1 October 2010

BLACK

Black – that is the color that I have loved from as far back as I remember. In fact I imagine that while I was in the womb I sneaked a peak at my surroundings and saw nothing but black. I then must have decided to resume my activities but not without first declaring my favorite color from that experience. How else can I explain my childhood obsession with noire, that color that holds depth, mystery, and vast expanses beyond one’s reach. Starting from early on in my elementary school career my teachers would ask each class member what his or her favorite color was. This would open up to a host of “reds” “purples” “yellow” “greens” and “blues”. But when the question came to my answer was always firmly stuck in stone -  “black”.

             Perhaps my childhood obsession with black was a forshadowing of things to come, or perhaps it was mere coincidence that I would base my educational persuits and so much of my present life pursuing the dark empress of Russia – where everybody wears black. You know, I’m not sure why people out here in the Russian part of the world love black so much. I’ve heard theories that the reasons Scandinavians adorn themselves in bright colors is to off set the oft overcast heavens, but it’s just as cloudy in Russia? Maybe it’s so they can stand out better in the whitewashed winter landscape? Maybe there’s a deep feeling of loss or sadness in the Russian soul that fits only with black.  But whatever the reason, Russians love this color – and in this category I fit in there right with them.

            I found myself pondering this as I sat in the passenger seat of a car surrounded by nothing but blackness. I had just arrived in Moldova on a dark, rainy night and we were now headed to the border of what’s unfortunately forbodingly nicknamed “the black hole of Europe” – Transnistria. Our car moved swiftly along the soaked asphalt below. Clouds of steamy fog rose from the road like morning vapour rising from a still, mountain lake. Occasionally a light would pass us by but otherwise we were surrounded by blackness with only the car’s headlights to guide us. It indeed seemed like we were heading into a black hole.

            As we passed the Moldovan police at the border I soon recognized the Transnistrian border up ahead. Just before we reached the border we hung a quick left and paved our way down a pot-holed, rickety road that puts some of the hairiest dirt roads in Utah to shame. Bumping our way along the road we finally came to our destination village – Varnitsa. We soon came to a dimly lit street with only a couple scattered lampposts to light the way. My view quickly became focused on an imposing stone, decayed Soviet five-story dom, with a Picasso-esque display of falling window panes and broken windows. The building looked like it belonged in a mid-90s war-torn Chechniyan village. We rumbled around to the back side of the fortress, past a children’s soviet propagandist jungle gym in the shape of a rocket, and stopped at the far side of the building. I opened the door and placed my foot expecting to land on the same level of ground of the car only to find my foot plunging a foot below as  the asphalt had decayed into a small chasm beyond where our car had landed. 

            There I met up with Oxana, the director of Interaction, the organization with which I would be working, and we entered the apartment building. The term “apartment building” is somewhat misleading in describing what the building truly was like. Entering the building was akin to entering a cave with nothing but a tiny little flashlight attached to a key chain to guide you. We ascended the eery, dark stairs, occasionally hit by a street light’s lamp fingering through the broken window panes. Opening a door landed us in a lighted corridor and at the end of the hall was my new home. We knocked. I waited in anticipation and nervousness wondering what the woman with whom I would be staying would be like. Soon the door creaked open and a small, curly black-haired, dark-eyed woman opened the door. Her eyes gave her fear away and I imagine my nervousness was apparent to her. Oxana soon left and we were to ourselves. She showed me to my room which was attached to the main room where she slept. I quickly set my things down and went to bed, exhausted from my 26 hours of traveling. I slowly drifted off to sleep to the sound of the tv and a radio in the background.

            My short time asleep was haunted by nightmares of being trapped in a dark, shadowed border villagep while being mocked by demons for my fear and failures. I woke up three hours after I fell asleep, haunted by my dreams and the situation I had gotten into. “What was I thinking coming to such a dark, seemingly god-forsaken place” I asked myself. The consistent tick of a clock dominated the room while the radio softly mumbled in the adjacent room. I lay there trying to get to sleep but unable to. My thoughts couldn’t leave the dark predicament I found myself in.

            As my thoughts drifted I began noticing the radio again. A clear, melancholic female voice broke through the darkness. Her minor notes chimed through the air.
Her voice was too quiet to understand the words, but I understood her music. To me she sang of the loss, sadness, and darkness that had gripped this sandwiched nation for its entire existence. It mourned the poverty and abuse of these people. But there was a light to her voice. Her enchanting melody pierced in two the still darkness. It beaconed as a light in blackness. It spoke of endurance, strength, and a hope that one day light would reign in the war against darkness.                        

            And that is the message I believe. Yesterday, as I entered the NGO office where I will be working I felt that warmth and light despite the staleness and darkness of the surroundings. I felt that ray of hope shining in a time where so much despair reigns. I knew that the battle against darkness was not yet lost, but that light would triumph.           

            Perhaps I’ve been attracted to black because of my desire to enter and understands its depths so that I be an instrument in bringing others to light. What ever the reason, I will remember the light and that it will prevail no matter how dark and black the times may seem.