Friday, December 10, 2010

Charades anyone?

My world has become one big game of charades.  Since my Russian is limited to about 20 words, I have to act out most everything to everyone around me.  Day after day....charades!
Take, for example....
In IKEA, to tell our Russian speaking driver that I want to look around for awhile -  2 fingers (peace sign) in the eyes - then around the room symbol.  Easy enough.
To tell our driver I’m going to walk into the bank - the “let your fingers do the walking” symbol of index and middle finger walking on the palm of my hand.  Check - that works.
Looking for matches at the grocery store (those who know me well know I’m a fanatic about candles....this girl needs to light her candles!).  I spent 5 minutes with the grocery store manager acting out “matches”.   I found a package of birthday candles and used my hand to make a small explosion at the top of my index finger...clearly the charade for match - right?  After multiple attempts - no clue....I put the b-day candles down and left in defeat.  (For whatever reason, matches are one of the elusive items not to be found in Moscow - my neighbor finally took pity and gave me a book of matches she picked up at a hotel).
Ever thought about how you would charade toilet paper?  I did...and decided to hunt it down on my own...no matter how long it took.
I’ve also found myself in hysterics, laughing, when the charade process doesn’t work after about 7 or 8 minutes.  I have this out of body experience where I’m looking down on the scene and realize how completely idiotic I must look.  What am I doing???  Most of the time, from the “charadee”, I get a dead-pan look back...and finally the shaking of the head that signals....nope...nada...nyet...not playing...game over.  So then you realize you can get along without many things, but tomorrow is always another day!