Sunday, March 29, 2009

About to run the rapids

It's 10pm and I'm finishing up last minute details, trying to get to bed so I can get up at 4:30 am to get to the airport.
Thinking today of how this is like running a big rapids--lots of scouting, figuring out the correct route to take, butterfly nerves, feeling like throwing up--but then you get in the canoe and start down the rapids, and you are just there, so focused, so in your body, and nothing else matters.
So that's where I'm at--about to go down the biggest rapids of my life, I think. And so ready to do it.
Thanks so much to all of you for your support and help and love. I hope to communicate as much as possible, though you might not hear from me as much in the beginning until I get settled with my host family and figure out what access to the internet I have.
Bye for now--see you in Ukraine.

4 comments:

  1. May the wind be always at your back and the rapids filled with just the right amount of thrill and may God hold you in the palm of her hand. Have the time of your life, Barb! Many blessings, Mairi-the goatherder.

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  2. I just learned that Golda Meier (sp) was from Ukraine! Home of strong, women, it seems. Hope your settling in is going well. The rapids is a good analogy--keep relaxed and know that you are a natural. Pat

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  3. Hey Barb, just read front page news in the NY Times. It starts:

    "MAKEEVKA, Ukraine — Few areas of Europe have taken such a body blow from the world economic crisis as the industrial heartland of eastern Ukraine, home to giant enterprises in the steel and metals industry in which orders have dried up nearly completely and prices have plummeted."

    You are certainly at the right place at the right time. Courage!

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