Untitled - CSUN ScholarWorks - California State University, Northridge
Untitled - CSUN ScholarWorks - California State University, Northridge
Untitled - CSUN ScholarWorks - California State University, Northridge
Create successful ePaper yourself
Turn your PDF publications into a flip-book with our unique Google optimized e-Paper software.
100<br />
some more. No problem. That's what I'm here for, to make<br />
their English better. English, as the aid administrators<br />
explained, is the language of the business world, the writ<br />
ten texts of new technologies, medical science, exchanges in<br />
development and investment. I knew it would be challeng<br />
ing, but I couldn't imagine a more rewarding experience <br />
helping these poor victims of Stalinism. And so, from that<br />
day on, I made a concerted effort to be understanding, com<br />
passionate, sensitive to these trying times, conscious of<br />
everything they'd been through, taking all this into consid<br />
eration when I heard kids came to school with knives, guns,<br />
grenades, sticks of dynamite. Again and again, frightened<br />
teachers would scream about the dangers freedom had nur<br />
tured. Twice, the Russian-language teacher 's classroom<br />
thundered in an explosion, both times the little old woman<br />
scurrying out in a cry. Komunist . .. adolescent whispers<br />
hissed. "Not a very popular subject anymore," the foreign<br />
languages inspector shrugged, a Turkish coffee and inces<br />
sant shot glasses of raki pushed at me. "A transition peri<br />
od," he nodded, "a very difficult time for our young peo<br />
ple."<br />
I agreed. It had to be especially difficult for the kids.<br />
At home, newly-acquired stereos extracted rhythms and<br />
beats from cheap counterfeit cassettes of Pearl Jam,<br />
Nirvana, Michael Jackson. When they could, when a parent<br />
wasn't around pushing for the melancholic redundant<br />
whine of Albanian folk music, the kids taught themselves<br />
dance steps, studying the appropriate moves to heavy<br />
metal, grunge, rock, and rap. Pack oof! they shouted joyous<br />
ly in new-found bravado. They sat entranced, smiling at<br />
pictures of foreign lands - computers, fast cars, music<br />
videos - flicking channel after channel, back and forth, up<br />
and down the number scale, in search of heavier doses. In<br />
English, Italian, German, French, Polish. Always happy pic<br />
tures, wonderful things. Look, look! Look at that! they<br />
laughed. Ah, how the outside world flaunted her face, and<br />
everything else, too. Teasing, enticing, relentless arousals.<br />
America . . . they fantasized. You could do anything<br />
in America. Then, each morning, they trudged over to the<br />
gulag.