I am in a bit of a spiritual dry spot and I don't want to talk about it with the people here. I'm not one to ask for help and this is by no means a call for help, really just an expression of my thoughts and one way that I decided to deal with them. The other day I was feeling a bit restless so I tried to call a fellow missionary, Greg. He was busy so I had to find something else to do, which isn't a lot at midnight. One thought led to another and I decided to go for a walk.
If I were living in an apartment building, this would be simple. The problem is that I am living in the church, which is surrounded by a fence and locked at night. Now, there is a guard whose job is to lock and unlock stuff and make sure stuff is safe from vandalism and theft, but he was asleep and I didn't know how to explain my intentions in Russian. So, I hopped the fence...
I walked for about 20 minutes and went into a store and went around looking at different food. I grabbed a cheap chocolate bar, looked through some packaged meats (tried translating them over the phone with Greg) decided I didn't know what I'd be eating, and bought an orange instead. At check out I didn't even need to speak, I just stood there while the night shift cashier rung me up. I handed her the money and left. Normally I am against littering, but orange peels are biodegradable, so is it really littering? I think not. I ate my orange on my way back to the church and not far away from the store I saw a figure approaching me. He was crossing the street and stopped in the middle of the road, evaluating my presence. I stopped to consider the possible danger that I was in. At almost 1 am, I hadn't alerted anyone to my plans but Greg and if I died, no one would know for a while. Then, after sizing me up and deciding I wasn't a threat, Karl started to approach me in a very non-aggressive way. When we got to me, I said hello, bent down, and started petting him.
That's right, Karl is a dog. I don't know what other people call him, but I named him Karl. His fur was matted and coarse, not dirty but certainly not clean. He didn't smell bad and he had this cute little face. I don't know his breed (I'm not familiar with dog breeds, they're basically all "dog" to me). I started to walk back to the church and after 10 or 20 feet I turned around and said "Karl, you coming?" He was sitting where I left him and when I spoke to him he started to follow me happily. I would stop and pet him every now and then on my way back to the church and he'd happily limp along after me. I tried to look at his hurt foot once or twice but it wasn't until we were just around the corner from the church that he let me look. He had a gash of some kind that I couldn't do anything about. If it had been a thorn I would've pulled it out, but a gash? That's out of my hands.
When I finally hopped the fence and got to my door, I'd spent an hour and a half outside the compound, most of which with Karl. I entered the church and closed the door and I heard him whining as I climbed the stairs to my room. With his whining I seriously considered sleeping outside, it wasn't that cold. But I needed to call Greg and my phone was dead, so I called it a night.
I am glad that I met the little doggy. He made me a lot happier, at least for the night.
