Speech, Babushka and Dancing Lesson

Last Friday had been a very busy and exciting day. First I went to the People’s Chamber of the Russian Federation, which discussed the whole day about civil services, volunteer work and the role of foreign volunteers in Russia. This is a highly discussed topic in Russia and therefore it was interesting to see the different opinions of organisations. One of the organisations I’m working for in Moscow is called Sostradanje, which supports victims of the Nazi and Stalin dictatorship and takes care of the household of these very old people. My job in the People’s Chamber was to hold a speech on my experiences so far in Russia, what I think could be improved concerning volunteer work, and what I want to achieve with my volunteering. I had to hold this speech in Russian. And I was totally shocked when I heard that the organisation wanted me to hold this speech, because my Russian still isn’t the best. But I had no other choice, it needed to be done. So I prepared this speech and the employees of Sostradanje corrected my Russian. As you can see on the picture, quite a lot of people were present when I had to hold the speech, and I’m really not the best public speaker. As you can imagine I was really nervous. After waiting for 6 other speeches to end, it was my turn. I told them that it was my first speech in Russian and that I was really nervous. They all smiled. And then I held the speech. It wasn’t too bad. I had practiced it hundreds of times beforehand. I still made some mistakes when pronouncing some words, but everyone clapped and I felt relieved when it was over. Afterwards there was a huge buffet and I was actually eating the whole time instead of speaking with other people.

In the afternoon I went to my Babushka (Grandmother) for the first time. The employees of Sostradanje call their clients Babushka and Dedushka (Grandfather). She is already 86 and a Russio-German. But she only knows 6 German words, which is good, because this way I have to speak Russian. She really can’t walk well anymore, but she lives in the 4th floor without an elevator. I can’t see how she manages to go down all these stairs when she wants to go outside. Furthermore, as all of the pensioners in Russia, she doesn’t get a high pension. I’m going to visit her every Friday and help cleaning her flat, buying products and most importantly talk to her, because these old people are often very alone.

In the evening I had my first dancing lesson in Moscow. I started to like dancing so much during the preperation camp before my year abroad in Hirschluch, where I took a dancing workshop.