Slovakia etc.: Running on ice

As I was running to and from my my tutoring job yesterday (a little over 2 miles one way), I was thinking about how much I underestimated the difficulty of running on the ice. I thought I was going to edge over to the side of the path and run in the snow where I could have more of a grip, but that just slowed me down. Turns out, if you can walk on it, you can run on it.

As I ran home, I stretched this metaphor to pertain to more than one aspect of my life. Sure, it applied to running at the moment, but based on my busy, frustrating morning, I concluded: anything that CAN be done at all, can be done. It may seem obvious, but take my situation: I'm trying to get a volunteer permit to stay in Slovakia. Surely it's been done before. But with my luck, or lack there-of, and untimely setbacks, the task seems more daunting the more I close in on it. If things can be done at all, they can be done quickly. Maybe that's another stretch of the walking/running analogy. Running is just walking...faster. So if this process can be done at all (which we've already established) then surely it can be done faster. Faster than what? That's the conundrum.

Yesterday, I thought I had all the paperwork I needed when Jozef and I arrived at the foreign police. Yet, I left with a to-do list of 6 things still!
1. Get criminal background check in Slovakia (which no one had ever mentioned).
2. Have birth certificate translated in order to get the background check.
3. Re-sign the least to my apartment and have the signatures notarized at Town Hall.
4. Ask the apt owner for another copy of the apt ownership papers that are not older than 90 days.
5. Jozef must write a letter of my volunteer intentions in Slovakia.
6. Get enough "current funds" in my bank account to last one year here on the visa, which to them, is 2,250 Euros if I remember correctly.

Are you kidding me?!?! How discouraging does this process need to be!! For those I know that have permits, SOME steps were more simple (students or workers don't need sufficient funds in their account; those that live at the bible school don't have to deal with the apt leases; etc.) but how does it take this long?

It was the government office in Zilina yesterday that needed a translated version of my birth certificate, which Jozef found absurd. So, we went to the office in Martin, which didn't ask for that. I'll have the results in 7-10 days. Check. This morning, I went with the apt owners to Town Hall in Martin to get the lease notarized. Check. They are getting another copy of their ownership papers to me tomorrow. Check. Jozef is writing the letter for me and saying that he will cover all my expenses while I am here. Check.

So after receiving the background check, we can mail it ALL in and I just need a trip to the hospital for my TB check. After all this business with Zilina foreign police and translators and rush mail delivery and translating papers and getting the right papers from STA, Bank of America, and the FBI at home...an x-ray of my lungs seems pretty harmless.

Yesterday I felt pretty beaten down. Like in cartoons when characters get hammered into the ground until only their eyes peak out...that was me yesterday. I have not, however, lost any hope. I still count it as a good day. I got answers, encouraging hugs from Oystein, a package (I think!!), and got to go, cumulatively, on a long run. Plus tutoring was efficient and productive AND the lady who owns my apt, a super nice Slovak, asked me if I want to teach her English starting in March.

The journey to now has been long! But what journey to the moment we are in right now hasn't been long? It's been approximately as long as you have been alive, right? When I arrived in November, I didn't know the people I know now and was far more removed from actually obtaining my visa than I am now. Life is like this though - the more you know, the more questions you have. As I've progressed through this process, the more I have figured out, the more I have to do to get it done.

Jozef also asked me if I want to help teach 2nd grade this semester, as a sub for a second grade teacher who is moving to a different department. I enjoy being busy, but between classes in Zilina, tutoring the boys, tutoring Petra (the apt owner), hopefully helping in the orphanage, and possibly helping in 2nd grade....busy might be an understatement. We'll see. Absolutely nothing is for sure. Ever.

I have grown to like this factory that we live next to. In a strange way, when I'm close to it, I know I'm always home, back at my apartment. This picture shows off some of the beauty that I find in it, rather than an ugly polluting structure it actually is.