Introductions

After my brief and harried introduction to Poltava Transportation, I began gearing up for my next hurdle: first day in a college classroom. I was going to have my first classroom experience just a few short days after my trolley lesson, so I made a trial run of getting there by myself the day before I was supposed to be there.

Although Poltava is not a large town, by any means, it does take a while to learn one’s way around. After having lived here for a while, I realize how straightforward most of the city is laid out. However, when I had only lived here for a few days, Poltava seemed to be a labyrinth of scariness.

I carefully counted bus stops and turns between my bus stop and my destination. Because my only exposure to this route had occurred at night, I was unable to recognize the physical landmarks or the names of the bus stops (which didn’t really matter because the stops are not labeled) and was forced to rely on counting stops. I made it successfully to the university, walked around for a few minutes, and then tried to determine how to get back home. I couldn’t locate where the bus stop on the other side of the street was. I walked around, like a lost tourist, for quite a while before I followed a crowd of people who led me to the stop. By the time I made it home, I was thoroughly overwhelmed with the experience, sounds, pushing, shoving, and fast-paced nature of the whole process. However, I had made it there and back.

The following day, I was all full of butterflies and sick feelings. It was to be my very first day in one of the universities, and I had no idea what to expect. There really is something quite dreadful about being alone and terrified; you might be just as terrified if someone else is with you, but at least you can share your terror. I gave myself a pep talk in the mirror next to my door before I headed out. I’m sure it looked funny, but again, I was alone, so who was going to make fun?

I made it to the university, and (after wandering around the corridors for ten minutes, feeling lost and despairing) I found the Director of Language’s office. She bustled me off to a class that was already in session, causing me to feel flustered and awkward. The professor seated me at the head of the class and introduced me. I felt very awkward an unprepared, having thought I would be observing. The professor immediately began peppering me with questions, encouraging the students to jump in. I proceeded to answer questions about myself, my life, my university, my family, and American politics for the next 45 minutes. It was my first experience in fielding questions about which way I vote, how much I make, and how much I pay for my apartment.

The professor did, eventually, redirect attentions from me to the lesson at hand. She passed me a copy of the textbook so that I could follow along. While the students- who happened to be a group of students who study all of their lessons in English, rather than Ukrainian- read from the book and answered questions provided by their professor, I sneaked glances around the group at the table.

There were only about 8 or 9 students in the classroom, and most of them were girls. They all seemed to be so tall and thin. Most had long hair and were absolutely beautiful. The fashion seemed to be skin-tight, straight-legged jeans tucked into super-high heeled boots made from shiny plether. Shirts were flashy and tailored- no sign of a t-shirt in sight. I felt a little frumpy in my practical, flat books and my cardigan. Watching the students’ faces was interesting; I tried to guess what their families might be like and what kind of personalities they had. I also tried to guess which ones looked like they would have been my friends, had I been a fellow student.

I caught the eyes of a couple of the girls while I was making my inspections. We traded hesitant smiles, and I tried not to be creepy. I winked at one girl when she caught me, and she winked back, smiling. As I was so absorbed in my observations, I was caught off-guard when the professor asked me to read a section aloud.

I read a passage about international economics (that I did not understand at all) to the best of my ability. When I finished, they clapped.

“Beautiful. It sounded like music.” The professor asked the students if they agreed. I blushed. “Would you read some more?”

I read several more articles about economics and international management, enduring unwarranted compliments after each.

A moment before the bell rang, the professor encouraged the students to get to know me. She told them it would be wise of them to exchange cell phone numbers with me before leaving so that they could arrange to visit outside of class. She gave them a stern look and encouraged them to meet with me so that they could practice their English with a native speaker, especially one with so nice an accent.

The bell rang, and the class scattered. I was rather disheartened that no one seemed to want to get to know me. I turned to thank the professor, and when I turned towards the door, I saw the Girl who Winked staring at me.

“Hello. My name is Victoria. I would like to get your phone number. Would you like to have tea with myself and some of the other girls sometime?” She smiled and handed me a piece of paper on which to write my number.

“Oh…I’d love to! Thank you!” She smiled again and headed out.

A few hours later, back in my apartment, I got a phone call from Victoria. She invited me to meet at the central monument of Poltava with a group of girls from their class. We would go together to have tea. She had wasted no time in taking the professor up on her admonition. Little did I know that she would turn out to be one of my favorite people from my time spent in Ukraine.

BUSted: Tapping into my fear of public transportation

After 2 days of Mike’s expert handling of the typical Ukrainian run-around, we had signed a “lease” on the Pretty Apartment. Quick as lightening, we moved all of my belongings (including the washing machine that we’d just had delivered and put into place) to the new apartment and canceled the lease with Mr. Wanted-to-spend-the-night-and-thought-it-was-fine landlord.

The new apartment was not only aesthetically nice but infinitely safer. The building was much smaller: only 5 stories, and my apartment was only on the 2^nd floor. Instead of one door from the landing into the apartment, mine had TWO doors with 4 locks and 2 deadbolts. The apartment was immediately christened “Fort Knox.” My first night in my second new apartment was not clouded by tears and fears.

Having cleared the hurdles of moving and settling me into Poltava, the Rays returned to Dnipropetrovsk, as they had their own lives and responsibilities to tend to. As I watched their car pull away, I had a moment of panic: What AM I doing? In a foreign country- by myself??

I calmed down quickly, though. I was armed with quite a stash of cell phones numbers, including Ira’s and two other English-speaking girls, Nastia and Maya. I would have to call one of them in the very near future because I had a pressing need: how to use the transportation system.

I was extremely nervous about this. Public transportation in Ukraine isn’t like public transportation in other European countries. I knew that they don’t post routes or schedules AND that I’d have to learn the areas of the city AND how to read the signs in Russian. All of that was enough to make me sweat. Thankfully, Ira was proactive and contacted me about setting up a time to go over Transportation Orientation 101.

The afternoon after the Rays left, Ira met me at my apartment building, and we went for a walk. We stopped in a small park and claimed a bench to use as our classroom. Before sitting, Ira spread two of her notebooks on the bench, explaining to me the Ukrainian belief that sitting on cold surfaces would cause infertility in women. I tried not to gape at her and sat- rather uncomfortably- on her notebook. Ira began to draw a map of Poltava. She explained the differences in trolleys, buses, and marshrutkas and their respective prices. Thankfully, she clearly labeled the map she was creating for me with the Ukrainian names of the different parts of the city. We made a quick list of some of the places I would need to go on a weekly basis, and she made a list of the different options I had for traveling to each location. I began to get confused, though, when she explained that it was very easy to get on a bus going to a certain sector of the city- by way of the longest route possible. She said it was important to pay careful attention to the order of the stops listed on each sign.

My nervousness returned; I’d seen the signs propped in the front windows of buses and knew that I’d have to be a speed reader (in Ukrainian, no less) to catch all of the places listed. I was just going to have to do some quick memorization.

After our crash course on transportation, we headed off together to Thursday night prayer meeting, which was a new experience in-and-of-itself. Following prayer meeting- with my brain turning to mush because of culture/language overload- a large gang of young adults from the church informed me that we were all going to head downtown, as a practical lesson in transportation.

I thought this was an excellent plan…until we got to the bus stop. I realized that it was exceedingly difficult to read the signs in the dark, and most of the vehicles were zooming in and out so fast that I couldn’t even begin to sound out the words on the signs in the front windows. Trolley #12 pulled in, and we got on. Ira began explaining to me how payments work and about basic trolley etiquette. I was immediately overwhelmed. There were no seats available, so we were all standing. In my case, “standing” translated into rocking- splay-legged- desperately hanging on to the overhead bar (which caused me to swing around like a kid on monkey bars). If trying to remain vertical wasn’t enough, I realized that I was going to have to dig in my purse and find money to pay for my ticket. I still wasn’t terribly familiar with the coins and bills, and I was wary of releasing my hold on anything stable to search through my wallet. In the dark. As I was rummaging around in my purse and frequently falling and bumping into other passengers, I realized that my time in Ukraine was destined to be fraught with humiliating experiences.

And, I discovered all of this before we even hit the tumultuous surface of the cobblestone road. I will leave up to your imagination the image of my attempts to remain vertical on that road...

What Now?

I woke up at 6 the next morning, my phone vibrating on the floor by the bed. My eyes were puffy from crying and my head was throbbing, but everything was better when I answered the phone and heard my mom.

“Hey, Baby. Are you ok?”

I struggled for a second; I didn’t know if I should tell her all of it or if I should smooth it over until I had a brighter ending. I decided to tell her. I tried to keep my voice even so that I wouldn’t scare her. When I finished telling her the story, I had to know something.

“Why did you call me right now, Mom?”

“Well, I just felt like something wasn’t right. I wanted to check on you. Apparently, I was right.” She paused for a second, then said, “I’m going to pray that you move to a new apartment. Today.”

“Mom, I don’t know how possible that will be…”

“I know. I’m going to pray that, nonetheless. In fact, I’m going to give the phone to your Daddy so he can pray about it with you right now.”

A couple hours later when I got up in earnest, my outlook on the day was a little brighter (it couldn’t get too much worse than it had been the night before, I guess). I was significantly comforted by the fact that my parents were praying about my situation and had, doubtless, already called others to ask them to pray about it, too.

My spirits rose even higher when Mrs. Linda told me at breakfast that Mike had already decided that we were going to look for a new apartment. My face must have shown my relief, because she said, “I thought that might make you feel better. I know you were being brave last night, but I knew you had to be terrified. We prayed about it for a while after you went to your room last night, and we felt that you need to move.”

I felt so relieved! However, at the same time, I felt guilty and very much like an inconvenience. With the daylight came feelings of doubt: was it really that scary? Did I make more out of it than there actually was? I knew that those were dumb thoughts, but they crept in anyway.

The three of us met with Oksana a little later so that she could take us to meet the realtor. I felt sheepish and silly; I don’t like having a fuss made about me. I didn’t want anyone outside of the circle to think that I was changing apartments because the apartment wasn’t good enough for me. Several of the church ladies had already been expressing concerns that it wouldn’t be adequate for me, and I most definitely didn’t want that rumor spreading around as fact. Mike had filled Oksana in on the situation, and she was properly concerned for me, fretting and fussing in an attempt to make me understand that life would, indeed, get better.

The realtor took us to the first apartment, and my jaw hit the floor. It was SO nice. Everything about it had a kind of elegance, compared to my Apartment of Disaster. The wallpaper was pretty, the curtains were solid colors that matched the rooms’ décor, and the bathroom was exquisite. No turquoise going on in there. My hope started to peak, and I felt a need to beat it down; I knew there were others to look at, and there was a good chance that I wouldn’t be living in the fantastic apartment I was currently standing in. Before we left, the landlord’s wife (who had been standing on the fringe of our group during the tour) looked at me, winked an I’ll-convince-him-to-sign-you-as-our-tenant kind of wink, and kissed a babushka Kiss of Approval in my direction. The hope started to surge again.

Option number 2 brought me back to reality: most apartments for rent are not the model of beauty that we’d just left. The whole place smelled of cabbage, the bathroom doors didn’t shut fully or lock, the family living there hadn’t packed a thing- making it harder for me to see what was actually there under all of their possessions. I told myself that I should go ahead and look at this one as “home.” It would probably be more in our price range, and it was smaller, which would definitely make more sense, seeing as how there is just one of me.

We didn’t discuss the apartments until we had parted company with Oksana and the realtor and settled in at a pizza restaurant for lunch.

“I think we should try to get the first apartment.”

My heart almost stopped when I heard Mike say that. I couldn’t believe it!

“The prices are the same, and if we take the first apartment then we won’t have to get a second apartment for the Hands-on girls.”

I knew that two girls would be joining me in January and working with me for 4 months. Mike continued, “You won’t mind them living in the same apartment with you, will you?”

“No, sir! Definitely not!” I would be infinitely more than happy to have roommates, especially if that meant the Fancy Apartment rather than the Cabbage Apartment. After this had been decided, I was more able to enjoy my pizza.

After lunch, Mike began the process of trying to make all the right contacts and track down all the paperwork. The more phones calls he made, the more discouraged I began to feel. It seemed like every person he talked to had nothing but bad news for him.

At one point, we were parked outside of the hoped-for apartment building, sitting in the car while Mike made call number 57, and totally unbidden, a song from many moons ago began playing in my head: “God will make a way/ when there seems to be no way/ He works in ways we cannot see/ He will make a way for me/ He will be my guide/ Hold me closely to His side/ With love and strength for each new day/ He will make a way/ God will make a way.”

I hadn’t thought of that song in ages, but as I sang it in my head, I felt inexplicably calmer. Suddenly, I knew I was going to be living in that apartment. I just knew it. For once in 48 hours, I didn’t feel like I was on the verge of tears.