Foreigners in the city

For illustrative purposes only. These are last month's tomatoes.

I had fun at the market today. I was asking about some really-nice-looking tomatoes. I wanted to know if they were grown in the ground or in a greenhouse, but I didn't know the word for greenhouse. (Apparently the word is парниковых, which also happens to be the name of a street I know with greenhouses on it. Isn't that handy?) 

Anyway, not knowing the word I wanted, I tried to talk around it. The woman I spoke with didn't really know what I was getting at, but she assured me that the tomatoes were from Uzbekistan and that they were really good. As we had this little conversation, a lady from another stall came out to my side of the stand and announced that she wanted to know who in the world I am and what I'm doing here. When I told her that I was learning Russian, she started asking me questions and complimenting me on my ability to answer intelligibly. We attracted a little crowd before the interview was over.

As usual, one of the questions was about which city is a better place to live, Boston or Minsk. Unable to answer directly, I replied that Minsk feels like home and I enjoy my life here. 

On the way home, I stopped at the big TSUM department store to buy a fresh filter for our water pitcher. Entering, I noticed a little cluster of Americans standing outside the front door. Since they were still there when I exited, I stopped to forward the favor to them. Were they tourists? Yes, after a fashion. They are trustees of a new Baptist retirement home in the southern part of the country, and they are on their way to dedicate the building. They stayed for a little tour of Minsk before going on to see the facility. I thanked them for taking good care of Belarusians and expressed my hope that the Belarusians were taking good care of them. Oh yeah, they replied, beaming. They were very touched by the level of kindness they received from the people they met everywhere. I was pretty sure of their answer before I even asked the question.