So that's why I'm here...

It ain’t no secret that I’ve been going through a bit of a rough patch lately. Today as I actively dragged myself out of it to prevent my last month here from slipping away in a bad way, an initially unpleasant situation ultimately reminded me why I am here, and despite everything I’ve bee griping about, why I really do love the place.

After teaching my one lesson (I have a pretty easy Friday- not only do I finish with my official duties after the first hour of the day, the class is one of the best group of students to teach!) I pounced on the surprise rain reprieve and set out on a run. Since most of the trails were sure to be waterlogged or practically little rivers themselves, I decided to stick to the paved roads. I headed north up a residential side-road. Just as I was about to pass a woman walking I tripped on a grate past some train tracks and re-twisted my ankle.

I’m a klutz and over the years have found numerous and ridiculous opportunities to sprain or twist my ankles. Back in March though, the week before I left for the Dolomites, I REALLY sprained it. It’s taken a long time to heal and every-once-and-a-while still gives me some trouble. So, after I rolled it and felt the instantaneous shooting pain of a re-injury—like waking up some kind of angry sleeping beast—I was pretty sure that I had taken about twenty steps back in the healing process and had foiled my hiking plans for the next day. I pulled over and sat down on the curb for a second to assess the situation.

The woman I had been on the brink of passing stopped walking and asked me (in Slovak) if I needed help, or if she needed to go find help somewhere. I insisted I was fine, and tried to express that it was a simple ankle re-roll. She then asked where I was from, and I discovered that her daughter lives in Toronto Canada, and has two amazing children, “Max a Zovey (Max and Zooey)”. When I was able to stand I hobbled next to her as we continued up the road. She asked where I was going, what I was up to, etc. When we parted ways at her gate she told me that on the way back I should stop by for some coffee.

I proceeded to get in a pretty decent jog. The paved road eventually morphs into a forest service road, so I did get a little gentle trail running in after all. It started raining on me, at first simply spitting but eventually picking up force. As Becky, one of my fellow Americans says though, “once you’re out it doesn’t matter.” Truth. In fact, for the first time in a while I was actually enjoying and appreciating the rain.

On the way back I was contemplating whether or not I was actually going to stop at this complete stranger’s house. I’ve been a guest in Slovak homes, and sometimes the overwhelming hospitality can turn into a hostage-like situation pretty quickly. Was I ready for that? Or did I just need to generate some good ol’ endorphins solo?

As I was about to pass her house (I was soaking wet, I didn’t want to get her house dirty, and oh, yeah, I didn’t even KNOW her and there’s that whole language barrier…) I decided to stop at the last second. I opened the gate, cautiously ascended the steps and pushed the buzzer with a green bell on it. I didn’t hear any sound from within, but you never know about these doorbells. I waited around for a good solid minute, then, almost relieved, descended the steps and headed back out into the rain to finish my run. What was I thinking; it would have been a bad idea anyways….

Not twenty strides away I heard a shout and the woman was at her kitchen window signaling to me. I re-approached the house and tried to convey that I was wet so maybe I should just wait on the porch. She insisted I come in—which I expected—but told me just to leave my shoes on instead of slipping into a pair of house slippers—which I did NOT expect. Between knowing how Slovaks feel about shoes in the house (not good) and my own mother (really not good) I cringed with every step I took knowing that I was leaving a trail of wet shoe prints on her immaculate floors.

We entered her kitchen; she sat me down and started boiling water for instant coffee and cutting an inevitable slice of cake despite my protests. She also brought over envelopes with pictures of little Max, Zooey, and her daughter and son-in-law skiing back home in Canada and on vacation in Cuba. She’d gesture at a particularly cute picture, or elaborate on where the happy family was vacationing.

I spent about a half hour or 40 minutes in this woman’s house, and I never did catch her name. We talked about what I was doing in Slovakia and I found myself elaborating on my whole long and involved connection with this country. After feeling like my zeal for being here and the validity of my project had recently gone a little stale, this helped revive it. She told me more about her family, here bi-annual visits to Canada, and a surgery she had had there which I think we were able to agree was on her thyroid gland. She told me about her afternoon plans to go to Brezno to buy boots for one of her granddaughters, and filled me on a great place in Tisovec to get some shoes if I ever need them. The whole interaction took place in Slovak, and I was even struggling through (and probably butchering) some past-tense. Nevertheless the message was received and she seemed to understand everything I was trying to say, even about old Slovaks being hard workers—especially in the Orava region both she and my grandma’s family were from. It felt like we were actually communicating, beyond the small talk I so-often have with strangers or the cleaning women at my school. And I was doing it by myself, without the aid of one of my students for translation.

Outside again on the porch I thanked her profusely while she rubbed my cheek, said it was nothing, and hoped there’d be a second time. She showed me the right doorbell to use on my next visit. After closing the gate behind me I stuck in one of my earphones and Cat Steven’s “the wind” was playing, one of my ANTHEMS and the perfect song to hear at that moment! I was totally jazzed.

At first I thought I had re-injured my ankle, that despite my efforts to improve my situation here I had actually made it worse. But if I had just jogged by that woman, and had not instead been engaged in conversation our happy little meeting would probably never have transpired. The piece of cake probably canceled out my run, but the social interaction, subtle reminder of why I’m even here in the first place, and of course getting out for a while kept the balance in the positive for sure.