Breakfast with Dima's mom (6/22/05)

Come, meet Dima's mother.

We're in northern Belarus, about two hours south of Novapolatsk, where yesterday I did a three-hour consulting session with the leaders of a former government newspaper — now independent — facing some big challenges.

Novapolatsk is just north of Polatsk, a city which was once the center of Polish authority. Novapolatsk, which means "New Fields," is several hundred years younger than its neighbor and is primarily an oil refining city.

But come, now it's time to meet Dima's mother. It's time for breakfast.

Dima has been driving for me in Belarus since my arrival. A former taxi driver, he's been a regular member of the support team for the Belarusian Association of Journalists, BAJ, the organization which invited me into the country to do follow-up work with newspaper editors and reporters.

He proposed the breakfast date with his mother the day before, when we drove up from Minsk for three and a half hours.

It was impossible to say no. After all, how often does one get a breakfast invitation into another world?

Dima's mother lives in the little frame house where he grew up, on the banks of a lake. It resembles an elementary school student's drawing of a house, a small box with a pitched roof atop it.

Like every other house in the less-than-village, it's built of wood. In many villages, houses are built cheek-to-jowl close and fire has been a problem for generations.

It's a sleepy morning, but when we pull up Dima's mother is outside to greet us.

She ushers us through the gate, past a wooden outhouse with a chalk drawing of flowers on the door.

The house is small, humble but not downtrodden.

Though it's only marginally different from predecessors dating back centuries in its construction, it contains plenty of 21st century touches. There are two or three refrigerators, including one on the back porch.

We follow, past door curtains, through a rustic kitchen into an equally rustic living room. Beamed ceilings are masked by ugly wallpaper. A narrow bed with an iron frame sits in one corner, and there's a good chance that Dima's mother, now alone, sleeps here. The stairs to the small second floor are dangerous for a woman in her 60s.

The room has photos on the wall of Dima's mother as a young woman and of his father, who looks like Dima, and who is no longer living. A big box TV set has been placed on a table in a position of authority. A couple of uncomfortable Soviet-era armchairs flank a table which has been set up for breakfast.

And what is there to eat?

Plenty, though it's enough to catch an American by surprise.

We start, for instance, with cold soup, a fixture in many meals in Belarus.

In this case, it's a creamy mixture based upon sour cream and chives, the perfect accompaniment to the large bowl of boiled potatoes placed upon the table seconds later. Potatoes are an almost sacred crop in Belarus; the attachment makes the Irish look as if they're dealing with an infatuation, not a true love.

Before you can begin to love the soup, more challenges follow: Three plates with stacks of open-face sandwiches, cheese and egg, cucumber and tomato, smoked fish.

Not to your liking? Then try the fresh fish. It's from the lake, and it's been gutted, then stuffed with cheese, fish meat, corn meal, and spices.

Coffee? Nowhere to be seen, yet if you asked for it you might get a cup of Nescafe.

Orange juice? You have to be kidding.

But there is tea, with a small slice of lemon floating in the cup.

OK, so it's not a typical American breakfast.

But this is a different world.

And on a sunny morning, far from home, it’s absolutely the best possible place to be.[[In-content Ad]]