I just got back from a rafting trip with my host family and their friends. I'm totally sunbaked and a bit worn out, but it was a great time. My host dad woke me up at 6:00am on Thursday (when a big Russian guy wearing an МВД России shirt comes into your room and says "подъем," you don't waste any time getting out of bed). We piled into a jam-packed Volga sedan and picked up a few other people, transferred our things to a beat-up Gazelle van and set off to the Kolp River near the village of Kopreevo (if you put the Russian река колпь владимирская область into Google Maps you can see where we were). We arrived, assembled our four boats (they are collapsible canoe-type things made of canvas stretched over an aluminium frame), and hit the water. We went down the river for about two hours and reached our stopping point. There was a nice pavilion and plenty of room to pitch tents. We spent all day Friday there just relaxing. This involved eating, sunbathing, playing volleyball, and drinking vodka (a lot of that last thing). Then this morning we set off again and rowed down the river for about three hours to the village of Kolp, where our Gazelle was waiting for us. After disassembling our boats while getting eaten alive by clouds of mosquitoes, we took off for Vladimir. It was a great trip, and it was really relaxing to be totally disconnected from the world and surrounded by nature. I didn't bring any book or any electronic device (that's what happens when you toss stuff into a bag at 6am while someone tells you to hurry up in Russian), and, although I was a bit panicked at the thought of how I was going to occupy myself for 72 hours with some people who are old enough to be my parents and who don't speak any English, it turned out to be really fun.
On a different note, I can't ignore the news coming out of my hometown--the rescue of three girls who had been kidnapped and held hostage for ten years. The story is one part miraculous and uplifting and one part horrifying and chilling. I learned about the girls' rescue on Tuesday while I was killing time using the wifi in a Moscow mall while waiting for the train to Vladimir. I remember when Gina DeJesus's and Amanda Berry's kidnappings happened (I've always been a lover the Metro section of the Plain Dealer), and I've seen the missing person's posters hanging on telephone poles on humble corners on the west side. I think I've even driven down Seymour Avenue, not knowing the hell lurking inside one of the little wooden houses. It's heartening that these girls were returned to freedom, that the unspoken popular opinion that these girls were gone forever was rebutted. Justice won in the end.
As I was reading through the coverage, I realized that Gina DeJesus and I are the same age. That brought the heinousness of the the crime into sobering reality. All that I've experienced in the last ten years--the places I've traveled, the things I've learned, the people I've met, the sights I've seen--those girls were deprived of the freedom to experience any of that. My friend is studying to work in the Russian prison system, to work with the dregs of Russian society, and he once told me his philosophy that there is only a thin barrier between the comfortable life most of us live and hell on Earth and that everything can change in an instant. How many times did those girls play back in their minds the moment that the got into their kidnapper's car? I can't say that I believe in fate, but life is certainly a fickle thing. One little decision, one little pause can change everything. I'm thankful for all the opportunities I've had, and I wish the girls and their families all the best.
Here are few pictures from my rafting trip:
On a different note, I can't ignore the news coming out of my hometown--the rescue of three girls who had been kidnapped and held hostage for ten years. The story is one part miraculous and uplifting and one part horrifying and chilling. I learned about the girls' rescue on Tuesday while I was killing time using the wifi in a Moscow mall while waiting for the train to Vladimir. I remember when Gina DeJesus's and Amanda Berry's kidnappings happened (I've always been a lover the Metro section of the Plain Dealer), and I've seen the missing person's posters hanging on telephone poles on humble corners on the west side. I think I've even driven down Seymour Avenue, not knowing the hell lurking inside one of the little wooden houses. It's heartening that these girls were returned to freedom, that the unspoken popular opinion that these girls were gone forever was rebutted. Justice won in the end.
As I was reading through the coverage, I realized that Gina DeJesus and I are the same age. That brought the heinousness of the the crime into sobering reality. All that I've experienced in the last ten years--the places I've traveled, the things I've learned, the people I've met, the sights I've seen--those girls were deprived of the freedom to experience any of that. My friend is studying to work in the Russian prison system, to work with the dregs of Russian society, and he once told me his philosophy that there is only a thin barrier between the comfortable life most of us live and hell on Earth and that everything can change in an instant. How many times did those girls play back in their minds the moment that the got into their kidnapper's car? I can't say that I believe in fate, but life is certainly a fickle thing. One little decision, one little pause can change everything. I'm thankful for all the opportunities I've had, and I wish the girls and their families all the best.
Here are few pictures from my rafting trip:
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