Hiking

July 21, 2007

Today was great fun they got all of us pc trainees together and took us north to go hiking! We went to some old ruins of a 5th century watchtower. These towers stretched the distance of the Caucuses and would light fires to send warnings north. As much fun as it was to be somewhere with such historical significance I was in heaven just to be in a forest hiking. It was cooler (not quite yet cool) and it felt nice to get some physical activity that got the heart rate up.

We got to the top and the tower was massive. A few people climbed to the top but I decided I’d pass on that as I saw rocks crumbling off as they were climbing and there were already too many people up there.

As we were starting to go down our language director (who is a host country national) slipped and sprained her ankle pretty bad. I ran down there and suggested that me and one other guy carry her down. But, some of the other host country nationals said that it would not be culturally appropriate so she attempted to walk which wasn’t working and finally allowed us to at least assist by putting her arm over my shoulders to use me and one woman as a crutch. She was a trooper though she walked with limited assistance about 2 miles barefoot with a really bad sprained ankle. Finally about the last 400 meters it was hurting bad enough that she allowed us to use a branch that she could sit on that was long enough for me and one other guy to hold in front of us as she put her arms over our shoulders. When we finally got her down the ankle was really swollen and got her to lay down and elevate it with some ice and got her some Advil.

It’s difficult to accept or sometimes understand the culture over here. In this case this woman hurt herself more because she didn’t want to be “culturally inappropriate”. If we would have been allowed to carry her we would have been down much sooner to get ice on it and without her walking on the foot it would have torn less and healed faster. I have the utmost respect for the culture here but in cases like this where someone’s health or well being is in question it’s frustrating.