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Exchange programm with IH Minsk
On, off, on again, off again, and finally, although reduced to just one week, back on again to ruin the holiday plans I had just made, but after a lot of effort and headaches on the part of the organizers I was on an overnight train to Minsk and an Irish girl who I was never supposed to meet was coming the other way, both of us to exchange each other's classes for a week and see what it's like in each other's schools.
'Europe's last dictatorship', 'Why?', 'take a camera, not that there will be anything to take photos of', are some of the quips thrown around by wry smiles to make me really start to look forward to the trip.
I was met and greeted at the station with open arms and more warmth than I receive from my own mother by the D.O.S of International House Minsk who, along with Phillip Donnelly, was responsible for the whole deal. On the contrary to where my thoughts had been lead to, Minsk was an extremely clean and very pretty city, a lot of money being spent on cosmetics, and in contrast to Moscow very slow, relaxed and laid back. I crossed the street without fear of death or abuse by car horn and had I had a cat, could have swung it, down the stairs, along the platform (while watching Tom and Jerry on the big screen), and through the doors onto the metro. Not that it was really necessary to use it that often unless out of utter laziness, the schools and flat were all central and the center isn't very far from one end to the other. So nice to walk to work every day and walk between different schools.
The school is considerably smaller and employs only five native speaker teachers out of a total of about thirty odd, thus the sharing of classes is standard timetabling to give more students a slice of the native speaker, be it to their benefit or detriment. This meant that owing to the shortness of my visit I would only see each class once and was eagerly swapped around by a couple of the other Belarussian teachers to teach one of their classes which had never had a native speaker before.
'Don't discuss politics, and if it gets brought up swing it out', it's in the contract the government it seems is not averse to the idea of popping spies into educational institutions to eavesdrop. And it dawns deeper and deeper that despite all its prettiness for the capital's young at least the political climate can be stifling, 'the problem isn't so much that the government have so much power, but that the people have so little', this seemed to a common sentiment.
It's always difficult to walk into somebody else's class for a one off and just as difficult to come to proper assessment, but on the whole the Belarussian students rocked, very friendly and accommodating and, in particular the teenagers, had a real verve. The feel was, however, quite noticeably different when the class hadn't had a native speaker teacher before.
My greeting at the train station wasn't to wane; all the teachers were very friendly. The D.O.S had made sure that I was well looked after and would get the most out of my stay, both inside the school and outside it. Each day I had a different volunteer to accompany me; former university students who walked me around the city and up and down the park Ferris wheel, best seats at a Belarussian first league football match (two quid, unfortunately the price was reflected in the quality), my photo taken outside a small green communist museum where Fidel Castro once stood and where the woman who owns the museum opens the door in her slippers with a cup of coffee they receive so few visitors, a day at the uncle's, an eighty one year old man with a great sense of humour who has been married (to the same woman) for over fifty years and drove his tank into Berlin.
I left with a great fondness, but after bugger all sleep and arriving back in Moscow at some godforsaken time in the morning, wanted nothing more than to collapse into my bed and not think about preparing my classes. However, Moscow being a lot bigger than Minsk gave my fellow exchange teacher more sites to see so she decided to stay an extra day and I spent the next four hours propped up in my kitchen and was to meet her after all when she finally woke up.
Thomas Sealy
September 2004
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