Ski Day
Saturday was one of the few days in the year when you wouldn’t have found me in the office. Well, that’s not quite true - I arrived, as usual, at six o’clock and spent three hours going through the emails and some of the routine weekend tasks … but at nine o’clock I abandoned the office for a day out.
A few weeks ago we received a notice about a special charity event being organized at Toguz Bulak, one of the local ski resorts.
A number of local organizations, (the Kyrgyz-Japanese Community of Friendship and Cooperation, JICA Alumni Association, Bishkek City Administration, Bishkek Business Club, International Business Council, The Union of Entrepreneurs of Kyrgyzstan and the Kyrgyz Association of Software Development and Service), had got together to organize the event in order to raise money to buy beds for a local children’s hospital which specializes in treating patients with Tuberculosis.
The event was to include competition events, (both skiing and snowboarding), guided walks to some of the interesting places in the vicinity, along with a concert given by a popular local band and lunch. It was hoped that the event would also act as an illustration of Kyrgyzstan as “a country of winter sports, tourism and recreation”. Indeed, there are plans to hold the event on an annual basis in the future.
Now, I am not a skier … I have tried it on a couple of occasions – once on a dry ski-slope just north of London with a group of sixth formers when I was a school teacher, and on that occasion I did quite well and enjoyed it very much, and the other time was when I took a holiday with a friend at a ski-resort here in Kyrgyzstan. On that occasion, I kept falling over and hurting my legs. I was afraid that I would break my leg and so I gave up and, instead, went walking in the nearby valleys.
Despite that, however, I was very interested to get the notice about the event, for several reasons:
- For once, we were given plenty of advance notice … two and a half weeks, instead of being told that it was going to to happen in the next couple of day – as is, unfortunately, all too common here;
- I don’t often get out of the office and I welcomed the idea of a day out, visiting a spot, near to the capital, which I have never seen before;
- I have a number of foreign visitors here at the moment from Britain, Australia and the States, and although they are not tourists, I thought that they might enjoy the idea of a day out in the mountains;
- the family of “Baseball kids” rarely ever get out of the city, and have never been skiing, so I thought that they would enjoy the opportunity to do both;
- I am always on the lookout for ways of saying a “thank you” to our staff and so invited them to join me;
- The event was to benefit a good cause – a children’s hospital which specializes in treating patients with Tuberculosis … my mother had the disease when I was born, and lost a lung through it, and we were very lucky not to lose her as a result and so I have always had an affinity to support charities working in this area. (In fact, my mother gave me a natural immunity to the disease and every time I have been tested in order to see if I need an inoculation against Tuberculosis, the doctors have been surprised to see the strength of reaction from my body to the test.)
Not everyone who was invited to go could do so, but even so we managed to put together a party of twenty-one for the outing … me, one of our foreign visitors, thirteen staff members and six of the baseball kids.
When I bought the tickets a week ago, I was asked if I was sure that I wanted that many – maybe there wouldn’t be any snow, (we’ve been experiencing a lot of unseasonably warm weather recently … though, as it turned out we had three days of snow before the event, so there was plenty) and as not all of us were intending to ski, I still liked the idea of taking a day off and going into the mountains
We gathered in the office at nine o’clock and set off. It was quite slow driving as there had been snow overnight and a fresh layer covered the road. Apart from these conditions, most of the road was quite good and it was only when we got to the steep rise leading to the ski resort itself that we had to stop and put chains on the wheels of the bus – and we easily ascended to the entrance of the resort. Some other vehicles, without chains, however, had had problems and were left at the side of the road – the passengers walking the last couple of hundred meters up to the resort.
We collected our badges that entitled us to ride the ski-lift, and eat lunch, and set off to explore the site.
Then we hit the big disappointment … there was no ski equipment available for hire (!), despite the fact that the publicity had said the price included a discount on hire. I was told that we should have hired it from one of the stores in town – who would have given us a discount on their usual rates. I remonstrated that it would have been better if we had been told that beforehand … to go back into town now would take at least two hours and by the time we got back the day’s skiing would be almost over. Fortunately, some of our party had their own skis and snowboards and, as I said, not all of us were planning to ski anyway. I felt sorry for the children have never skied and would have loved to give it a go … but, they accepted the situation with good grace and, I suppose, that means I’ll have to take them another time.
Although this was a big disappointment, it wasn’t a disaster. We had enough to do riding the ski lift, walking through the snow, taking photos (some good – some not so good), and warming ourselves up in the cafe, (where the fare was limited but the shashlik was good and the tea was both hot and refreshing).
If they do hold the event again next year – we’ll learn from the experience and be sure to hire skis beforehand. I hope the organizers also learn and either have equipment available for hire, or at least make sure that their publicity materials make the situation crystal clear.
Bishkek