The Healing Road

It was one of those days when you need to break away.
I had only had $6 and 4 days off, so the furthest destination I could afford was Belarus.
Intuitively, I took a subway to the outskirts of Kiev, where a busy highway to the north started. I stood on the roadside, holding a sign saying “Minsk”.
Some believe that hitchhiking is a parasitic way of traveling, but I know that it is not. A good companion needs a driver, just as much as a good driver needs a traveler.
Within 10 minutes, I was sitting with a trucker named Kolya, driving away with 16 tons of oranges from Odessa. Two weeks driving, followed by a day at home. His loneliness, broken only with rare radio conversations with other truckers passing-by. They concisely reported about the road police, traffic and weather. Thirsty for words, Kolya was enthusiastic to discuss my truck-driving career, concerned that women drive more gracefully than men. I left his truck on a border to continue on foot.
Dusk. 3x3-inch sized piece of paper from an astonished customs officer saying “pedestrian – 1 piece” welcomed me to the neutral zone with cars diligently waiting for their turn and frogs croaking in the ditches. I walked 2 km in the rain, shoveling down crackers, with a feeling of an absolute freedom.
The Belarusian side greeted me with money-changers, prostitutes and a taxi-driver. Everyone earns money as they can here, so I was surprised to be treated with some kind of “Georgian hospitality”. Svetlana, usually exchanging currency for tourists, regaled with the self-made Easter cake and hot herbal tea, while the local prostitute Anna was trying to catch me a car.
Hastily leaving Ukraine I didn’t realize fully the matter until I came across a sign that read “0 km” in Minsk. It became a momentous place for me. Probably because it is where I finally stopped running, and felt the need to head back to the beginning. The road had fulfilled its curative mission.The road and its people – random and humane.