Backpacks and Bra Straps by Savannah Grace Read Free Book Online

her help.

    Behind the trees at the edge of the field, the orange sky was fading to a lovely shade of indigo. Having arrived in Semey, Kazakhstan, carrying our ever-present, fully laden backpacks, I noticed how strong I’d become. Stuck with the extra weight, I was grateful for the cool dusk. We weren’t quite sure where we were headed, and it wasn’t safe to be out at night, especially in an unlit park, but according to Ammon’s Lonely Planet, one of the few hotels available was on the other side of the park, so we had no choice. We always tried our best to avoid sketchy scenarios, but we couldn’t control the local transport schedules. The park’s black shadows gave me chills. And as if that wasn’t enough to creep me out, Ammon told us another unsettling story.
    “I read that the Semipalatinsk Test Site, where they tested nuclear weapons, started at the beginning of the Cold War. There were other nuclear testing sites in the Russian Cold War, but this one was really close to human settlements – only about a hundred kilometres (62 mi) west of the city. People were still living in the area, and they got little or no warning. From 1949 to 1989, over four hundred and fifty tests were done, which would be about the equivalent of about twenty-five hundred Hiroshima bombs.”
    “That’s just so terrible,” Mom said. “Those poor people. What a waste.”
    “That sculpture over there,” he explained, pointing across the park, “is a memorial to the victims of radiation poisoning from the bombs. I think a couple hundred thousand residents had major health problems and deformed babies because of it.”
    The war memorial park left us with a lot to silently mull over. Ammon said the victims had been buried elsewhere, yet I felt like those thousands of souls were gathered right here, watching us. I couldn’t quite decide if they were putting me on edge, or if it was the living who generated that unease.

    Having just arrived in a new country, we hadn’t had a chance to exchange our currency yet. We were temporarily penniless and stranded.
    “So, tell me. How do you explain to someone who doesn’t speak your language that you don’t have any money, but that you want to stay and pay them first thing in the morning?” Ammon asked.
    “That’s a tricky one, all right,” Mom said sympathetically.
    “Yep.” He reached into his big baggy cargo pant pocket for the small Russian translation book. “I guess we’ll just have to roll with it.” Using hand gestures and pointing to get the message across that we needed a room was not unusual for us. However, this time, when it came time to talk about payment and we shook our heads, we promptly received waving hands, signalling us to get out and take our empty pockets with us. Standing his ground in desperation, Ammon would say, in what must’ve been terribly fractured Russian pronunciation, “Tomorrow, money.”
    When we’d practically begged one receptionist and let her see that we had nowhere else to go, she reluctantly handed us a key and pointed to a big carpeted staircase. “Da, da.” (Yes, yes.) She held up her fingers to show our room numbers, three and five. Holding back the second key, she said in Russian, “Morning. You. Money,” before handing it to Ammon.
    “Da, da. Spasibo,” he responded in his best Russian.
    “Thank you,” Mom repeated. I think the only reason the babushka gave in was out of fear that we might set up camp right outside the front doorstep of the rundown, concrete hotel.
    When we found our rooms, Ammon immediately stated, “This is way too expensive.”
    “Why do you say that?”
    “Five reasons. That, that, that, and then there’s that, and especially that,” he said, as he pointed at the shower, curtains, double lock, phone, and fridge. “Those are all sure signs. The good thing is, at least we can pay by the hour.” Backpacking just wasn’t done in Kazakhstan, so logically, hostels and dorms were practically nonexistent.