Thirty months of no running is over

25 May 2019

                This morning, I went for my first run since November 11, 2016. It was fabulous! My knees were completely pain-free, the foot which was operated on last October (see:  https://runner12345.blogspot.com/2019/05/hallux-valgus-bunion-surgery.html) was pain-free, and even the strange blisters on my toes did not hurt much. It was great, not only because my body didn’t hurt, but also because I was running around my neighborhood. The thing is that in the past—in Tirana, Panora, Emmetsburg, and Moscow—I got to know the area because I ran around it. I knew all the ways to get places, little connections that aren’t immediately evident, and I knew where things were. Until now, here in Kiev, my neighborhood has been quite small.

This morning, I ran where I’d never been before. There was a long, tall concrete wall, alongside of which, there were a dozen young military guys sweeping and picking garbage on a Saturday morning. Soon after the military dudes, I heard a crowd of dogs barking their heads off. Pretty soon, I passed a man walking with two beautiful German Shepherds in the prime of life and looking quite happy with themselves. I looked up and there was a gate announcing a police dog training facility. I peeked through the fence and I saw a couple people working with a dog, teaching him to be a well-behaved puppy. I’d found the source of the barking.

The police dog training facility

After I passed them, the path became progressively narrower until, just past the police dog training area, it became three feet wide with walls on each side. It felt like I was somewhere I shouldn’t have been. It snaked through an area with pieces of broken concrete underfoot, some patches of mud, and some puddles. At some places, the sides were patched together with scraps of old advertising.

The entrance to the narrow walkway with walls on the sides. The sign is in Ukrainian, so I don't understand it all. What I DID understand was, "Entrance, ... with ... electronic (missing?)" I didn't worry about it. I was hoping I could plead ignorance.
It actually said something about "Entrance only with an electronic pass" I guess that was the gate to the left, not the passageway.

At the end of the snake, it opened onto tar-surfaced roofs of storage sheds that were the size of garages. There was nowhere else to go except out onto the roofs themselves, so, that’s where I ran. Just behind me came a bicyclist who road across the roofs, so I was okay. After about 40 meters, the rooves of the sheds butted up to a wild area of trees. A narrow, damp path led through to a genuine driveway along an apartment building and then a street.

This is the tar-covered roof I ran on. The perspective looks almost like the roofs are even with the level of the sheds, but this is misleading. Click on the picture and it will get bigger. Or just believe me.

This is the exit on the other side of the roofs.

This is a huge snail who was trucking along the path. Later that afternoon, I ate some snails at an Italian food/culture fest. The snails I ate were probably half this size.

Google showed me that I was about to step onto Peremohy (“victory” in Ukrainian). I didn’t think that could be right because I knew that the major thoroughfare out of the center of the city was named Peremohy, and that was far away, unless I had become terribly lost.

I asked one man, “What is the name of this street?”

                “Pobedi,” he answered, not unkindly. That was the Russian word for “victory.” I was confused. It was truly Peremohy, but how is that possible? Is it old Peremohy or something?

I asked another man. “So this is Peremohy, right?”

“Yes.”

I made a motion over the trees and toward the other Peremohy with a quizzical look on my face.

“To prospekt, a eta ulitsa.” That one is Avenue, this one it Street. Now, it’s clear.

The night before, I had told a colleague that I wanted to find an orphanage where I could teach English as a volunteer. I feel like I am very well-off and living comfortably, I want to spread some of my comfort to others. I thought I’d stumbled into one of those amazing coincidences in life, when I looked at my Google map, and I noticed something called a “Children’s home” not far from my present position. Was it a sign?

Earlier, when I had run down my street, I noticed several guys cleaning/painting a fence. These weren’t military men. They were dressed in the shabbiest of torn t-shirts and flip-flops with cigarettes dangling from their lips. This very place was the orphanage. The address…47 Kotelnikova, while I live at 13 Kotelnikova. How convenient. As I ran by, I stopped and said I was an English teacher, and wanted to teach there. I explained that all I wanted was a business card or something—since it was the weekend and all. After two asked me what I was all about, first rather gruffly, but then a bit softer after the heard that I wasn’t trying to get something from them. I was told that I could go inside and a woman would meet me. As it turns out, the clients at that particular orphanage were patients who suffered from severe difficulties, some of who did not speak at all, and none were proficient in their own language; they had no need for an English teacher. She said I would need to find another type of orphanage where the kids either had parents, but were sent to live in a group-home environment, or one in which the kids did not have parents at all.

                So now, a new goal.