Russia Week (Two): The Stray Dog Part

One weekend morning during our training in Artyom our entire group gathered around 7 am, waiting for a bus to pick up up and take us for a day-long outing to Popov Island. We still weren't particularly integrated into the community — to the extent we ever were — and Volunteer Jennifer (only 1/2 of her real name) commented that her experience so far in Artyom had primarily involved "stray dogs and random men." I thought then, and continue to now, that the phrase would make a wonderful name for a book or collection of poetry.

Me on Popov Island, August 1995

I tell that story to tell you this one.

At some point later during our training, Friend James (only 1/2 of his real name) and I met up late one weekend afternoon to walk up a hill to visit Friend Maria (only 1/2 of her real name) and her host family for dinner. While walking up the dirt road towards the house, talking undoubtedly of weighty things, a small dog ran past us, going the other direction, without stopping or even looking at us, clearly on his way to an important engagement. On his only two legs. Two hind legs.

I can't emphasize the strangeness of this enough. It wasn't tottering while its handler offered a treat. It had clearly, having lost its front legs in an accident of some kind, learned to cope. "Life finds a way," as the man said. So it was just ... on its way somewhere, running comfortably on its hind legs, probably with more confidence in its own balance and agility than I had.

Neither James nor I said anything, initially, just sort of fell silent and kept walking, until one of us — history fails to record which one — sort of cleared his throat, carefully, and said, perhaps not sure if he had imagined it, "um, did you see that?" It turned out, yes, we both had. Agreeing that the vision somehow fully captured our understanding of the Russian Far East up to that point, we continued up to a wonderful dinner.

(I should note that, later during our time in Russia, Friend James jumped over a fence to intervene when two wild dogs started attacking a fellow volunteer, perhaps literally saving her life, and demonstrating a genuine studly-ness that (fortunately?) has not yet been demanded of me.

Me and Friend James at the Hotel Sunny in Vladivostok, July 11, 1995.
(Insert joke about two-legged dogs here).

 

Moral of the Story: Another language skill that neither the Peace Corps then nor Duolingo now seems to provide you with is the sentence, "Hey, am I dreaming, or did that dog just run by us on its two hind legs?"