Picking up Andrei
we left the house around 5:30 pm with the goal of setting up camp at bagby hotsprings and eating as soon as possible. we drove down the last of the many fire roads with 3 miles left to go, the hopes of sitting in a quiet hot tub in the middle of woods was warming my body.
we turned one of the last corners to see a man standing in the road with a cooler in one hand. there was no one in sight and the last time we passed a car was miles ago. he slowy approached the car and with our window only slightly down he said, “help. my car stolen.” we had know idea what to do. who was he? why was he out here? what was in that cooler? where is his jacket? do we help him? do we miss out on our plans, to put this guy in the car and drive him all the way back to town? because of his limited english, we had trouble finding out the whole story. it would seem that he had no friends with him, no phone, no jacket, no flashlight (it was raining and dark) and sadly, no car. we told him we needed talk and he slowly walked past the car and continued walking down the road. only later to find out… crying.
victor and i had a brief conversation and decided we could not leave him alone in the woods and would take him back to town and mourn our weekend plans later. we turned the car around and stopped near andrei. after checking his cooler for a gun or knife. (thanks to too much tv and bad movies…) he got in the car. for the next hour and a half we found out many things. he understands more than he speaks, he is from southern russia, has 4 kids and wife he loves so much he doesn’t have the heart to tell her about there stolen car over the phone. the thank yous and kind looks were a reminder that the world is good and so are it’s people.
we returned andrei safely to his home with shared hugs and smiles. as we leave he hands victor a huge jar filled with pickeled tomatoes that his wife had jarred and stored in their garage. (thankfully he didn’t know that neither of like tomatoes.)
who would have guessed that our camping trip to bagby hotsprings would turn into a 4 drive to pick up Andrei and take home his jarred tomatoes?
December 28th, 2006 at 1:47 pm
[…] around 6pm the people started piling in with dish after dish of food. it was everywhere. victor started us off with pisco sours (which he has mastered!) and we chatted with everyone and munched on food. his mom made black beans, rice and fried plantains. (3 of my favorite things.) all the other food was your typical potluck food. after everyone was done eating we had a ‘white elephant’ gift exchange. it is loads of fun with 25 peope!! i ended up with a GIANT gothic looking goblet that has been the gift that seems to come back every year. it was recieved with oohhhss and aahhhs from the crowd and when that happened, i knew i wouldn’t part with it, even if it was hideous. (it will match victor’s giant jar of pickled tomatoes.) after dessert all but victor’s mom, step dad, brother and his girlfriend was left. we exchanged a few gifts and had the privledge to get a phone call from North Pole for the annual reading of ‘the night before christmas’, read to us by my father. (32 years and haven’t missed a reading) it is always weird to hear it over the phone, but i was great to share the experience of my favorite family tradition with more loved ones. it was REALLY special. it was after midnight, but we all stayed up drinking, dancing tango and salsa and laughing for a while longer, until we just couln’t do it any more. what a christmas eve!! […]