Bella - a - Russian

Just a little while longer and off to the next adventure. At the end of July through the beginning of August, Igor and I are heading out to his homeland to visit his family and meet his new niecey girl (as my uncle David always calls us) Rita, short of Margarita, so you know she is going to be fun! :) This will be his first time home in 4 years! As many of you know I lived across an ocean from my home and I only lasted about 6 months without my family, and that was pushing it, if you asked me. Anyways, I sent away for my visa, since visa's are a requirement to enter Belarus, and I will be patiently awaiting it in about 3 weeks time, sooner with any luck.

Igor is from a small town outside a city called Lepel, in North Eastern Belarus.

Just in case you needed some barrings on where Belarus is and where he is from (see map above). His grandmother, who we are to visit, and at whose house Igor and his brother spent almost every summer from their childhood helping to tend to the animals and take care of the small farm, is in a very tiny little village about 6 - 8 miles from his parents. Here there are approximately 60 residence (so more than some towns in Wyoming mind, resident population of 1 - 2, but still very small), and it is in the middle of the woods, or so he tells me.

I am so looking forward to getting to see all the places where he grew up, from the way that he describes them, they sounds almost fairy tale like in their serenity, although I doubt that he appreciated it as a kid as he does now. As we have no firm plans on what we will do while visiting, (of course I always a have a few ideas, so that statement isn't entirely accurate but let's let it slide for now) we will be spending some time in Minsk, in his home town near Lepel and at both his grandmothers houses, though I don't know where the second grandmother lives, but apparently it will be a long train ride and if you happen to have to pee you get to use one of these.... : O ! (black parts on the seat are for your feet). He tells me that when you press the button your "deposit" goes "directly to mother nature," aka the rails below. Oh hygiene. lol

Other than that, I imagine that it will be much like my experiences in Hungary as none of Igor's family, with the exception of his brother and sister in law, speak English. I remember those trips well and thanks very much to Emery for his extraordinary translation skills, especially around the card table! Anyway, as I was saying, I guess that this will be very similar to that, in so much as I will say little and learn some about the Russian / Belarusian language. I know only a few words, mostly revolving around food, to which Igor proclaimed the other night that at least he doesn't have to worry about me every going hungry ahahaha. I have been working on a couple of phrases such as: thank you, please, "I don't speak Russian," "I speak English," hello, and some others (don't ask me how to spell them because all you will get is the phonetic spelling since the letter system is entirely different, and yes Kristin that is all you get when I spell in English too, yad yad yad, sheesh.). That is one other thing that I have to admit, at least in Hungarian the lettering system was the same, albeit there were more of them...Russian, mmm not so much. Oh well, more bella - russian things to experiences! (for those who are curious, the literal translation of Belarus (when I am not being cheeking and spelling it correctly) is "White Russia," fitting then that Igor's drink of choice is a "White Russian." Emery feel free to insert comedy here.