Russia (#15) Cultural Instruction of the First Order

 8 April 2004

    Today we went to our second half-way house, which is to say "orphanage," twenty minutes outside of Vladimir down a dirt track, through a small village of small colorful wooden houses, to a  huge building, plaster over brick in the Russian fashion. I'm not sure now what I meant exactly by noting "in the Russian fashion" but I will assume that it simply meant that this was a common feature and practice having to do with how brick buildings were treated.

    Olga, the director, told us the facility, which had opened the previous September (so, 2003), was built by a countess as a residence in 1904. During the Soviet era the building was used as a hospital. This kind of reassignment of building function (houses, churches, monasteries, and so forth) was common. The interior of the building seemed to reflect both its origins as an aristocratic household and its repurposing as a hospital, which would have required stripping away the overtly decorative features of the interior, leaving rooms, hallways, and foyers that were clean, in good repair, bright, and plain. There were many tall windows and the walls were painted in light colors. There were tall double-doors for each room, and, as one finds in many English houses, one shuts the doors on leaving the room.

    We were given a tour, then taken to a room at the top of the central stairway where 26 children ranging in age from 3 to 14 were already assembled, seated along the walls, waiting for us. In many ways, this orphanage visit was like the orphanage we visited the day before. Skip gave a little talk to explain why we had come, our boys did tricks with basketballs, and then Skip demonstrated Andy's rope trick that had captivated children in the other orphanage. 

    Given that as church people we were used to group singing, we offered our version of "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot," and then a Russian worship chorus we had memorized. Many of us were still singing from the phonetic sheet we had brought along. I'm not sure who picked "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot," but it strikes me now as being an odd choice, to sing at an orphanage in Russia, given all the songs our group had in our memory banks.

    The children gave us gifts they had made, and we gave them WWJD (What Would Jesus Do) bracelets and candy. Before we left we were encouraged to purchase handcrafts the children had made. These purchases were described to us as essentially donations, so we were told to pick something out and avoid the kind of product inspection we might have used at a retail shop. I bought a rooster tea-cozy for 100 Rubles. It was a very nice, quilted, flowery patchwork tea-cozy that I thought I could give to my mom. We had seen the old sewing machines the children were learning to use, one of which, no doubt, was the machine used for the stitching on my tea-cozy.

   The rooster appears in this group photo in front of Phil Stockin. But it humbles and embarrasses me, now, to confess that once we were outside again, before this group photo, I stuck the tea-cozy on my head as if it were a hat -- to everyone's amusement. I was acting, I suppose, on my usual impulse to express the humor in things.

    Almost immediately I realized that anyone inside the orphanage who happened to look out could see me wearing the rooster on my head and find my "joke" to be offensive. I remember this specifically because I was asked several times to put it on my head again for pictures and I refused. 

    Perhaps none of the kids or adults inside the building saw my moment of casual humor, I don't know. Perhaps anyone inside who saw me would have thought it funny. Again, I don't know. Perhaps it doesn't matter either way. Regardless, I knew immediately that my action was demeaning, however unintentional. Alarms were going off in my head. This was not the first lesson I had ever learned about cultural sensitivity, and I am sure I didn't understand the lesson completely, but I felt it strongly. As I look back I realize that cultural sensitivity and spiritual sensitivity in that moment were one and the same. What, after all, is the benefit of spiritual sensitivity, spiritual discernment, for which we have all prayed, if it ignores cultural sensitivity and general inappropriateness at moments like this?

    There were more personal lessons to come. That afternoon we played against a veteran men's team, but since the other boys team did not show up, the game was essentially our high school guys and Andy Norton against their men. Given their level of experience and talent, my notes tell me that I played just one minute at the end of the first quarter. At the time I remember hoping I would be sent in again. As I look at the photographs now of my 55-year-old self playing, I know why I wasn't.

     On the other hand, as visible in this teams photo, I seem to have made a connection with Victor, the man with the whistle. Perhaps it was all about good sportsmanship rather than competition after all.

    After a day of hard, humbling, and eye-opening personal lessons, I noted that we had good conversations over dinner. At my table were Victor, who was Director of Culture at the electrical factory where we played, and Alexander, the man who had been active in setting up our games and visiting sites. I note that we parted after dinner having exchanged a lot of information and good feelings. It was a positive and hopeful way to end a day full of lessons in spiritual maturity that I am still processing.