Ok, I was not born a belly dancer. I became one. When I was a little girl I was clupsy and looked like a boy. This is funny but true. Indeed, I had no sense of dressing as I never got any new clothes until I was old enough to earn the money for them.
I was born in Russia in the end of the 20th Century. I am happy to say that I saw the fall of the kommunism, but was too young to fully understand the whole thing. All I saw was that we had to queue for food before as well as after the change in the system. There was not much difference, apart from the freedom it brought. We were finally allowed to see American movies and drink Coke. But we were still unable to afford it.
My dad lost his job immediately, my mum did some extra cleaning jobs on the side to keep us going. I had three brothers, who were loads of trouble, and I was the eldest child. I was often asked to look after them, cook food and do the washing. One night when both my parents were out I was watching TV. They sneaked into the bathroom and had the crazy idea to take the washing machine apart. The worst thing was that they could not put it back together. The old parts were all lying around the bathroom that has seen better times, and we could not get another one. We did the washing by hand for years until we could get my uncle's old one that was even worse than the previous one.
