I’ve never been good at carefully following world events that don’t feel are either close to me or earth-shattering. I read the headlines and have a sense of where the action is, but I skim over the details. Of course, I’m often wrong about the global impact what’s happening in, say, Nepal or Lithuania, and then I’m scrambling to fill in the background. At such times I’m reminded of the fact that I never really followed L’il Abner when it was the most popular comic strip in the daily newspaper because it was always in the middle of something. There was no place to begin.
So it would likely be with the political situation unfolding in Belarus, except for the fact that, 20-some years ago, we hosted a child from Belarus as part of the Children of Chernobyl program. By chance, I had the opportunity to visit him in his little town in Belarus in the fall of 1998.
A year or so ago I tried to capture that experience in an essay. I wish I’d done this years ago when my memories were fresher, but for once in my life I did keep a daily journal of my travels in Russia and Belarus, so images have come tumbling back.
It may be overly cautious, but I’ve changed the family’s names to protect their privacy.
This is so interesting–and as always, written with clarity and insight.