Helsinki II

I haven’t explained why I was shipped off to Helsinki. Most of you remember: I was there to have a baby. Medical care in Latvia at the time wasn’t um reliably safe. So long story short, I’d been receiving prenatal care from a doctor in Helsinki and was instructed to arrive at least one month before my due date so that any emergencies could be handled appropriately at the big Woman's Hospital. It wasn’t very feasible for my husband to sit there with me for a month or more since he had a job, so our friend Arden had arranged for me to stay at the mission house of the International Church. This was a beautiful old apartment building in the city center that had been converted to offices for the attached International Church and a few floors of dorms for missionaries who needed a place to stay while in Helsinki. I was able to stay in these dorms.

The whole set up was really ideal for me. The building was converted cleverly without losing some of the old details like the mechanical iron-grate elevator with the manual door. It was very safe and extremely convenient, too (not just the elevator, the whole building!). I was told I could have my pick of rooms on a certain floor since the dorms were otherwise empty and I was given keys, codes and even a mailbox. I chose a nice-sized room adjacent to a private bathroom and across the hall from the kitchen. Down the hall were two common living areas with satellite TV. Other than an African choir that was there for a few days (they were a lot of fun!) my floor was empty the whole time. My room overlooked a lovely little park that was always busy even in March and the harbor beyond it. It was really like a palace--sparkly bathrooms, fresh paint, clean furniture, a clothes washing machine(!), and a bottomless supply of hot water that could even be drunk right from the tap. Heavenly Helsinki!

After I got settled in and my husband left to go back to work, I was really on my own. Aside from scheduled doctor’s appointments, I generally filled my days by walking. There was a little American library set up by a government agency and it was at the opposite end of the city center from my place, so I usually made the library my destination and then would slowly work my way back from there. Along with an obnoxious amount of reading, I spent a lot of time window shopping, food shopping, a little bit of baby shopping (although the Latvians had made me pretty superstitious), and testing my sense of direction by exploring the winding streets and looking at the buildings. There is such a contrast between pre and post war construction. Helsinki was really opening my eyes to what the landscape of the Baltics could look like in 75 years.

The Baltics obviously weren’t the only concern or wonder I had about the future. This was really the first time I’d truly been alone—and aside from my unborn baby, I was REALLY alone. Believe it or not, it was still not only extremely expensive, but also technologically difficult to make phone calls to Latvia, so I think my husband and I spoke only a couple of times per week. Moreover, I only had access to a payphone in the dorm. Email wasn’t something that worked yet either, so even in 1995 it was kind of like the Dark Ages. All that quiet usually has a way of speaking certain truths if one’s ready to hear it. I think for me, some truths started peeping then, but the more immediate concerns were a bit bigger and scarier to deal with at the time--I had to deliver a baby by myself, potentially without even my husband with me, and in a foreign country. I was kind of in survival mode.