Dreams come true
"Dreams come true when desire transforms into concrete actions.
Ask a lot from life and life will give you a lot." – Napoleon Hill
I was born in Riga, Latvia, but I spent my summers at my grandmother's village in Lithuania. As a child, I dreamed about living in Lithuania too. I dreamed; I asked my parents; I begged my guardian angel – I prayed to God for my wishes to be fulfilled. And finally, that day came.
However, after many years in Lithuania, my life changed again. I had foreign friends and began to travel abroad, initially to Poland and then to Germany. When I travelled to West Germany, I was astounded by the differences between the two countries. Commuting annually to Germany to visit friends, I started to dream about life abroad. Friends gave me the idea that maybe I could go to live in Germany.
I was a trained nurse, having qualified back in 1979, and my husband was a doctor. I had worked as a medical sister, but the pay was poor, so I had gone into business, opening my own beauty salon. My husband and I knew that there was great demand for medical professionals in other countries, and the idea of living abroad appealed to us both. My husband liked Germany, but he refused to go there, largely because he couldn’t speak the German language. He said he would go only to English-speaking countries. So again, I began dreaming of going to another country – although I was not sure where that might be.
In 2005, I was a part-time law student at the Riga Law Institute of Klaipeda. Lectures were held four nights a week, with most of the students holding jobs on the side. After the lectures, I would often meet with colleagues in a popular café called Chilli Pizza. We discussed our work, our lives, and our futures.
I will never forget one meeting in particular. I was talking with Ula, a fourth-year student, about the uncertain future of the Institute and its qualifications, and how this left me and the other students in an ambiguous situation. At the time, there were rumours that Lithuania was considering not recognizing our law diplomas, which would mean all our study would have been for nothing. You study, you learn, and you earn a diploma – and then it’s not worth the paper it’s printed on. What a shame! A lawyer without a diploma won’t get anywhere.
However, I said that I was an optimist, and no matter what happened, I would be okay. After all, I was already a trained nurse.
I still, to this day, remember the surprised response of Ula.
“You are a nurse?” she said. “What are you doing here? You already have a good profession! Drive to England; they need nurses there. You will earn a good living!"
I was shaken by those words and the manner in which they were expressed. I had never imagined that I could just drive to England and find work. When I got home, I told my husband what my good friend had said. He was not at all surprised. He said that a friend of ours – another doctor – was using intermediaries in Lithuania to help him search for a job in the United Kingdom. He was attending English-language classes for doctors in Vilnius.
What a coincidence! I had been dreaming of working abroad, and now I had been told how to go about it. The answer had been handed to me on a silver platter.
My husband became infected with my fire and determination. Through his friend, we started making preparations for him to find work as a doctor in England, contacting various organizations that provided the required courses.
That weekend, we agreed to see with our own eyes how the English courses were run. The course we attended was advanced, aimed at providing doctors with the English skills necessary to communicate with patients and colleagues. The students were also advanced, having already taken primer courses. I had studied some English at the Institute in Lithuania, a branch of the University of Latvia, and so I was not a beginner. However, dropping right into that advanced course was not easy. I had to learn a lot of new medical terms in English and how to use those terms when conversing with patients.
That said, the lessons were interesting and we were warmly accepted. We soon became more closely acquainted with our new colleagues, some of whom are still friends to this day. In the evenings, we had barbecue outings and karaoke parties where we communicated only in English. It was fun and very useful to speak in English in an informal setting.
We established links with an agency in the UK that specialised in finding work there for doctors. When my husband contacted the agency, they immediately began to search for a job for him, while preparing the necessary documents. As a nurse, I was not able to benefit from their assistance, so I turned my attention elsewhere, researching various agencies that dealt specifically with nurses.
I was very cautions, because I had read many sad stories in the press about people who had been defrauded by dishonest agencies. I later met people in England who had suffered in this way. They told me that some agencies advertised jobs, took money from their customers, transported them to England, and then disappeared, leaving the customers stranded. I realized that I could only rely upon serious organizations.
Searching through the newspaper advertisements, I found a firm in Vilnius that said it could help me find employment in England with Bupa, a well-known private healthcare company. I did my research on Bupa, and after reviewing the work offered – and learning that the agency would not charge me for their services – I decided to sign up.
I was invited to Vilnius for an interview, which would be conducted over the phone with a potential employer in England. I had never spoken English on the telephone before, and I was so nervous that all my knowledge of the language evaporated. Of course, I was not successful.
As I was so determined to leave Lithuania for England, I took a risk, signing up with an agency that charged for its services. Once I made the payment, I began to receive calls from potential employers in England who were interested in hearing about my nursing experience.
I concentrated, and this time, I was able to speak English much better, answering their various questions. The calls were long and we spoke a lot. Sometimes I got my words mixed up, but my confidence grew stronger, and I spoke better as the conversations became longer. I look back today at those conversations and I smile: "Well, I was stubborn."
Not long after, I received another call from the agency. They said that they had found a job for me and I should prepare to move to England soon. I was worried about what lay in store for me, but I calmed down a little when I learned that the job was near London. If it turned out to be a scam and I was left on the street, I would be able to contact some of my Lithuanian acquaintances living in London and stay with them for a while.
I hastily packed my suitcases. My husband did not try to dissuade me. We decided that if we waited until he was offered a job in England, it might be too late for me.
I consoled myself with the following reasoning: “I'm going first; I’ll have a look around, and then he will come later."
