Dana L. Yeoman, DDS
Dentures and Implants
The Power of a Smile to Transcend Borders Part 3
Site last published: 10/04/10
The Power of a Smile to Transcend Borders Part 3
A week before leaving for Kiev, the mother of my classmate saw a TV program exposing the illegal trade of the Gun Runners of Ukraine. Apparently, they were taking old Soviet weapons to the Middle East for profit. It made for a wonderfully hair-raising news story. It also made this poor mother a nervous wreck that I had talked her sweet, protected daughter into joining me on the trip.
Thinking that the likelihood of meeting a gun runner in an Ukrainian orphanage remarkably small, I never gave it a second thought. Since the expose´ came out on American television, I figured the Ukrainian government must already be cracking down on these scary criminals and wondered vaguely what they might look like.
I never thought they would look like us. Apparently the officials at the Borispyl airport thought so.
My group of students solemnly watched as Richard, our leader, was taken past the closed doors into the unknown catacombs of the airport. There are moments in life where you get a glimpse at what it feels like to be an orphan. Not only were my parents 6,300 miles away from me at that moment, but my surrogate parent was being taken away, for all practical purposes, to the Gulag. Who knew what would happen to the rest of us?
At times like this, your imagination is not your friend. Everything I had learned about Stalin and the Cold War during Freshman World History class flooded back to me within an instant. I could see our sweet-natured doctor being taken in for “questioning” and shipped to the camps in Siberia. I could see Khrushchev pounding his shoe on the table across from Richard yelling, “We will bury you!” I was sure the officials were using all sorts of ingenious forms of torture to extract a confession from our leader. We were undoubtedly the Beanie Baby Runners of Ukraine. These woeful thoughts of doom entertained us for an hour as we waited for some sign of what to do.
Looking in our translation books for how to panhandle in the Russian language and taking a moment to pray for everyone’s immediate future, we finally saw Richard being escorted back by the same uniformed entourage. Glancing over him quickly for evidence of inflicted violence, we soon were bewildered by the sight of... smiles... on everyone’s faces. Even the scary warden-looking lady with her hair pulled back into a tight bun... she was smiling with him. We were too afraid to ask why. We just went with it as if nothing was out of the ordinary.
Later he told us that the first 45 minutes was full of tense questions, serious phone calls to higher officials, and more questions. The air was oppressive within the room. They wanted to know the worth of the supplies we were bringing into Ukraine, hoping that somehow they could slap on an “import tax” and go home with a few more dollars in their pockets for the night. Richard held firm, saying that everything was donated, therefore had no value. Realizing it would be hard to get a percentage out of nothing, they finally gave up. Out of the blue, everyone lightened up within the last 15 minutes and they began to chat and smile with him.
Richard is a very talented doctor, but he’s also a very funny one. I would not doubt that he found a way to crack a joke that could be understood even translated into Russian. And then he would follow it up with that winning smile he unconsciously flashes. In this case, I’d call it more than a sense of humor. It’s a gift. And it led to our freedom.
Exiting the building in a hurry to leave, we turned our faces up to the sunshine with gladness of heart. If our reception from the officials seemed a little sketchy, imagine the naive surprise awaiting us at discovering a whole country of adults who didn’t think much differently than they. We may have barely made it through the Airport Customs, but even harder was making it through Cultural Customs. A whole new battle awaited us in the interior. But for now, we were gleefully back on our way to saving the world, one tooth at a time.