Time in Belarus coming to an end.

So for those of you who know me you'll know that I'm now happily married and now the time is coming where I'll be leaving Belarus and going to a different country to teach English or maybe even start a long term career.

It's been an interesting time here and a lot has happened while I've been here. It's strange how people seem to react to situations I hoped I'd never be in the middle of though I'd rather not go into detail what they are because of my own fear of suppression. People in Belarus seem quite resigned to the fact that things here will never be perfect. It's amazing how regardless of what the news says about finiacial crisis etc. how everything essentially remains the same and the only thing that I notice is the price of things increasing on a daily basis and the mood of people staying gloomy even though it is summer. It's a terrible shame about the events here that have unwound and I really hope that things get better here in Minsk in some way for the population that are struggling on after a 50% pay reduction.

As for my wedding it was magical. I was always a bit cynical about weddings but mine seemed to be brilliant for me with all my friends surrounding me and many people wishing us well and offering their support for our marriage. Thanks so much to everyone who came and thanks to everyone else for your messages of support and for wishing us well. I really hope we are able to keep supporting each other and get through the issues we have.
The current ones for us are where we go and how we avoid Nika having to work in a remote village in Belarus. This would be a terrible situation to be in as it would mean I'd either have to stay in the UK and find a job and wire money to support her or go with her and support her with a menial job (street sweeper or worse) in a small village. Obviously this is the last option though I would be willing to do it if it was the only solution for us to stay together. I'm sure people throughout history have gone through much worse to support and protect their partner.

Anyway I hope all is well with everyone else. We'll soon be setting up a photo website on picassa so that everyone can enjoy the photos online we took at the wedding. Once we get all the official photos as well we'll be able to show them.

Ok so Nika told me to blog some things about Belarus so I'd better start. First off well...


I'M GETTING MARRIED

It's scary and it was more we decided to marry than me doing some great things to impress Nika to convince her to be with me. I suppose I've never been traditional but hey!
So I'm now rushing round Belarus doing many things while still trying to teach people English and find a new place to go after this contract finishes. It's a pretty intense world now and I don't things are going to stop spinning for a while but we're so happy together that we're ready to go through the process and we also have fun planning everything together and looking at where to have the venue etc.

Soo what can I say about Belarus well.......it's clearly a socialist country that sort of ignored the Berlin wall falling down and just carried on the same way. Some things have changed but in reality everyone just prefers to carry on living the same way they did before. I'm not sure if I really fit into the place and I think I'm more a unique flair to the classroom and my job than an integrated member of society in Belarus.

I think we're both fed up of the cold now as it never seems to stop and I feel ill today so I've decided to stay off sick and recover before I organise a quiz for my students in one of the few 'Western style' pubs in Minsk. My part of the organisation seems to be to produce a music round with a few different tracks. I'm thinking of adding a few popular (and unpopular) classics instead of delving into my more unique music collection.

What else can I say? This is the start of a big change for me and Nika and we're starting to plan as quickly as possible. It's more a case of quickly finding places and getting everything organised than creating a magical dream day that could be reproduced as a movie in hollywood. If a film was ever made about our lives then I'd intend for the wedding part to be a 10 second clip with maybe some nice picture rather than one of those long drawn out parts of the movie.

Well I'm promising myself I'm going to write more here so I can look back in the future maybe and see how things were going at this time. I'm guessing this is one of the key times in my life.