Walking

I hate walking. I really do.

When I was a kid, my friends and I would pretend that we were X-men. We would take turns picking which character we wanted to be. Some of the most popular picks were Wolverine, Cyclops, and Gambit because of their strength and unique skills. It didn’t matter if I was given the first or last pick no one ever chose my character. I was Professor X, and I did not choose him (although I might have, with my keen 11-year old brain) because he was a mutant scientific genius with one of the most powerful mutant minds, or because he was a high-level telepath. Nope. I chose him because he had the floating chair. While all of my friends would walk around, fighting and attacking each other, I would sit in my chair and imagine that I was floating with them, and using my telekinesis on them.

A few years ago, while Heather and I were living in the condo, I had classes that started in the mid-morning at BYU. I would drive a little early to school, stop between the RB and the SFH, and talk to a random person who was walking back to their car. I would offer to drive them back if I could have their parking spot, as these spots were often in the first few rows. Even today, I would rather drive around for 20 minutes looking for a close parking spot, than park an extra 5 minutes away. (I have considered transferring law schools because the employee parking pass Heather received while working at BYU expired at the end of this school year, which means I will have to park a few rows back, instead of right in front of the school.)

Kiev is a hard place to live if you do not like to walk. You have to walk everywhere. Eastern Europeans raise their children to walk. The training to become completely adept at walking starts when the children are quite young. As soon as a baby takes their first steps, they are taken outside and led around the apartment building. At this time, the children are placed in heavy coats and hats (see last post) which are worn in order to weigh down the child, block their vision and make it very difficult to walk. These items, like ankle weights, strengthen the child. The next thing that Eastern Europeans wisely do is make sure that no street, sidewalk, or path is completely flat. The stairs here are also never the same height, and are often sloping. The building where I work is very nice and modern. Still the difference between the highest step and the lowest step is about 2 inches. One of the steps at the top of a landing I trip on almost every single day I go to work, because it is so much higher than the other steps. (I can totally picture two builders standing around looking at the stairs. One turns to the other and says, “should we measure these.” The other one replies, “how about we just eyeball it, no one will ever know.”)

All of this unevenness helps the child learn early and after numerous falls to always pick up their feet. They begin to understand that every step they take can be terribly dangerous, and it is more than a little likely that if they fall the broken glass and bottle tops that soften their landing will put them in the hospital. There are also amazing coaches here, mainly old ladies, who criticize the children as they walk. These babushkas (please place the emphasis of this word over the a (not the u)) point out everything that the kids are, or possibly could be doing wrong. This method of tearing them down only makes these children stronger. After years of training, the children are finally ready to gulyat (a pleasant word meaning – walk, wander, date, drink alcohol, do nothing, etc.). Every evening, while the American kids are sleeping and dreaming about cakes and cookies, the teenagers of Eastern Europe are exercising and strengthening their legs, roaming the streets all hours of the night (we often hear them training outside our window at 2 am). That is why Ukrainians are amazing at walking. Put simply, Ukrainians are as good at walking, as Americans are at sitting on the couch and eating fast food. Yeah, they are that good!

In Kiev there are about 10,000 different bus routes. None of these routes are able to stop or pick me up right where I need to be. I still have to walk at least 15 minutes no matter where I am dropped off, or picked up in the city. A good suggestion would be to take the Metro. Unfortunately, with all of the convenience of the Metro, you still have to go to and from the Metro, and the Metro is also 15 minutes away from everything, or it is so deep that you spend 20 minutes riding the escalator, and another 10 minutes trying to get out of the Metro.

The funny thing is, I am really quite good at walking. People constantly compliment me on my ability to walk quickly and those who have walked with me say I walk like I drive (I do not know if that is a compliment or not). Sure I am no Jefferson Perez (google him), but I am a good walker. On my mission in Moscow I learned that whole days could be wasted on transport. I had great companions who taught me that we always should hustle and try to get to where we needed to go as quickly as possible. I tried to do this throughout my time on my mission, and I like to think that I now always walk quickly and with purpose.

Yesterday, we had the opportunity to go walk around one of the more famous parts of Kiev, we saw Rodina Mat’ and the war memorial museum. We walked through the Kiev-Pechersk Lavr and we saw a number of monuments in that area. We left at about 9:30 and after the first two hours of walking I felt okay. We were shown this part of the city by Pyotr, someone we live with. About 40 years ago he was a runner, but it has probably been quite a while since has exercised or worked out. Like I said, it started out okay, but as the hours went by I realized that there was a good possibility that I might die there on the streets of Kiev. I had an inner-struggle with my pride not wanting Pyotr to show me up, versus the desire that I had to cry and beg for home. The whole time we walked, Pyotr kept on naming other places we should go as soon as we finished looking at this part of the city. My depression and anger at the thought of more walking rose with the number of destinations we ‘just had to see’. I have never been so grateful for Taylor becoming irritable and fussy. As soon as Taylor started to cry, I knew that I had an excuse and an out. So after countless hours and 100s of kilometers we were finished. I was so excited to get home because my legs, feet, and ankles were tired, I felt weary and I was just plain mad that I had walked so much. As soon as we got back home, I changed into shorts and went and played basketball for 2 hours.

Heather and Taylor with PyotrWritten by David, Pictures and Design by Heather :)