This may be one of my saddest posts so far, but I think it is necessary to understand why we needed to find somewhere else for me to learn.

I was an outsider. I have a vague memory of a group of girls huddled together, singing a song, dancing along with it. When they were so happily giggling, I was standing nearby unable to join.  I wanted to join, but I didn’t know what to say. When you don’t now a language, you get this immobilising feeling like the one you get in a dream when the words won’t come out of your mouth- because you are half awake and half asleep.

To this day, shoes are difficult. You can never get them equally tight. A swarm of laughing kids raced out the door while I anxiously focussed on putting on my shoes. If I didn’t fix them soon, an impatient kindergarten teacher would come along to help. She would mutter under her breath, and I’d getting the feeling I was a burden. It isn’t a pleasant feeling to not be able to do something everyone else manages effortlessly. Last one outside, again.

We were going out on one of the trips we took in the woods. They often do this in kindergartens, because kids need to be around nature and learn. Plus, its fun. The ones with proud pine trees and pine cones dotting – no, covering – the ground ( шишка – shishka. There are a lot of pinecones in Russia which means they get their own special name – like gumnuts here).

On one of these excursions, we went looking for mushrooms. All the other children rushed in a blur, gathering pale yellow string of mushrooms, or ugly stumpy brown ones. So you can only imagine my pleasure when I spotted a bright red one. It was smooth, unique, beckoning me to pick it. Why would anyone pick those boring one when they could chose magnificent Lady Mushroom?

I happily picked them mushrooms, resting her in my basket. At last, I had done something to help others. Contributed to society! Brought them the beautiful, scrumptious Lady. How happy they would be with my discovery.! My daydreams were dashed when a kindergarten teacher came along and held up the mushroom in my face, worried but firm. She mustered the English words:

“No. Bad mushroom.”

This must have been a great shock to me, because in can rarely quote thing and yet I remember these words.  I felt rejection and not feeling good enough wash over me.

The rest of the day this lady seemed to soften and help me find the meek white mushrooms with neat brown caps. They cowered under trees, huddled in small clusters. They were shy mushrooms, unlike Lady Mushroom. For once, I have a good memory of my time there. I was satisfied with my progress and help.

My parents were impressed with my newfound knowledge, and I guided them along in the forest differentiating with the poisonous and edible mushrooms. I was rarely wrong and if I was the friendly people at the market pointed it out.

Many years later a discovered that the red mushroom called мухомор-mookhomor, was poisonous. The one if found was most likely this type, and if it was then I now understand why my teachers seemed so strict. It was for a good cause. And later still I learnt that is you boil them for at least 24 hours or something, then it cooks the poison out. Which is good to know in… desperate situations which I haven’t come across.

Somehow, I managed to find the good in them. Wanting to help is still in my character one, and was obviously the same then. I can remember sometimes I would help them set up the beds for nap time. They were pleased and thankful. I think she called me молодчина – molodcheena. It means amazing, smart, hardworking. The -cheena part is an endearment, and this word is kid of for children.

But there was their ignorant side. I can still remember being in nap time not being able to get to sleep. I dreaded nap time. At home before bed I liked to have a glass of milk. Here I lay in almost pitch black, crying out for milk, milk … to the annoyance of my teachers. All he other kids were quiet, but I was stubbornly crying out a word they could not understand in order to quiet me. Then I did not know that word for milk in Russian – молоко- moloko. I’m just a little disappointed with my teachers because the words were so similar. Eventually I would give up. Still, I was not used to sleeping in the afternoon at that age.

My Mum and Dad used ot joke how you could leave children in Kindergarten – or детский сад. (detskiy sad. Sad means garden and is not to be confused with the emotion). In that time, you could take a quick trip to Thailand when your kids were in kindergarten (Thailand was a popular tourist destination for Russians). Mum and Dad never left me for that long, because they knew I was having a hard time.

Mainly because I would wake up almost every night to snuggle with my Mum and Dad and tell them I had a bed dream. I rarely told them what it was, because it seemed to make them more real. It’s quite the opposite, but that was the logic I had back then.

Things would have to change, and change too. So, you can imagine they’re joy when I woke in the middle of the night, rushing to their rooms, exclaiming:

“I had a good dream!”

Because this was quite the event for me. But what had changed? My new kindergarten, the children’s centre.