School:
When we walked into Glenoak High School, it was if we owned the school. Mr. Tangonav had had us dress the way we had dressed when we were at our school in Russia. Unfortunately he had gotten our group of girls that had all wanted to come to America together. We were the same group of friends that had said we would do anything to get to America and now we were here. Our group of friends had always been the type to listen to hard rock music back home, which meant we would do the same thing here.
We were met by a couple of the other teachers as well as some students. One student in particular took immediate attention to all of us. I saw her and what looked like her family staring at all of us. A boy, who looked like the girl's boyfriend moved forward and extended his hand towards us.
"O'chin priyat'na svah'mee paznahko'mitsa! Menyah' zavoot' Martin. Kahk vahs zavoot?"
We looked at him in disbelief as did Mr. Tangonav.
"Menyah' zavoot' Yekaterina." I said speaking up first. The other girls started to introduce themselves as well.
"Our groo'pa names are Katerina, Zola, Oksana, Ekaterina, Zinaida, Mischa, and Nadia."
I looked at the boy and the crowd of students and said, "Dobry den." We walked past them and on to our classes. We separated and went to our different rooms. We would meet up at lunch. As we said goodbye, I glanced back at Martin and smiled. Mr. Tangonav didn't see the smile because he was busy talking to the principal. There was to be at least one person in our classes that understood Russian so the teacher could no what we were asking or saying.
When we met up for lunch, we were exhausted and the day wasn't even half over. We sat together with our lunches and started talking about our classes and what we had later.
"Ya (ne) poneemah'yoo half the stuff they are trying to, how do you say it? 'Stuff down our throats.' It's so, so… Ya ne magoo' explain it."
"Exasperating you mean?" Nadia asked.
"So what did Mr. Tangonav want with you last night," her voice dropped to a whisper, "in his bedroom?"
I whispered the answer back to her. "He pakazhee'tye menye' shtoh we are going to be doing for our extra-curricular activities."
"And shtoh would that be?" we were going from Russian to English and back to Russian in our talking that we didn't even realize it.
"We'll be performing acts of, what is it that our parents taught us about in the eighth grade?"
"You mean pol?"
"Da, ya ne khahchoo' to do ahno' though."
"But we have to pay them back somehow."
By then we realized that a lot of the kids were looking a t us weird and then we saw Mr. Tangonav. Our conversation was over. We had broken one of the rules. We had spoken about what was going on inside the brothel. Lucky for us, he said we get a week to get used to everything before the rules come into play. But I knew that I would get something tonight and it wouldn't be good.
The rest of the day went smoothly, and we all walked home that day and went right to our homework. What kind of teachers would give you homework on your very first day in the country and at the school?
