Rust is close to C++, in that you get a lot of high level constructs to help you. C is very low level, and you can learn the syntax in a weekend, but you’ll also have to learn memory management and implement advanced structures (linked lists, etc) yourself.

Memory management isn’t too hard, it’s mostly remembering who created what, who reads and writes to it, and who is responsible for cleaning up. With some additional comments as you go it’s not too hard. Also, depending on what your doing, leaks may be acceptable. A short lived program can leak all it likes, and the OS will clean up for you ibthe end :D