouse is the only place where you can reliably find some 'me-time...' until someone else needs to use it for its designed purpose...
Even so, the books & games seemed less exclusive. I forgot to bring any English-language paperbacks before I left the States, so all I have with me now are in Russian. I'm by no means covering Dostoevsky in original form, though: right now I'm about halfway through The Shawshank Redemption translated into Russian, and plan to start The Hobbit translation next. I mention this just to point out that there was nothing cryptic about what I was reading. Anybody could pick it up, read the back and know exactly what I was up to. As for Sim City, yeah it's in English, but they can also figure out the premise pretty easily.
I guess the point I'm slowly trying to make is that life in rural Buryatia (Zakamensky Region, namely) is very communal and inclusive. People aren't really accustomed to a lot of personal space, and don't mind changing clothes, bathing & the like in the company of friends & family. While it's different from what I'm used to, I didn't mind all that much- excessive modesty in a two-room house with no interior doors would be a real pain at times, I can imagine. At the same time, outhouses in public places (i.e. anywhere besides someone's house- "public outhouse" holds a far more frightening connotation than I think they really deserve there...unless someone obviously doesn't even try to aim- then it really is terrifying) often sport multiple holes in the floor, presumably to accommodate multiple squatters at once. Admittedly I was rather relieved to find that people opted to wait in line and enter the little house of horrors one at a time :-)
I crave a certain amount of alone-time, as my cultural background & upbringing has afforded me, and at times caught myself feeling irritable and curt- I can only hope it didn't show. I was on the fence about apologizing for my snappiness, explaining it wasn't their fault, and not mentioning it, in assumption that they didn't notice. I ultimately chose the latter approach, figuring it would take more time & effort for them to figure out why I was apologizing than any momentary notice of sulkiness I'd displayed previously.
I guess this post is evidence as to why maybe it's not so great to keep all these thoughts in my head and try to jot them down only later. I'll try to organize my thoughts a bit more, now that the jumbled mass is out.