I was very small. That was average kindergarten in the middle of a big city and it was surround by big houses. No, Minsk was a green city but it still a city. Mother or father had led me to the kindergarten where I waited finish of the day because it bored me to be in a crowd of children like me. To be like everybody! It was claustrophobic to see four walls. You could see just a small life from windows that that was limited into a high wooden border. It was day by day.
Once a bus waited for us to get out the big city. All our group of children got into the bus. They waited for me only. I stumbled into laces of my shoes as usual. A washerwoman helped me to release my knots. It was a long wait for everybody.
Anyway, we rode out of the city. The bus left us in the green woods. There were small wooden cabins and long washbasin with cold valves only and restroom - the long wooden house with a row of holes in the floor near the wall. Yet there was a big dinner house with long tables and benches where we ate.
After breakfast, our educator led us away to woods. Usually we stopped on a glade. She could to tell us stories that were interesting for children or to play with us with a ball. I didn't like that because every games with group of children was not interesting for me. I could like to go away. The forest was big enough and I walked. There were many ways through that forest with dense woods, where there was no place to pass over or a bog where your shoes could get wet in moss. But you could taste cranberries and blackberries. Or you could get to dry place with blueberries. Then your hands and face became violet. There were birds and animals that I saw for first time in my life.
Usually I could come back and nobody would pay attention for my absence. But once I got so far away and couldn't find the way back. I thought our educator couldn't find me and she might have stroke. Some young people - teenagers maybe - took me to an office of the camp that was out the forest. I was too small to know what our camp was name. I just knew 'Zelenoe'[green] that was the railway station and small town near that. Anyway at that evening they found location and name of the place of our camp.
One of educators brought me home. They wanted to get me away from them for a few days. They were tired with problematical kids like me and they needed to rest little bit. But while we walked to train station she asked me every time what way let's to go and I knew. On the station, she asked too about direction of train going to Minsk. In the city, I showed her streetcar that was going to my home. I just didn't know its number but I knew my home address. She was amazed.
The summer time was finished. We came home and continued our live in our claustrophobic kindergarten. But from time to time I could escape through colorful dreams of the dense, dark forest and the sweet juicy berries. The dreams had reminded me of that summer for many years.
After two years, we moved to next apartment in the far side of our city. There was only one side the street with odd only counting of houses. On the second side was the big green meadow, behind that the forest had greened. Our town had name: 'Zeleny Lug', that mean 'The Green Meadow'
Since that summer in the camp, I have never been lost in the woods.
Never.