STUDENT WRITING: OBSERVATION by VALERA VOBLIKOV

22 September 2012

My Wonderful Neighborhood

I’ve been living in El Paso for six months and during this time I have discovered a lot of differences between America and Russia. It’s a Sunday morning and I’m walking through the beautiful neighborhood where I live. The houses on both sides of the road attract my attention and I find myself walking towards a park with an ensemble of perfectly looking houses and wonderful green gardens. At first glance, these houses look like perfect places for living. The windows and glass doors are clean and shine in the sun. The lawns in front of the houses are perfectly mowed, the trees are neatly cut. The porches are decorated with flowers and colorful signs. The birds are singing and I’ve just seen a squirrel hiding in the bushes.

Almost all people in the U.S. live in their own houses. I’m trying to imagine the place where I lived in Russia. It’s an old five floor anthill where people are crowded close to each other and separated at the same time by one meter brick walls and heavy metal doors with peepholes. People living on the first and last floors are forced to have bars on their windows. And you would be a foolish person if you left your car open on the street. In contrast, here I see that people sometimes don’t close windows and doors. They are not afraid of thieves.

I like the American way of living in your own house with a garden, backyard, and a garage. However, even though there are a lot of hurricanes and tornadoes in the U.S, a lot of houses are made of ‘cardboard.’ It’s no wonder that these houses can be totally destroyed by a falling tree. The houses remind me of the story about the three pigs. And I can’t understand why people are not afraid to build the straw houses in dangerous areas where hurricanes are very common and they might lose their American dream in a jiffy.

Now I am reaching a traffic light and I need to cross the road. I wish we had such wonderful roads in Russia. I’m immediately recollecting a famous Russian aphorism that there’re two problems in Russia: “The fools and the roads.” Maybe some other problems in addition to bad roads and bribery in Russia are severe climatic conditions and sudden changes in temperature. I love the dry climate here in El Paso. Even though it’s very hot, I don’t sweat. In my native city, the humidity can reach 100 percent. Because of the debilitating heat in El Paso, I haven’t seen any children playing outside during my walk. In contrast, I spent all my childhood playing open air games with my friends in our yard which was so native and unique for every child growing there.

I’m finishing my walk and getting close to my sister’s house where I live. Even though I like the beautiful houses and dry climate, everything still seems strange and alien to me. I miss my warm anthill and the yard where I grew up.