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This story has appeared in the Christian
Science
Monitor.
Getting
lost
can be fun
I walked up and down
the platform, inquiring of those waiting for a train,
'Stadion? Stadion?'
November 14, 2005
By Edward Ordman
I don't exactly get lost deliberately. But I
know that
adventures happen that way, and I don't go to the lengths I
might to prevent
getting lost. At 21 I was lost in rural Norway, and a young
child pointed me in
the right direction when I drew a picture of a railroad train.
In 1971, when I
was 27, I got lost in Nablus in the West Bank and was rescued
by a friendly
Palestinian.
So it is nothing new for me. But some memorable
adventures came
in 1991, when my wife and I were traveling in Ukraine.
The group we were traveling with was spending a
week each at
three teachers' colleges. They were in Kherson, Odessa, and
Kiev. Each morning
the faculty gave talks on local history and culture.
Afternoons were for
sightseeing, and evenings were spent talking with the local
students so they could
practice English with a native speaker.
This was the summer before the Soviet Union
dissolved, and there
was a considerable sense of openness. Still, the Soviet agency
Intourist had a
fairly heavy hand on the tourist part of the itinerary.
My wife and I travel to meet people much more
than to see
monuments and mountains, and we often escaped from the tour
group when the
day's schedule looked as though it wouldn't include much
opportunity to mix
with the local people.
Wandering on our own in Kiev, we visited a
newly opened
independent Ukrainian Orthodox Church. The people were still
excited by the
idea of a church that was not state-controlled.
As we walked along the hilltop park looking
down on the river
valley, we were approached by an older couple.
"Are you Jewish?" the man asked. Yes, I am. I
don't
know if it was my nose, my beard, or my tourist name tag that
suggested the
question to him, but he continued, "Would you like to see the
synagogue?"
They led my wife and me for what seemed like
miles through the
city. It was always "just a little bit farther," but
eventually we
got there. This was the sole surviving synagogue of Kiev in
1991. There had
been hundreds, we were told, in the 1930s. But only three
survived the Nazis,
and one survived the Communists.
It was a fascinating visit.
But then we had to get home. Could we avoid the
long walk back
to our hotel? Our hosts gave us directions on how to get there
by subway. But
somehow we made a wrong turn and were soon hopelessly lost
somewhere in the
underground of Kiev.
At that point I realized that our hotel key had
no name on it,
and in the excitement of the day I'd forgotten the name of the
hotel.
Any hints? Yes, our hotel room had a view of a
very large sports
stadium. If I could find the stadium, I could probably manage
to find the
hotel.
Inquiries of people on the subway platform
failed to find anyone
who spoke any language I knew, but studying the signs in the
station (based on
my incomplete knowledge of the Cyrillic alphabet) revealed a
name in what must
be, I thought, a list of stations. It seemed to say "Stadion."
No doubt the same sign also said something like
"take the
Blue Line north," but I couldn't read that. I took to walking
up and down
the platform as if searching for something, and inquiring of
those waiting for
a train, "Stadion? Stadion?"
A young, athletic-looking man appeared. In
pantomime and a few
words of English, he indicated that he was a runner and
actually raced in the
"Stadion." Did I want to visit it?
I'm not sure how well he understood my answer,
but he
volunteered to take us to see the Stadion. As he led us
through the various
subway changes, we managed to communicate somewhat more. If he
was disappointed
that we weren't actually sports fans, he didn't show it. He
took great delight
in befriending visiting Americans and swapping the limited
observations we
could about the United States and Ukraine.
When we arrived at the stadium, I could see our
hotel up the
hill; we were found. We thanked him profusely and gave him a
small American
flag, which he appreciated.
It was by no means the only time locals in
Ukraine befriended us
- not even the only time on this trip that we managed to get
lost and have an
adventure. But it helped build a feeling for the country that
we still treasure.
And my wife and I are still very willing to head off on an
adventure, even if
we are not at all sure where we are going.