Our Russian Carnival
On Tuesday morning, all our friends and families came to Circle Hall to join us in our Russian Carnival. Jane, our master of ceremonies welcomed us to her country of Russia in English and Russian.
After that our surprise opera singer, Aileen led us in the singing of our national anthem, “O Canada.”
The Firebird listens to the Snow Queen singing “Oh Canada”
Then Jane led us in the singing of the Russian national anthem.
Jane leads us in singing the Russian national anthem
John, as the famous book writer Dostoevsky told us that he wrote a book about himself and his two sons and then he showed us the Russian alphabet and taught us how to write in Russian in Cyrillic Script.
After that Martin did a skit with members of the candle shop about the Russian Revolution in 1902 which was about the rich people becoming richer and the poor people complaining about their low wages, few jobs and poverty.
Then we saw skits about three famous Russian fairy tales. In the first fairy tale (by the weavery group), a little girl (Hanieh) loved to run freely in the woods. Her parents warned her about the wolves. When the little girl was missing, the whole family went looking for her and found her. The moral of this story is that families should always help each other.
In the second fairy tale, a grandfather (William) planted a turnip.
When it was harvest time, he wanted to pull it out of the ground, but it was so very big and heavy that he needed help. He called for grandmother, granddaughter, mouse, cat and dog and finally they were able to pull it out. The lesson from this story is that if we work together we can be successful.
Matrushka Story
In the third fairy tale, a grandmother (Ilay) owned two geese. The geese decided to hide from grandmother. She was looking for them and she couldn’t find them. She became very upset. When the geese saw how upset she was they came back. Grandmother was happy again.
The highlight of the morning was the Russian circus done by the office group. Patricia (clown), Lisa (fortune teller), Monique (juggler) and Lesley(skipper) entertained the audience. Then everybody was able to jump on the trampoline while the musicians played Kalinka on the guitar and accordion.
Shayan takes a turn on the trampoline
During our lunchtime, we were served crepes as a dessert.
In the afternoon we returned to Circle Hall and continued our Russian carnival. To start off, we heard the lady musician sing two Russian opera songs and then Jeff played two Russian songs on the Chrotta.
After that Jane led us in singing the Hedgehog song and the garden group sang and danced to Kalinka.
Russian dancers
Abegael, our great story teller, entertained us by telling us the tale about a young girl who was sent by her stepmother into the woods to see if the witch (Baba Yaga) was there. Stepmother’s purpose was to get rid of her stepdaughter so that her two daughters could marry a prince. Unfortunately, because the stepdaughter had to work so hard, she became more beautiful while the lazy daughters became uglier. So the prince came and fell in love with the stepdaughter and they lived happily ever after.
After that the coworkers performed and taught us a famous Russian dance called Troika.
Ruth T. thanked Jane for organizing the carnival and for all the workshops who performed their skits. Ruth T. also thanked everyone for coming. We really had a great time.
This week in our Thursday morning college, we heard three biographies from two of our coworkers, Jane and Martin and one by our companion Aiden.
The first biography that we heard was about Jane. She told us that she was born in Russia on June 5, 1995. When she was two years old her family moved to Kazakhstan where she went to kindergarten and elementary school. At the age of eight, Jane’s family moved to Germany where she went to High School. After she graduated, she applied to come to Cascadia and now she is working with us until August of this year. Then Jane showed us pictures of her family.
Next Martin told us his life story. He told us that he was born on March 9, 1994 in Cologne, Germany. He graduated from high school and that his cousin told him about Cascadia and so he decided to come here to work.
After that Aiden came up and told us about Saint Francis of Assisi.
We learned that Saint Francis was born in Assisi, Italy in 1182. In his early years, he was a knight and he would party every day and night. When he became sick he turned his life over to Christ. As a priest, he helped the sick and poor, he rebuilt the lord’s house and brought many people into his church. He enjoyed nature and loved all animals. He was well known for preaching about peace.
After a short break, Lorna’s bell choir practiced for our spring concert, which will be in June.
This week in our Friday morning circle, Ruth T. announced that we will be having our Japanese tea ceremony on Monday afternoon at Circle Hall. Then we sang Happy Birthday to Brian.
On Wednesday, Thursday and Friday afternoon, we broke in to our
painting, reading, writing, novel, games, singing and swimming groups.