The following column was published by the Huntsville Times on August 15, 2010. No part may be republished without the permission of the publisher. The title has been changed to the original submission title.
How large is your comfort zone? What does it take to move the boundaries? Ten years ago a wonderful misunderstanding helped me to consider new possibilities. We were living in Florence, S.C., at the time.
I was the president of one of the local Kiwanis clubs and had received a call from an organization with what I thought was a simple request: to host a small group of Russian business people for a short period while they studied U.S. marketing techniques. (This is where I stop to encourage all readers to get involved in civic organizations. Your community needs your help and you will meet all sorts of interesting people while you have fun doing good). We had a strong Kiwanis club, so how hard could it be to host a few people for a day?
I never found out, because we ended up hosting 13 people for 17 days. The organization sponsoring the trip handled all of the details, except for setting up the program, finding housing, and feeding and entertaining everyone for the length of the stay. The business community and a local university all pitched in to make the program a reality. We had everyone from the mayor of Florence to the governor's office and the Darlington NASCAR track participating.
Housing was more difficult to find, but our church and club members all helped and no one ended up in a tent. Still, we were short of hosts and so we housed four members of the group - those that seemed to be the most difficult to place from the profiles submitted in advance.
The day the group arrived we waited at the airport with other host families. Oh my Lord, what have we done? We were about to have four strangers who did not speak much English living with us for over two weeks.
When the visitors arrived they all stood together at one end of baggage claim while we stood at the other. The separation was as awkward as boys and girls at a middle school dance.
One by one hosts and guests were matched up and we were off to 17 of the most rewarding days of my life.
My hard-to-match guests ended up being the natural leaders of the group; brilliant, hard working, charismatic and as far from the stereotype of Russian men and women as you can get (which is not really true anyway). Andrey is a principal in a marketing research company in Kolumna, Evgenia operates an accounting and tax law practice in St. Petersburg, Valeri is a business consultant/entrepreneur in Moscow and Nellie works in marketing in Volgagrad.
We kayaked, studied, went to church, rode a roller coaster, took a lap at Darlington, and saw alligators and art together. We learned that even with qualified translators in tow, some Southern cuisine does not translate well. Hushpuppies and catfish evoked a puzzled look as the translator asked "What is this quiet dog?" and "Is it a cat or a fish"? I presented a class on detecting fraud in your business and found out that many business terms did not yet have Russian equivalents.
Our guests absorbed the classes and the culture. What had been dread about having strangers in the house now seemed to be one of MY great ideas. After all, who wouldn't want good friends to stay when they come to town? When our friends left it was hugs and goodbyes, stories about Evgania's yoga in the back yard, Valeri's ability to eat massive quantities of ice cream and Andrey's ever present cell phone deal making.
If I had understood the commitment I was making when I was first contacted none of this would have happened. Seventeen days? Setting up the program? Finding housing and food? No way. Yet thanks to my misunderstanding, I now have lifelong friends and, with help, I think I can pull almost anything together.
And without this happenstance event, I never would have been backstage at the Kirov Ballet in St. Petersburg, had a private violin concert, toured the Kremlin Armory with a private guide, or flown a plane over Moscow in a rain storm. But those are stories for another day.
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