Memphis to Detroit, Detroit to Frankfurt, Frankfurt to Romania, and Romania to Chisinau, Moldova.

I was hired by the International Children's Heart Foundation, a global organization focused on operating on children with congenital heart disease around the world, as their President and CEO back in 2009. My immediate assignments were to fix, reorganize, and to build strategic relationships with organizations and governments around the world that would power the organization into the future. Dr. William Novick (one of the three men that I had great respect for, more to come on that in the coming weeks) and the board of directors had hired me. The organization already had a strong global footprint, working in countries from Central and South America to Egypt and into the middle east. It was powerful and impactful work. I came from a hard nose business background and no medical experience, but they were not looking for a medical director since the founder, Dr. Novick, was one of the world’s top child cardiologists. They needed someone with big shoulders that could do tough things and fix stuff. To say the least, they had me at hello.

One afternoon, in what I called steamy Memphis, we received a request for me to travel to Chisinau, Moldova to meet with the Minister of Health and an organization called Give Life. A month later I found myself on a flight to Moldova from Memphis.

If you don’t know where Moldova is, I invite you to look at a map where you can find it tightly nestled between Romania and Ukraine, all of which was The USSR some time not too long ago. So I jumped on a flight from Memphis to Detroit, where in Detroit I was to get on an Air France flight to Frankfurt, Germany. My flight arrived late to Detroit due to the ever-present Memphis thunderstorms and as luck would have it, I missed my connecting flight to Frankfurt. The next flight left early the next morning; like 4am. As you can imagine, that set off an interesting series of events that needed extra logistical care. I phoned my assistant, they phoned the travel agency, they phoned the organization in Moldova, and they phoned the Minister, all in that order about my tardy arrival.

The next morning I got to the airport with plenty of time to catch my 4am flight. I caught a few hours of sleep on my way to Frankfurt and started to prepare for the journey. I arrived in Germany and as soon as I did, an inflight gate attendant boarded the plane to escort me to the next flight which was literally waiting for me to arrive before they left. Yup, I was late to catch my third flight. I was the first to get off of the flight, I jumped in a waiting Porsche (it is Germany after all) that was waiting for me on the tarmac, and we raced to the next gate. I made it on that flight, and I was off to Romania from Germany. This aircraft was not as luxurious as the previous one and it was night time. I landed in Romania, deplained, and as customary, I needed to make it through the customs agent to catch the next flight. I waited in the line without any issues. My brain was quickly absorbing all the data points around me including that nobody wants to make eye contact with me nor have they ever seen anyone smile before (this is me being facetious and sarcastic, obviously). No smiling allowed is what it felt like. I walked up to the little window and gave the teenager who was working as the customs agent my documentation, as is typical. He asked me in Russian where I am going and, of course, I didn’t understand him so I said, “I am sorry. I do not speak Ruskie”. He was intent on making sure I didn’t understand him and I was intent on making someone in that place smile at me. We both failed.

After I passed the checkpoint, I sat in the waiting area waiting for my flight to Chisinau, Moldova and since it was not a long flight, we waited for the propeller airplane to land so we could take off. It was still night time when we got on board and took off to Moldova. I was still impressed with the fact that nobody on the flight and at the airport smiled. Defeated, I asked the Romanian flight attendant a question and she looked at me (finally) and said something in Russian. No luck; still no smiling. The flight landed, I got off and it was just pitch dark outside. It was like we were in the middle of a field with no lights and no city around. I was in the middle of nowhere. So we all waited for the bus to get us to take us to the actual terminal. It was probably close to midnight at that time, and when we got to the terminal I realized that the baggage claim area was not distributing bags, no one was working it, and there were no bags coming out of the carrossel. My bags were somewhere between Memphis, TN and Chichenov, Moldova. I quickly processed that and went onto the next challenge, which was how to find who was suppose to be waiting for me to arrive since yesterday afternoon. Were they even aware that I was late?

No, the cell phones did not work and there was no WiFi. I went upstairs to the arrivals area to see if anyone was waiting for me and nobody was around. The airport felt like it was about to close; literally there was nobody around. Not all of the lights worked, still no smiles, and there I was, some oversized Dominican in the middle of old USSR.

Ok, since I am not one to really stress, I walked outside of the airport (curbside) and waited. I waited for about an hour and nothing. Then I see from a distance, two small little lights and they were coming towards the airport. Since there was nobody else there, I was hopeful that they were coming for me. So I waited for the car to get to the airport and it slowly pulls up and this redheaded Russian lady very cautiously says, “Are you HalBeeertu”? I smiled and said, “Yes”, and guess what? She freaking smiled back! She and her driver, another female who I later learned was her business partner, both jumped out of the old Datsun and ran up to me as they expressed how concerned they were that they would not find me and blah blah blah… She asked where my bags were and I told her that they did not make it and she asked what I will wear to the meeting we have that morning. I said, “I don’t know, I don't even have a toothbrush”. We got in the car and I started telling them about the trip. They thought it was normal for bags to get lost and we started heading into town.

The closer we got into town, the more lights and activity started to present itself. We stopped at a store to get toiletries and a snug, lemonade yellow gold shirt. Then they dropped me off in this apartment complex that looked like it was government housing. FYI, government housing in old USSR is not like what we know it to be here. If you lived in that area you were good; it was were you wanted to live since the government took care of its people as opposed to not.

They both walked me to this one apartment that they rented for me for my stay and after walking and walking we found it. It looked like they had never been there before and obviously I hadn’t either.

We walked in, they turned the lights on, and it was like we took a trip into 1989. Everything was organized and clean, yet unsurprisingly outdated. One of them looked for an iron, since I had to wash my clothes by hand, hang them, and iron them in the morning before our meeting with the Minister (thanks, “girl gang” for those skills).

I crashed and slept for a few hours. When I got up my clothes were still a little damp so I didn't have to use the steam from the iron which was perfect because I didn't want that iron to ruin my clothes with rust from the steam (that’s real, if you know what I mean). They picked me up and they both laughed and said, “Did you not bring a change of clothes”? Lol, “Ha ha very funny”. So we got in the car and left, off to the meeting with Dr. George Turcano, the Minister of Health for the Moldavian government.

It was something super interesting to me: the closer we got to the government offices, the more serious and the fewer smiles they displayed. We went inside of this large old marble building and they started speaking Russian to the assistant to let us in to meet with the Minister.

We waited. They came to get us. We went into another room and waited. They came to get us and then we waited again. Finally, the Minister's assistant came to greet us and ushered us to the offices. We sat down and everyone was quiet and looking at each other and then the Minister came out. I stood, he looked at me, and guess what he did… he smiled at me.

We started our meeting and at one point I think he started to like me because he asked if I liked chocolate and cognac which, of course, are gestures of acceptance in some parts of the world. I said, “Da” (that's yes in Russian) and he smiled back. In came the assistant with a tray of strawberries, chocolate, and yes, hard liquor in the morning. A couple of shots later, we were best friends.

After what everyone thought was a very successful meeting, we left to go tour a hospital that was being offered as a place for our organization to take over, rebuild, and start training their local doctors and nurses on how to operate on their own children. We drove up to a building that was not in the best of shape. As we went in, we had a number of the administrative and medical staff waiting for us to show us around. It was fascinating to see how resourceful they were with a third of the tools and technologies we in the western world have access to. We entered the neonatal unit and yes, they had babies that they were keeping alive with not just tools and incubators but with love, prayers, and hope. In this room, smiles were readily and openly available.

After we toured the hospital and before we exited, the expected happened. The Minister showed up and so did the reporters and camera crews to interview us together. After all, he is a politician and needed to get re-elected. This was a surprise to me since I wasn't planning for this to happen, although it was the norm during these types of business trips. Also, you may realize that I do not speak Russian so I am not really sure how the watching public understood what I was saying, but I didn’t ask questions. I would normally have an interpreter assisting me but not this time, so I did my best to power through it, jet lagged and all. I found out the news reporter did speak a couple of words in English. I was tired and mentally exhausted, which you can see in my interview. Go ahead and laugh; it wasn't my best look. Take note: the shirt I was wearing was the one that I bought at the convenience store. It was about two sizes too small and the dressiest shirt they had. I had changed into it after my morning meeting.

Later that afternoon, we went to what was the best Thai restaurant ever. The food and smiles were readily available at my table which made for great conversations. I started to realize that in small groups, smiles were offered, but out in public, not so much. To this day, I am still in contact with my group of Moldavian friends who accepted this guy from across the globe into their world of selective smiles.