A New Perspective

When I first arrived here in Kiev 2 months ago, I really started to second guess my decision making abilities. I can't count the number of times a day I asked myself what I had done in deciding to come here. I had intentionally thrown myself outside of anything even remotely resembling my comfort zone, and I couldn't remember any of my reasons for doing it.
At first, I basically hated everything. I hated being so far from home and family, I hated the food, the copious amounts of sour cream they put on everything, I hated constantly being sick and/or lost, I hated not being able to communicate with anyone and all the "wow, you are just a dumb American" looks I got each day, I hated being yelled at all the time by old people on the metro or the bus or just on the street for who knows what social norm I had just broken, I hated the snow and slush and constant fog and humidity, I hated all the garbage in the streets, I hated my psychotically energetic terroristic students, I hated not even being able to read street signs. Needless to say, things were rough for a while.
Gradually I started to realize that hating everything about this place would get me nowhere except deeper into my state of depression.
It occurred to me that getting to know this city was gong to be like getting to know a person. I had some preconceived notions when I got here, and like most of my inaccurate first impressions of people and places do, most of them got thrown out the window. I decided that I needed to step back out of my tentatively reestablished comfort zones and do some exploring to get to know the city and people here better.
Some days, when the sun is shining and my spirits are high, I just go and get myself good and lost somewhere in the city, then see what interesting things I can discover while I'm at it. Again, exploring the city is like exploring someone's personality. When you get lost in a good, long, pointless conversation, you learn the most about them. You discover their little quirks, their boundaries, the way they see the world, and their opinions on what the world SHOULD be like. I opened my eyes, almost for the first time, and now I never cease to be amazed at the things I see every day. I see joy and sorrow, hope and despair. I discover beauty in the most unlikely of places, and I see the want of depth behind the masks of all the "pretty people" here. I see laughter and tears and life and death and love in a way I never thought possible.
I love people watching as I wander the city, it fascinates me to observe all the little dramas surrounding me. I especially like walking through parks and past playgrounds. There is something so honest and pure about the way children react to the world, if only the rest of us could be more like that. I have watched kids be entertained for hours just digging in the mud or jumping off snow banks, or poking everything in sight (including their irritated babushkas) with a stick they've found. I've walked past school yards during recess and just stopped to watch all the spontaneous energy and use of imagination that is so lacking in the adult world on my side of the fence. On occasion there will be one lone child standing in the corner where two sides of the chain link fence meet, just looking out at the people walking by. I wonder what that bright eyed child is thinking, if they are longing to be one of those "grown ups" who have more important things to do than slide down slides and swing on swings. I smile at them when I can catch their eye, and wave at them. They often seem caught off guard by this gesture, then they decide that I'm not so scary, and flash me a hesitant smile before running back to their friends. Cherish your innocence while you can, I think as I continue down the road to the metro station. There I pass the same whithered old woman, wrapped in her scarf and worn out coat, sporting her too large pair of army boots as she leans on her cane, begging for someone to buy her whithering carrots and turnips. The hallow look she gives me haunts me all the way home. I wonder if she was ever as carefree as that child on the playground, full of hope and dreams for the future. Here I am faced with the understanding that like a person, this city also contains both good and bad, light and darkness, hope and dispair, life and death. When I first arrived here, all I saw was the darkness, and I was terrified of it. Now I understand that in general people and places are instinctively good, I don't know many mentally stable people who enjoy doing bad things just to cause problems for everyone else. There is always good mixed in with the bad, and generally there is more good than bad. Nowhere and noone is perfect, but we all have light inside us, more than we have darkness if we let it be seen.
I'm having to apply that same principle of understanding to some of my students. There are a few who insist on being disruptive and uncooperative, and to be honest they started out on my list of things I hated about being here. Now I understand that they are just bored and want to be challenged. They are intelligent and inquisative, they just needed a guiding hand to put all their energy to good use. I've been learning to take the bad with the good, and to try to only focus on the good. When we focus on expanding the good within ourselves, there is less room for the bad. Our head teacher told us when we first arrived here to just love our students, and the rest would just work out. It is hard to love the crazy ones, but I am learning, just as they are. There is no sense in me dwelling on the bad, when there is so much more good I could be spending my time worrying about. My stress level is decreasing as I learn to apply that idea. Those who read the comics rather than the obituaries when they first pick up a newspaper live longer, so I'm learning to focus on the good. Now the things I hated at first are becoming the things I love the most about this place.