Out of the blizzard

It turns out I can speak Russian after all. Yesterday felt like a blizzard of non-understanding. But today we were back to a Pushkin story which I already knew. The story is called "the blizzard" but it was nothing but clear skies for me. I understood nearly every word the teacher said to me. Maybe it has something to do with content. I like feeling confident about my language. I hate days when I feel stupid.

So I'm not gonna give up.

Abigail had her first Russian lesson today with a local lady we know, at our place. Abigail goes to Russian kindergarten twice a week. She is settling in rather slowly. We know that she understands what is going on though. Yesterday when we went for our walk Abigail was telling us which mushrooms you can and can not pick, based upon what the teacher had been telling them when they went mushroom picking during class. As much as I am sure Abigail was picking things up, I think we would still wait a couple years before trusting her advice. Nevertheless Abigail was repeating things that we know she could only have heard from Russians. So we are impressed with her understanding. She has started to open her mouth up a little bit and some of the kids are now convinced that she can actually speak Russian. Abigail had said yesterday "I like the kindergarten in Kangaroo Ground better, because they have dress up clothes and I know the children's names."  So she is coming along slowly. We are convinced that we need local friendships right here in Akademgorodok if we are to be happy here in the long term. So we keep encouraging Abigail because she needs local Russian friends to be happy.