Torsello, Davide - Pappová, Melinda: Social Networks in Movement. Time, interaction and interethnic spaces in Central Eastern Europe - Nostra Tempora 8. (Somorja-Dunaszerdahely, 2003)
Interaction, migration and change
266 Melissa L Caldwell to recipients who have rooms to rent or items to sell. Likewise, recipients have turned to volunteers for help in dealing with problems ranging from home repairs to troublesome tenants who are not connected to the CCM program. Recipients who have come to see African CCM volunteers, and the directors in particular, as their advocates in the food aid process ask for their guidance in negotiating other bureaucratic channels of Russia’s welfare system. At the same time, recipients have used their local contacts to provide volunteers with needed legal and medical assistance. More significantly, because Russian exchange practices fuse economic transactions with social interactions, recipients and volunteers also come together to share important social occasions with each other. The collective observance of events such as birthdays, anniversaries, graduations, and funerals attests to the level of intimacy shared by recipients and volunteers. For instance, after Olivia, a volunteer from Sudan, successfully defended her master’s thesis, several soup kitchen recipients, volunteers, and cafeteria employees spontaneously arranged a party for her. To prepare for the birthdays of soup kitchen directors, recipients donate money and appoint a representative to buy presents, flowers, and champagne for the celebrants. Similarly, every year on her birthday, Aleksandra Petrovna, a long-time recipient and activist for the soup kitchen, hosts a party to which she invites her closest friends, including several African volunteers and directors. On another occasion, after one of the soup kitchen directors died unexpectedly, CCM staff organized a special memorial service for recipients to express their grief. For some participants, these relationships offer not just friendships, but also substitute families. Vera is a 75-year-old retired artist whose cheerful personality and delicious homemade pastries have endeared her to the volunteers. She has become particularly close with the directors of the soup kitchen she attends, two young men from Ethiopia. During her husband’s illness, the two young men visited her at home; after her husband died, they joined her at his funeral and at
