Easter

All winter long, Elena and Sasha tried to talk us into coming with them to the ski area called Raubichy. I had seen this place one time from the window of a bus and thought it was merely "interesting." From the bus I saw a big pile of dirt with a ski jump sticking up from the top like the feather on a Tyrolean hat. Belarus has no mountains so the Soviets built this as an Olympic training facility. Since I don't ski jump and have no burning desire to ski down a pile of dirt, our friends never managed to drag me there in spite of their assurances that we could have fun with our cross-country skis.

Finally they made an offer that I understood. They suggested that we go to Raubichy together on a day trip and cook shashleek (sheesh-kebab) outdoors. Everybody here seems to do things like this, speaking often about eating "in nature," but we'd never been on such an expedition. This time we found the idea instantly appealing. So, on Saturday morning we piled into Elena’s car and drove out. I’d forgotten how close this facility is to Minsk and we arrived in a few minutes, or at least so it felt.

Once again the huge ski jump dominated the landscape, but it turns out that the facility includes much more than I imagined. Indeed, we saw the cross-country ski trail running into the woods and up and down hills. The snow has long since melted away, and now the underlying asphalt ribbon presents a very attractive roller-ski opportunity for those who know how to stop on that apparatus when going downhill. (Do those things have brakes?) I’m eager to return with my regular skis next winter, when any falls will take place on snow.

We didn’t come for the trail, however. We carried our stuff to a little hut at the side of the cross-country ski trail and set up camp. Much to our delight, Sasha is a veritable wizard in the preparation of shashleek. After he built a fire, we all went for a walk. But while Elena, Alla and I were admiring the flowers, Sasha went back to tend his fire. Later, we set out finger food (while Sasha tended the fire) and ate it while the meat cooked over Sasha’s perfect coals. Sasha, our devoted chef, kept wandering back to turn the meat. Ah, what a treat he produced! The meat came out perfectly, tender, juicy and delicious.

After eating way more meat than I imagined possible, we walked around a bit more and played Frisbee before returning home to play more cerebral games.

By tradition we should have been fasting that day, but by breaking tradition we enjoyed a wonderful day in nature without a lot of competition. And we were so inspired by Saturday’s success that we did go out to eat lunch in nature once again after church on Sunday, but this time we went to a big city park and brought food that we didn’t need to cook. We enjoyed that day a great deal as well, and hope to eat outdoors regularly in the coming weeks.