camino tranquillo

One of 4 illustrations for The Rumpus post, Journalists Invade Former Soviet Union.

Synopsis: It’s 1998. A California woman, a college senior, is working as an intern at the San Diego Union-Tribune. She spots a flyer in the lobby: REPORTERS NEEDED IN FORMER USSR. She decides to embark on a great adventure.

I was a California native who had spent the last four years in sunny, self-absorbed Southern California. I was tall and athletic with a perpetual smile. I rode my bike or rollerblades everywhere, worked as a waitress at a bakery restaurant, and went for runs on the beach.

I lived on a street with a Spanish name that translated to “quiet road” and survived on frozen yogurt and bagels. The former USSR was about as far from Camino Tranquillo as it gets.