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Our Editor Lorraine Lanteigne
Lorraine Lanteigne comes to us from Canada. She has been living in Moscow and teaching English for BKC since last December. We were first introduced to Lorraine through a story she wrote about her adventures in Moscow's Metro system during her first weeks in our country. We enjoyed her story and asked her if she would edit our new web site as well as writing some more of her impressions and adventures in Moscow for us. We were delighted when she said yes and we have shared some very humorous moments with her as we continued to work towards getting our site up and running.
Lorraine has an adventurous spirit and has "been on the road" for thirty years. In her own country she lived in six different provinces as well as in the Arctic. She moved to Latin America in 1997 where she lived in the jungles of North Eastern Nicaragua with her husband John, who was working there for a Canadian company. During this time she traveled through Honduras, spent time in Costa Rica, Panama, and Ecuador and finally lived in the small mountain village of Copala, Mexico, before she and her husband returned to Canada in 2001. She has been recording and writing the stories of her journeys since 1970.
She says that she believes that everyone should write about their experiences and believes that this is important as a "people's history". "Too often family tales are lost in time and grandchildren and great grandchildren never know of the lives of those who came before them. Writing about what we see, what we hear, what we feel, what we taste in the everyday world is as important to record as are the grand scale world events" she says. "What impresses me most is my observations of the natural world and the people who occupy this space in time. As a child I often would jot down thoughts about the world around me and what I thought or felt about was going in at the time. I loved creating stories and I loved experimenting with language. I grew up thinking that sociability was founded in the ability to communicate effectively."
After over twenty years as a professional Aquatics teacher and facility manager, Lorraine returned to University where she earned a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Theater and English. She founded a Musical theater program for children in Canada and produced seven one hour original Musical Theater Productions before leaving for Latin America.
Last summer she and her husband John made the decision to travel and teach. They both enrolled in Languages International in Toronto, Canada and completed an extensive two-month TESL program. "At the end of the course I met a young man who had just returned to Canada after teaching English in Moscow. After listening to him talk about his experiences I thought that this would be a great place to start on yet another adventure. We searched the Internet, found the BKC site and started negotiations. The company was very professional and we had no doubt we would accept the positions offered to us."
Lorraine has used her creativity while teaching by working with her teenage students in the medium of theater. One of her classes performed a piece called "Grisilda Grisinsky's Magic Word Shop", a story Lorraine wrote for her grandson in Canada and the other group wrote an original short play called a "Murder Mystery", based on the dramatic action of a typical British murder mystery. In both cases her classes memorized all of the lines, which is quite a feat in a foreign language. "They were wonderful, says Lorraine. They worked very hard and came up with novel ideas of how to present the material."
About editing this web site Lorraine says she has learned more about Russia than she would have had she not had the opportunity to work with us. "I try to leave a Russian feel in the text she says. My experience has taught me that it is important for people from other countries, who read what is written here, to catch a glimpse of the Russia that is quickly emerging from the shadows of the past. There is so much to see, to do, and to experience in this part of the world. I enjoy each and every day I am here".
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