A present for Mama on International Womens’ Day
Today’s a big day for me … my birthday.
I can’t say that I am looking forward to it. In a year I’ll reach my eighth landmark birthday, (16 – Sweet sixteen, 18 – Coming of age, 21 – Coming of age II, 25 – A quarter of a century and leaving youthful things behind me, 30 – “A dangerous age”, 40 – Entering middle age, 50 – Half Century, 60 – Approaching retirement … Tatiana, my accountant is already talking about me applying for a pension – I think she might be trying to tell me something).
It’s also International Women’s Day. Everyone here seems to think it is funny that I was born on International Womens’ Day and I have lost count of the number of times that I have heard the jibe about my mother deciding to give herself a present for the holiday.
There are some advantages to this arrangement, of course. My birthday is a holiday and I can easily reply with another jibe about how nice it is for the whole country, (nay, the whole world!), to celebrate my birthday.
It’s a “feel good” time of the year. Technically, Spring has just begun, (here, March 1st is considered the first day of Spring – back in the UK we would have to wait another three weeks), the flowers should be starting to bud, (although this year winter has decided to hang on and there is still snow around), the days are noticeably starting to get longer and there are are lots of gatherings with men making speeches about our “prekrasnaya zhenshin”, (beautiful ladies), and presenting them with little gifts, usually chocolates and flowers.
As “the boss”, I get to make one of those speeches, actually several – in different contexts.
Back in the West, although we don’t (or rather didn’t) commemorate International Women’s Day, we do have Mothers’ Day. Children buy little presents, chocolates and flowers, which they present to their mothers. Often they’ll take the opportunity, (or be directed by Dad), to relieve Mum of some of her chores.
It’s great, of course, for businesses selling greeting cards, chocolates and flowers – our local cake shop spent the weekend stocking up with cakes and boxes of chocolates. The flower shops are crammed with colourful blooms, (and, of course, prices have gone up).
This year, Maxim decided that he wanted to give his mother something different. Rather than the traditional box of chocolates and flowers and he decided to use his new found hobby of photography. He asked for my cameras and trotted off home to photograph the family.
I have posted some examples of his photographs before (for example, here), and he’s been teaching himself about how to take photographs by talking with photographers and watching videos on you tube. He’s also been dropping hints to me that I should get a new camera – with exchangeable lenses and which will give him him greater control over the images he can generate
Now it just so happens that modern digital cameras also have the facility to take movies. He’s always been interested in the cinema, (at one time he even thought about a career in the movies), and has already made a couple of short films using the camera in this way, (for school and for a project that he has worked with). So, when he got home he decided that rather than simply take photographs, he would make a short movie, instead.
He gathered the younger members of the family together and got them to rehearse and then act out several short scenes, finally bringing the individual clips to the computer and using using a video editor pasted them together, and added a soundtrack, eventually burning them onto a DVD to present to his mother this morning.
It may not be “professional”, (he’ll tell me that’s because the equipment not up to that task, and that if I had a better camera he could do better), but it was a good idea, original, and I think she will like it.
Bishkek