Stoop Sitting

There are two benches outside the apartment. One of them has all four slats and one of them only has two slats. Obviously, the bench with the four slats is the most preferable. There are people here that literally sit out on these benches all day long. Usually you will see three ladies, an old man, or a man with a weiner dog sitting out there. My mom was sitting on one of the benches one day and one of the ladies that was "stoop sitting" tried to start a conversation with her. "Ya ni ponimayo", my mom said and then tried to say something in English to the lady. "Ya ni ponimayo" the lady said, as she held up two fingers. My mom laughed because the only thing that they could really communicate to each other was that it was definately too hot in the "doma" (house)! When we are in our apartment, we can hear the ladies down on the benches talking about the "americanos" and we don't know if they are saying anything bad or not.

Yesterday, I went down there with Tony to get out of the hot apartment and to hopefully entertain Tony for a while. Even before I sat down, one of the ladies (the one that had the "conversation" with my mom) that obviously had gone outside for the same purpose sat down on the two-slat bench so that I could sit on the four-slat bench - which was very nice. The other "stoop sitters" wouldn't have been so nice, however. Katya and her friends sat next to me. We got the "evil eye" from one of the ladies as she stepped out the apartment door and people were on her bench and we also got the "evil eye" from the old man and the man with the weiner dog. Had it just been the kids, they would have kicked them off, but since I was there they had to just be content with giving us ornery looks. Tony and I sat there while Katya ate sunflower seeds and fed the birds. Tony was entertained for a while by the birds walking around and the kids that liked to say his name.