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Chinese trainers. I think this was the first, very high-quality, sports footwear. I was 5 years old. We lived in Kyiv in a military town. Now this is the district of the metro station “Druzhby Narodov.” So I went out to walk from our barracks. Towards me comes a boy, Slava, 7 years of age. He has put on his hands! brand-new Chinese trainers with a snow-white sturdy rubber sole, walks and claps them as if clapping his hands! So merrily he claps! Clearly he decided to show off. He comes up to me and says: “Feel how smooth it is here!” And shows me the beautiful white sole of a Chinese “Druzhba” trainer. Well I felt it with my little fingers… And he slaps me on the fingers from above with the second trainer! It was very painful.

I thought here and myself defined and named my phobia — a Phobia of heightened responsibility for a child’s life. Of course, I myself am “to blame” for my acquisition, and the conditions of life, it seems, contributed to this before arriving in Norway. So then, having come on practice to a Norwegian kindergarten, this phobia “received an exacerbation”! (at last I understood this now, what happened to me). Instead of three months of practice under a signed contract, I held out only three weeks. I can describe only a few “harmless examples” of my “quick reaction to a situation.” ...

So then about practice in Norway. Many, newly arrived, get it in kindergartens. If the director of the kindergarten agrees to take you on practice, then NAV pays for it. You work a full working day of 7.5 hours and receive 300 kroner for these 7.5 hours. (30 euros). Of course joyful! Not bad language practice, communicating with the kiddies. And the main thing with a prospect of permanent work. And it is very important that the kindergarten is municipal, so in the future there is social security and I can even earn a Norwegian pension in 10 years! (that is what I thought). Much later I learned that to get a Norwegian pension one needs to have worked 40 years in Norway. ...

By virtue of my “inflexible” age, I can only observe the “work situation” in Norway and draw my conclusions, having lived here already 7 years. In the first year I so rushed to work that it is even “scary” to recall! Two higher humanitarian diplomas: one Soviet, the other of 2004, “not bought in a passageway,” but “honestly attended and passed” state exams. “And I walk, all so” clever, through the provincial Norwegian town of Grimstad, with my CV (service record), straight into the most cultural place — the town library. And I start telling the “directress” of the library about myself, about how good and literate I am and I study-I-am-not-lazy and I know so much in this life… In general I “overwhelmed” the directress with my “intellect.” I look…. and the directress somehow suspiciously “shrivelled” and quietly uttered: “We will call you!” ...

The thing is that I have never been in China. And now I will tell separate fragments of my childhood memories. The previous chapter was about Aunt Rufa. So Aunt Rufa was in China and gave birth there to her twins Vitka and Natashka, whose combined weight at birth was 8 kg! For the Chinese doctors this was a shock, and they would not have saved Aunt Rufa if it had not been for our professor, who I do not know how was delivered to China, most likely by a special flight from Moscow. Having covered all the Chinese with Russian swearing (the Chinese had arranged a ceremonial welcome with ceremonies for him), he broke through to Aunt Rufa and took the birth. The girl weighed 200 grams more than the boy, for which later Vitka received from loving relatives the nickname — Dovesok! ...

If it were not for Facebook, I would not have remembered Aunt Rufa with her children. The other day on FB they posted such a short funny film (I think it was a staging), how a mama feeds her boy porridge, brings a spoon to his mouth, he shakes his head no, and… here mama grabs a rolling pin and hits the toy bear on the head, and the boy at once opens his mouth and swallows the spoon of porridge. This scene seemed amusingly funny to me. ...

On Sunday we dropped into the Eco-market. That is a shop of Polish-Russian-Ukrainian products. Besides buckwheat and tvorog I bought a few sweets. Yes, I am a sweet tooth, but I do not consume sweets by the kilogram. For some time I have tried to eat two or three sweets, and even then not every day. We came home, I chose three different sweets for myself and think: “Now I’ll eat half a sweet each, and leave the remaining halves for myself for evening tea.” I bite off half a “Romashka”…. and here you have memories of this sweet, which I cannot “get rid of” for several days already, so I decided to write. ...

A thought arose in my head that “old parents give birth to ‘old’ children.” In this family the child was late and only. Mama was already “well past 40.” And all her intellectual potential, not fully used in Norway (here there is nowhere to use it), she directed at her child, and “at the same time” at me. At the beginning of my narrative I wrote that I agreed to do a little English, having quite good experience of working with children in this direction. I advised buying on the internet an English textbook from a Russian publisher, i.e. with a translation of English words into Russian. Originally what was required was that the child should not forget Russian. ...

I must note the child I got was developed beyond his years and talented not only in the sciences, but also in everyday life. Order reigned in the house, nothing superfluous. He knew, for example, how to sort rubbish correctly, showed me where the rubbish bins stand. After eating he was allowed to eat only one sweet. And so he climbed onto the sideboard in the kitchen, opened a hanging cupboard and from the top shelf took a packet with various sweets. He took two sweets out of the packet and… stands thinking. I ask him: “How long are you going to stand up there like that?” And he: “I’m thinking. Which sweet I should eat today.” And I to him: “And you can’t eat two at once?” — “No, I’m not allowed. Mama allows only one sweet a day.” ...

The next day I decided to go to Norwegian courses, and by 12.30 get to the school and meet the child. In the break between lectures mama called (I was just in the buffet) and I had to “stand to attention!” and listen to her remarks about yesterday. It turned out that I had acted wrongly, treating the child to a piece of homemade cake that I had baked myself. She said that it harms his health. ...