Volunteers' stories
My time as a volunteer at the Baikal Environmental Waveby Juliane Kunert
My name is Juliane Kunert and I am a student in Heidelberg/Germany, at the seminar for Translation and Interpreting. I am in my second year studying the languages English and Russian. I had a lecturer from Irkutsk who gave me the idea of going to Siberia rather than to the European part of Russia. Another Russian lecturer of mine gave my friend Judith and me the e mail address of Natasha, the woman being responsible for the volunteers at the office. Well, we wrote her in English and she answered and that was how everything fell in place. Natasha sent us an invitation letter so we could get our 6 months visa and we booked a flight and after half a year preparing for this trip we finally arrived in Irkutsk 1st of March 2006. Natasha picked us up, our first impressive experience was that our hair in our noses froze because it was minus 22 degerees Celsius. Welcome to Siberia!
With the help of Natasha and Bertie, another volunteer from England, we found a flat not far from the office (The picture on the left is the house we lived in (looks worse from the outside than it actually was), the picture on the right is the office). The office itself is in a nice building and very unrussian like looking. During our first month we just got used to the environment. After 2 days we figured out how to go to the office and even find our way back to our home, days later we managed to take the right Marshrutka (minibus) to the market and the city center all by ourselves. Natasha showed us around town on our first day but everthing was so fast and so new. During these days there was an environmental exhibition which we were asked to attend, which basically ment to sit at a stand and sell things offered by Baikal Wave, or answer questions about the organisation. Sounds easy but it was hard! Since our Russian was so poor. Here is a picture of the exhibition and our stand
This is my friend Judith looking up random words in a dictionary. Well the exhibition lasted for 3 days, though it was fun it was a tough experience as well and we were glad when it was over.
The next thing on our schedule was a project in a boarding school for deaf children:
This was the school we worked in for like 3 months. Twice a week we went to a class (8th grade) to teach about the environment and how we can protect her and to be aware of all the pollution and wastefull behaviours people have. In the class were 8 students but normally only 4-6 attended the class. The teacher helped us translate everything we said into sign language, the kids were really nice but we had the feeling of not really achieving anything, students didn’t turn up, or we turned up and the kids were out cleaning or on vacation, it seemed like we took it more serious than the school did. But still it was a good experience for us, we learned a lot of words about the environment and we were kept busy. Plus we learned a lot about sign language and the Russian education system. Sometime the office organised information days at local colleges like in this picture here:
It shocked us how little the students of our age knew about saving energy and protecting the environment. That way we saw what colleges looked like from the inside, we got to know people and learned a lot about environmental things.
After one month of randomly showing up at the office and not having much to do we decided to take Russian classes at university, which was a good idea. We finally met some people of our age, we had a lot to do with homeworks and studying Russian. With Natasha we agreed to come by the office twice a week, in addition we went to the boarding school with the deaf children, translated some texts for the office and were generally pretty busy. The next bigger event was the oil pipeline and the upcoming protests/demonstrations. Baikal Wave organised a demonstration in cooperation with some other local parties and organisations concerned about lake Baikal and the dangers coming from the planned oil pipeline, which is supposed to be built just north of the lake. The first demonstration in Irkutsk since 17 years (I think). It was amazing!
Together with other volunteers of Baikal Wave we organised the sound system (on the picture in the office), and then later on we went to the sport square to gather.
Judith and I had the honour to wear blue overcoats on which was written "Baikal Environmental Wave. For the Taiga, For the Future, For Lake Baikal". Natasha asked us to collect signatures. We were still quite insecure on how to address people and explain them why they should subscribe, But they were so nice to us once they noticed we were foreigners. Well the turnup at the demonstration was a blast! One big Success!
On this sign they wrote "Pipleline, No!!!!" Well this demonstration was followed by 2 others, each a success but not quite as good as the first one.
This is a picture of the second demonstration, it was really cold and snowy, so the turnup was quite low. For the third one we distributed flyers in front of the university to get people to show up.
Here are Bertie and me while distributing the flyers.
And here is a picture of the Sports Square and the third demonstration. The weather was nice and a lot of people came. Later on we even heard that these demonstrations were mentioned in German Newspapers. After 3 months we were done with teaching at the boarding school. We taught about Water, Air, and a bit about Energy. As I said it was a good experience but we were not too sad when it was over. So then we just went to university and helped organise the demonstrations. In May we travelled to Mongolia for 2 weeks to see the country but also to get reregistered. All the time Natasha helped us a lot with the registration items and how to pay for the flat and everything we were helplessly lost with. The people in the office were nice of course, but somehow I had the feeling we never got really close to them. I guess it was because of linguistic problems (from our side of course!) and maybe because we were not there too often. But then again there were days we had nothing to do either. We were always thrilled to have a text to translate once in a while, but sometimes it just came down to cooking lunch since the staff takes turns cooking lunch. In the retroperspective I am very happy that we went to university. Nevertheless, the work at the office was very important and educating, and yes, it was fun as well, of course! Irkutsk itself is a good basis for going out hiking around lake Baikal or to hang out with frinds in some night clubs (If you need recommendations, write me!). The winter takes for ever but once it is over Irkutsk turnes into this really beautiful Siberian city.
Here a last picture of us in the kitchen (or rather dining room) in the office. Natasha is the beautiful lady in the sleeveless shirt on the left (not the pregnant one!), the woman in the back is Judiths mother sitting next to Judith and then there is me. Judith and I had a very enjoyable time in Irkutsk and I can recommend it to everyone to work at the office and live in this city! |
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