my last day at school

August 7

Eunice and I went in early today because she and a couple of the other staff members were going shopping for school and office supplies. She gave me a long list of things to do and I hung out all morning getting things done. It feels so good to help and to accomplish things, to know I'm being useful, even if there's no pay involved. The day went fairly quickly and we got everything done that we set out to do. When the day ended, we all headed over to Christiana's house for lasagna. It was a sort of initiation for the newest teachers at the school, but I was invited along.

After dinner and dessert and chatting for a while, a few of us decided to play a Russian card game called durak. I had never played it before, so a couple of the guys taught us how. You play with a euchre deck and 6 people and the game is basically a series of mini-tricks or attacks made against the person to your left and heading clockwise. It was a bit tricky to understand at first, but it was a real cultural experience. You see, in durak there is no winner, there is only a durak (fool) or biggest loser. The entire goal of the game is to not be the worst at the table. That's such a Russian concept – not trying to get ahead, not praising excellence, just getting by and shaming the worst. I was durak twice, by the way. I still had fun.

Another highlight to the evening was the explanation of the phrase, “it's a duck.” The last few days, I've been hearing that phrase tossed around a bit, but I just took it to be an inside joke. Well, the story actually involves many different instances in Russia (as well as in many other countries) where something turns out to be different than you thought. For instance, when a package is supposed to arrive on the 7^th and the 7^th rolls around and it's not there, the delivery man will tell you that you misunderstood and all along it was supposed to arrive on the 17^th, that's a duck Or, when you find a smoking section sign on a tree in the middle of the forest...well, in some other more fortunate countries, you might hear “if it looks like a duck, sounds like a duck, smells like a duck, it's a duck.” In Russia however, if it looks like a dog, sounds like a dog and smells like a dog but it's collar says duck, it's a duck. So, whenever you come across something unexplainable, or are simply getting frustrated with the hoops, it's a duck.