Untitled - CSUN ScholarWorks - California State University, Northridge

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