30. Oh, New York!

Oh no, this is the second time in my life when the possibility of me being kidnapped enters my mind. The first time was when I arrived in London as an au-pair, a year ago. Now, I am an au-pair in New York and this feels like a deja-vu.  The two strangers that picked me up at the airport could drive me anywhere they wanted to. How would anyone know how to find me if I disappeared in New York? How would my mother ever know if something happened to me? I don’t even speak English! But….I didn’t get kidnapped in England so I must trust that Americans are nice too. 

Fortunately, as all these thoughts are swirling in my mind, I get distracted by New York and hundreds, thousands of lights. Buildings, lights, people. 

The agency lady told me that my au-pair orientation week will be in a nice hotel. There will be three girls per room. I am excited to see it. However, our car stops in front of a building that doesn’t even look like a hotel. It’s just a generic building with no signs. I follow my companions who take me through this dorm looking structure. They bring me into a huge room in the center of it. The room is full of bunk beds and there are so many girls inside. Maybe 15. Or 20. I am led to one of the bunk beds. The bottom bunk is empty.

“Your bed,” I am told. 

I put my suitcase down and I sit on my new bed. I am overwhelmed. I want to ask why there are so many girls in this room together but I don’t know how to. Before I can get my bearings, my agency companions are gone. They just left me there and disappeared. Ugh. Fine.

I hear English and many other different languages all around me. I try to pay attention and listen but I don’t know any of them. No Slovakian. No Czech. No one seems to notice me and no one attempts to talk to me. I open my suitcase, find my pjs, and quickly change. Then I lay down on the hard mattress and face the wall. I try to go to sleep, ignoring all the noise, commotion, and chatter that is enveloping me. 

I barely sleep and I am still exhausted the next morning. But I have to get up. We all have some classes to attend. I follow the girls to a room that must be a dining hall, hoping to fill up my stomach. I feel famished but thankfully, I see a table full of food. Some weird meats, something that may be eggs. Oh yogurts! Fruit! This looks good. I can maybe try some peach yogurt. I put a plastic yogurt cup on my plate, I get an apple, and scoop up a little sausage looking thing. I add it to my plate too. Oh, and also this yellow blob that resembles eggs. And a piece of bread. 

The first thing I try is the super skinny slice of white bread.  It feels very spongy. It tastes soggy and almost dissolves in my mouth. Uhm, what is this? So weird, it tastes like some kind of chemical. I can’t figure it out. I put my bread aside and I open the cup of yogurt, expecting peachy creamy goodness. But this is not it. It’s a jiggly mess on my spoon. I bring up the spoon to my eye level to examine it in more detail. I am not quite sure what to expect so I decide to taste it anyway. Ok, Jarka, it’s different, yes….but you have to eat, I tell myself. This is what you will be eating for a year! I pick apart everything on my plate. After a while of pushing my food back and forth with a fork, I finally resort myself to just eating the apple. 

I sit by myself as all the other foreign girls are walking by, ignoring me, focusing on their own friends and their conversations. I feel invisible. Finally, a cute girl stops by my table and asks, “Where are you from?”

“Slovakia,” I answer.

“Oh ok,” she says and leaves. Sigh. That was strange. 

Our first class starts and I am equally lost. I don’t know what the class is for or what the instructor is talking about. So I observe everything and everyone and eventually, by the end of the day, I catch a word here and there. I praise my tiny little progress. So far, English is not jumping into my brain. According to Martin, I will be speaking English by next week. Yea, right. I should have studied more. I should have tried more. This is a very lonely existence. 

Ugh, forget it! I have to get the courage to try. Who cares if I embarrass myself, they don’t know me anyway. I take a deep breath and decide to attempt a conversation with a girl that seems to be the most approachable out of them all. 

“Hi,” I step towards her. My intention is to ask her if she has ever been to New York before. At this point, my problem is to start a sentence because I don’t know which tense to use. First, I determine what I want to say in Slovakian. Then, I translate the words into English in my head. I need to put them in the right order and form a sentence. This is the hardest part. Slovakian language doesn’t have a firm sentence structure. You can arrange the words more freely. 

Uhm ok. Here I go.

 “Did you….no…are you in New York?” 

 No, wait, it's supposed to be the past tense…but which? Did you? Have you? Which is it??? Why does English have so many past tenses?? Past, present, future should be sufficient, right? Just like in Slovakian. I want to cry.

“Were you in New York?” I blurt out, immediately feeling embarrassed, realizing that this is not correct either. The girl keeps looking at me. I can tell she is trying to figure out what I am asking her. She is trying to make sense out of me. Suddenly, she realizes what I am asking and says,“Ahhhhh……no”

Ok then. Conversation over. Blah, I am stuck. This is going nowhere. I wipe a tear off my face. Whose decision was it for me to come here? Why do I put myself into these situations? 

Two days go by and nothing changes. I barely eat and I can’t speak. I am miserable. I participate in classes and I still don’t understand what they are about. Except the CPR class. At least I can figure out what we are learning there. On the third morning, as I am getting myself dressed and ready for the day, someone taps my shoulder. It’s the girl from two days ago. She asked me where I was from. And there is a friendly looking guy standing next to her. 

“Hi, how are you?” he says in CZECH!

The girl is smiling, “I found him and then I thought Czech republic is close to Slovakia and you have similar languages.” 

I don’t pay her anymore attention because I immediately start talking to him, no longer feeling lost. All it takes is one familiar word, one familiar greeting, and I am no longer alone.

“I am Mark. I am also an au-pair. I will be taking care of two boys in Rhode Island. Do you want to go take a walk?”

We skip our morning classes and wander around the streets of New York. Once I start talking to Mark, I cannot stop. It’s a waterfall of words that I can’t prevent from coming. I must have saved them all for Mark. I didn’t realize just how deprived and lonely I have been in this huge city, full of people. Now I have one friend and that makes all the difference in the world.