"playing" in the snow

What an experience.

For well over a year, the young people with whom I interact have been obsessed with the idea of going to Brezovica, a mountainous area with skiing and a lodge. The first time I hesitantly agreed to organize it, we had crazy snow. When we rescheduled, we picked February 17th, 2008 – which happened to be the day Kosova declared independence. So we didn’t go that day either.

It is a beautiful place...and I'm grateful for the different opportunities I've had to go there. First time: with 4 colleagues and my first time on skis - which was somewhat...unsuccessful. Second time: I went with 7 very full buses of high school students - around 350 people. It was wild. Third time: I went with 2 lovely German ladies - and was still pathetic on the skis. Fourth time: It wasn't at the ski place per se, but I climbed the tallest mountain in the range with 10 or so people...in January of last year. Yeah, that was the 2nd scariest experience of my time in Kosova. Fifth time: Same as the fourth, but in September, with 3 other internationals, and it was foggy and safe (enough).

And today was the sixth time. It snowed a lot yesterday, but nothing stuck on the roads. This morning, however, there were 2 inches on the roads. I honestly didn’t know what to do; partly because I had no clue when/if it could be rescheduled. I also didn’t know if the roads would be cleared. My thinking was that we’d go ahead with it if everyone who signed up showed up and if the bus driver thought it was okay. Yep and yep. So we hopped on the bus at 7.45am, and drove on snowy roads. The driver was probably a little tense at times, as we had to stop several times for cars to get pushed and such. The students, however, were carefree little birdies and were doing their usual singing and “enjoying” the moment. I was pretty much enjoying it, too, but I felt – grr – responsible. Like if anything bad happened or if anyone didn’t have a good time, it was my fault or something.

After 2 hours of driving, we got to the road that goes up to the ski area, the driver dude was told he wasn’t allowed to go up without chains. “Up” was a mere 12 kilometers away. Ugh and ugh. Now what - turn around? find a nearby hill and play? walk? We chose the 3rd option. The 40 of us quickly got separated into 3 groups. My group, the middle one (Group Fun), was quite chipper and positive. After walking and sweating uphill for an hour and a half (on an impressively cleared road…which made us a little ticked that the bus wasn’t able to go up), we found a shell of a house and rested. I paved the way; walking waist-deep (no exaggeration) in fluffy white stuff. If my pride weren’t at stake (“No, it’s not too far or too dangerous. We’ll be fine. Look – this is fuuunn!”), I would’ve collapsed after the first 5 minutes. It was adventurous and restful :)

Then, when we continued uphill, the police stopped us and told us to turn around. Apparently there was an avalanche up a ways, and the road was completely blocked. It was a bummer to hear that – but the road, I was convinced, was better for sledding anyway. There was no way we could sled in waist-deep snow. And, I might add, there was no way ¾ of the group could enjoy the activities up there that cost money anyhoo (even if just being there was enough). So, after some debate, we decided to go down. Soooo fun. We road the whole way down on our bums. We threw snow at each other. We played and giggled and were silly. I was Roberta the Cheerleader the whole time.

Group Fast, however, made it up and back and sat on the bus. When Group Fun came down, Fasties joined Funnies and played, too. Group Slow, however, had a tough time. They got stuck with the hypochondriac (um…I’m not exaggerating too much), and were held up. Then they tried to catch up and nearly passed out. They somehow took a shortcut and didn’t meet us on the road – and thought we were at the top. So they, bless their hearts, they tried to go around the avalanche. And their time wasn’t so positive. Drat – I somehow feel responsible for this…

I am so tired. My neck and back and legs (and bum) are sore. I’ve been a little stressed about this for a bit (ie: the kid who was to organize the transportation waited until 7.30pm last night to reserve a bus – plus the weather – etc.). But I had such a neat time with a neat group of students. It’s fun to play.