Rough Day

Well, what started out as a very stressful day for me has ended in what could only be the best possible way, though there is a caveat to that and I’ll talk about it below. Today was the day that we were split into our training groups and then sent off to our host families. Matt found out that he will be 30 minutes from me and someone told him there wasn’t a bus in his village, so he was really upset when I saw him after his meeting. I was managing to keep everything together up until today, but as the reality of the situation was approaching, I was feeling worse and worse.

On top of all that, I realized that my cell phone wasn’t working properly and I can’t get it fixed until at least Monday, which means no contact at all with Matt or anyone else. THEN I went to my “host family orientation” meeting and things looked even more hopeless as people had basically been telling us all day the many ways things could go wrong.

(Continued the next day – I was too tired last night to finish typing that out). Our group leader was trying to be helpful, but most of the help was telling us to tell our host families what we needed – which seemed really difficult considering none of us speak Russian yet. Soooo, I was feeling ill by the time it was all over. I’m thinking, I’ve got no husband, no phone, no way to communicate, Matt is upset, I’m upset, BLEH! Then it was time to leave. As I’m getting my stuff together, I’m basically getting myself more and more worked up.

By the time I haul my stuff outside, my host family is waiting for me. My technical trainer introduces me to this smiling young girl in a hijab and starts to tell me that this is her student, she speaks English, she’ll be my host sister, her house is close to a bus station that is one of the closest in my city to Matt’s village and they chose this host family extra special for me just for that reason. Well, I’m sure I made a great first impression at that moment because I basically burst out crying and ran off. Go me.

After I collected myself and the rest of my bags, I returned to the girl and then the training director came up and told me much the same thing that the technical trainer told me, adding, “We’re all people, we understand,” which sent me into tears again. I excused myself again and managed to say good-bye to Matt without falling onto the ground in sobs, then came back, straightened myself up and managed to finally smile at poor Nuriya, my new host-sister.

See, I think I could have made it through without crying if I had just been sad, but then they were so nice to me and I was so happy that Nuriya spoke English and so touched that they were showing concern for my situation and so upset that Matt was still in knots that, well, my emotional cup just overflowed.

My host family is soooo nice and I feel really comfortable here. Nuriya is 23 and she graduated from university with a degree in education and world languages. I find her really easy to talk to and get along with. I think she paid close attention to everything they told her about foreigners and our concerns and she had gone out of her way to make me comfortable. We live with her mother Rhadisha, who is sweet and thoughtful, too. There is a brother, sister and little baby, too, but I don’t know if they will be staying here. The sister is moving out, I think, but Mama (Rhadisha) watches the baby during the day. The sister, Janma doesn’t speak any English, but I like her just from her demeanor. The brother Azamat also speaks English and is an engineer at one of the universities. I’m not sure if there is another brother or not, but I guess I’ll understand more as time goes on.

I have lots more to tell about my first day, but this post is long enough already. My caveat that I mentioned above is that I’m just worried about Matt. He has not been happy the last few days because he so worried about living apart. I can’t really feel good about my situation until I know how he is doing. I’m hoping that his family is good and that there is someone there that he can communicate with. The thought that he might be miserable makes me feel physically sick, so I hope that I can talk to him soon and that all is well for him.