Dana L. Yeoman, DDS
Dentures and Implants
The Power of a Smile to Transcend Borders Part 4
Site last published: 08/28/10
The Power of a Smile to Transcend Borders Part 4
When I think of “comfort food” certain places come to mind. Carrow’s, for instance, has the best cream of broccoli soup on a rainy day. I also love the omelettes at Lorene’s Downtown. Comfort food has one important purpose in this life... to make you feel comfortable.
You might imagine my discomfort then when I tell you of my first breakfast in the country of Ukraine. Something that looked like a cross between porridge and grits was understandable. The vinegar-soaked chopped cabbage and onion salad... not so much. “Wake up and smell the onions” just isn’t as catchy to us in the United States. As much as I was resolved to accept this new culture with open arms, I could not get used to this sunrise delicacy.
The other cultural shock was the lack of toilet paper. Our rolls, that we had been smart enough to pack, were in the boxes that gotten lost in the London layover. Fourteen people, 3 days with no TP. I had never considered TP as a luxury before, but I began saving my museum receipts for more than just souvenirs.
One of my classmates, Luda, had been born in Russia. She served as a social guide to proper behavior, and I was continually being scolded for breaking the rules. For instance, I learned how to say “Hello” in Russian. In my enthusiasm to use my new word, I said “Hello” to everyone I met. Apparently there is a formal and an informal way to say “Hello” and I was treating everyone with the same indiscriminate casualness, insulting all my elders and superiors. This didn’t win any brownie points for me with the Ukrainians.
The strangest unspoken rule I struggled with was that people who smiled were treated with suspicion because they were obviously up to something bad. I am a generally happy person. I have a smile that is hard to suppress, especially in my excitement. I was so glad to be in this country (despite the onion breakfast) that I beamed at everyone, particularly when disrespectfully telling them “Hello”. I expected everyone to smile back, but there was little response. Aren’t we taught that smiles are contagious? Again, this is a very American mentality.
To top it off, Americans are loud. We don’t even recognize it. In a society which was frightened into keeping silent and not drawing any attention, even quiet Americans seem loud by comparison. So imagine a bus full of students arriving to our first “job”. We had been cooped up for hours in a bouncing bus and needed an outlet for all the energy that had been building since LAX. We descended like a rush of fools on the first thing we saw... a children’s playground. There were swings, teeter-totters, and a merry-go-round. Laughing and screaming like grade-schoolers, we made a huge ruckus. There were only a few people on the campus that afternoon, so it took a while for me to notice the amazed children holding the hands of the frowning adults.
This was the first American impression we made on the health facility that was to be our home for the next two weeks. People went out of their way to not talk to us unless they had to. Our dental equipment was strewn chaotically in the two rooms they gave us. Our air compressors tripped the breakers to their administration building. Sometimes I would forget myself and spontaneously hug someone who was kind enough to help us fix problems we were creating. They really didn’t know what to do with that.
With this wretched beginning, we lumbered our way into the disapproval of the very Ukrainian people we had come to bless. It was a bad start. By the time we had our first patients, a stern-looking older gentleman was intently watching our every move from his sinister perch in the corner.