The Foreign Service Journal, January 2012

slurring made it nearly impossible to understand him, but I appreciated his interest. “It’s my cat. I lost her,” I replied. He didn’t react for a moment, then said a few words, of which I understood “wait” and “moment” and “others,” before approaching his drinking buddies on a nearby bench. Within a few moments he came back and said an- other few lines, of which I caught “haven’t seen,” “we live on the street,” “look” and “terrible.” He reached up and patted my arm soothingly. I watched as he staggered back to his buddies on the park bench. They raised their hands to me to indicate their support of me in my plight. It was one of the most touching gestures I’ve ever received. As it turned out, after all the helpful searching our cat eventually turned up in the construction lot next door, where we had started our search. So I can’t honestly say that our relationships with our neighbors helped us find her. But their concern did bring home to me how far we had come since our arrival in breaking through the cul- tural divide, and how much those simple relationships mean in one’s life. I am now in my third month of a new assignment in Es- tonia, starting all over again in a new city and neighbor- hood. I miss that noisy, messy life on Vorovoskogo Street and its cozy familiarity, so I often find myself thinking of that memorable cast of characters. I miss seeing Papa supervise Mama, Mama supervise the neighborhood, Igor’s gold tooth shining in the sun when he smiled, the drunks fighting at night and nodding hello as we pass them the next afternoon; the sweet, sad- faced prostitutes; and the Goodfellas, lovely Flower Ladies, Bicycle Man, Poodle Lady and other characters we came to know and love. I was warned ahead of time that the people up here in the far north are slow to warm up to strangers, but that doesn’t intimidate me a bit. All I have to do is remember to smile, stupidly, and say hello — and eventually, say in two or three years, they’ll say hello back. With a little pa- tience and courage, I’m sure someday I’ll be reflecting on the characters on Roosikrantsi Street. J A N U A R Y 2 0 1 2 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 31 F OCUS