Muddled in Minsk

"We found you a teacher", Denis my new business partner in Minsk informed me. "She's a language professor in the Linguistic University, and she has experience in teaching Russian to foreigners".
Like everything there, it had taken some time to organise, but I was happy that we had finally found a teacher, and after she had sent us a book list, off we went to the University shop to buy them.

Like a kid on his first day of school, off I went to my first class. It was wintertime in Minsk, so I had to battle a freezing blizzard and get lost before I found the building where Olga, my new teacher lived. As a state employee, Olga survived on a very low monthly salary of perhaps $150 a month, so my $15 an hour was very welcome. The building itself was quite old and luckily Olga came down to get me, as I don't think I would have stood in the rickety elevator alone. She pressed an undistinguishable number on the wall and up we lurched. Her apartment was small but neat, and she handed me a pair of flip flops when I got inside the door. I said a quick prayer that my socks wouldn't set off the fire alarm and attempted to squeeze my padded jacket and boots into her small hallway closet. I followed Olga into her tiny kitchen, where she was sat on what seemed to be the only chair. She pulled out a small stool from under the table and we started our first lesson.

Olga explained that we would be learning to write as well as converse, as this was the best and most comprehensive way to learn. In one way I was happy to be starting off from scratch. Little did I know what I had signed up for. I was like an innocent child, looking and feeling stupid was something I was going to have to get used to, and was soon second nature. We opened our books and started. My brain started to scream at me after about 20 minutes. Not only did I not know any of the letters, but i became u, r became p, e became something I still struggle to pronounce, but this being Russian, there were lots more surprises. None of them easy. T when printed was t, but when written was m, with a rounded top, and m if it had a pointed top. Almost all of the words in a sentence have to be conjugated, and you can put the words in a sentence in almost any order you want. Yeah, I know, the brain suggested that I go home and study rocket science or quantum physics in English, please. It actually felt physically sore, as she would ask me a question, I would look at her, shift uncomfortably on my tiny stool and try to understand and repeat what I thought I would never understand.

But we did make progress, Russian style, very, very slowly. There was a Mc Donald's close to her apartment, and the only way I could bribe myself to go was to organise the lesson at about 9 in the mornings. Any later and I would have copped out. I always left early and went to Micky D's for a breakfast and to do my homework. After my lesson, I would get some ice cream for my brain by going to largest book store in the town, and buy an English book, the only ones for sale were textbooks, so I had usually a choice between Hemingway or Dickens.

Olga had the patience of a saint. I picked up Russian slowly but surely, and learned some cool things. Did you know that all Russians (and me) basically have the same hand writing? Understand one and you understand them all, individuality isn't really encouraged. But looking back it was a great experience and I'm glad I did it. Nothing like giving the brain a workout every now and then, and once remembered, never forgotten.