Ducks @ Oregon - University of Oregon

Rock climbing with Svetlana

Katie D.

July 9, 2009 - 8:12 PM

We've been talking about it almost since Svetlana arrived in Eugene in April, when I started working with her as an Activities Coordinator and sighted guide through the American English Institute. (I have already blogged about some of our past activities, so please check those out!) When new groups of international students arrive at the University of Oregon, they always have a lot of questions that go beyond the campus and city tours I take them on. They want to hear about me: about my life as a student and as an American.

In the last six months, one of my favorite activities has been rock climbing. I love to tell the AEI students that we have a gym on campus, free for students and boasting an awesome rock wall. When we do the campus tours, I always walk them by the wall, to show them what the idea is behind it.

Some students are more enthusiastic than others.

Svetlana is a part of the Humphrey Fellowship Program. She and the other 27 adult fellows currently studying on campus will soon move on to other American universities to perform high-level research with 150 other international fellows. The 28 who are studying here placed slightly lower on their English exams, so have been studying here at the American English Institute.

The Humphrey Program has never included students with disabilities before. But this year there are two blind fellows: Svetlana from Russia and Brigitte from the Ivory Coast. It has been my great privilege to work with both these fabulous women. I work mostly with Brigitte, who has lost her sight only recently and needs a guide to navigate the cafeterias and help with school work and in-class participation. Svetlana is adept at using adaptive technologies to navigate campus and schoolwork, but needs a companion for long walks or trips to the rec center. I've been going to work out with Brigitte and Svetlana twice a week for more than three months now.

I described the rock wall to them several times, trying to tell them about this strange sport that involves an artificial cliff, a system of safety ropes and harnesses, and hanging on by your fingertips. It's hard to describe certain things when there is a barrier of both sight and language between yourself and your friends. I've had to learn to be very creative.

I finally realized that the best way to explain the rock wall was to go and "show" them. The Rec Center staff was nice enough to let me walk them up to the wall during a "no climb" time. I walked them up to the wall and had them both touch it.

Now, let me say one thing more about these two fabulous women: they are as different in some ways as any two people can be and remain friends. Brigitte has a fabulous sense of humor and can keep us both laughing for hours on end. She has a relentless memory for the little jokes she uses to tease me, and never stops bringing them up. She is also extremely intelligent: before the illness that caused her blindness she was a lawyer in the Ivory Coast; since then she has continued to practice law, and has expanded into work in human rights issues for people with disabilities. She is not, however, a woman prone to thrill-seeking.

Svetlana, on the other hand, desires nothing more than to go on new adventures. She took a trip to visit friends in California during a week-long break, and not only rode a tandem bike, but also a roller coaster and an amusement park ride that simulates flying. She and I share a passion for dystopia novels, and while she is steadfastly upbeat, she is also a self-described realist. She is kind and funny and driven always to experience new things.

So when I walked these two friends over to the rock wall and had them touch the wall, their reactions were radically different. Despite my many attempts to explain the sport, I saw immediately that they had not understood the idea fully until that moment. Comprehension dawned for each, and opposite and strong reactions arose for each. Brigitte was immediately horrified, while Svetlana smiled and asked when we would climb. Brigitte threatened to call Svetlana's mother if she persisted in this idea, and asked me what my own mother would think if I made Svetlana climb all the way up there. She offered to accompany us to the wall to pray for us. Svetlana just smiled and explored the different hand- and footholds, ready for a new adventure.

At long last, we climbed together! On Monday we went to the wall together, donned our safety harnesses, and prepared to climb. I have been a certified belayer for nearly six months, and the rock wall staff member stood by to make sure the harness and ropes were all being used correctly. I reminded Svetlana again that I had had to climb blindfolded during my rock climbing class. I told her that I had a lot of practice belaying, and that there was no way she could fall. She told me, for probably the hundredth time, that she trusted me "although I don't know why." Then she started up the wall.

She made several trips about half way up the wall and down again. She tested out different handholds, and learned to trust her weight on the tiny footholds that are sometimes the only available options. She'd come back to earth and shake out her hands, reminding me of what it felt like when I first started climbing.

She was fabulous. Cautious but persistent, without the slightest evidence of fear.

What a blessing it has been to work with her during these last months. And I am so glad to know that I will be a part of her stories of the time she spent in America: that I can send her home with pictures to prove that she went rock climbing here, at the University of Oregon.

And she lived up to the name I've given her, and the way I always think of her: The Mighty Svetlana. My friend.