Whitewater Rafting, Chernobyl and the Tale of the Moroccan Dentist

Like so many stories, this one involves a cab ride. In late September I traveled to Charlotte, North Carolina, for an in-person gathering of my far-flung team at work. We haven’t met since 2019 and I looked forward to getting to know new members and reconnect with the veterans. A highlight of the schedule: A trip to the U.S. National Whitewater Center. Based on the website, its visitors are the kind of people who would be featured in Outdoors magazine. The center enabled our hardy band of white-collar proposal writers, designers, managers and administrators to challenge ourselves by hiking, biking, rope walks, kayaking, whitewater rafting and zip lining.

I’ve never done zip lining or whitewater rafting. Rowing and canoeing as a Boy Scout 50 years ago I could handle, but online scenes of rafts plunging up and down in the center's foaming waters felt way too close to the conclusion of Moby-Dick. I’m ready for Social Security—at my age could I summon rafting savvy from deep in my reptilian survival instinct? I could have opted for hiking, but, well, you know what the kids say, YOLO—you only live once. I brought up a quick-dry t-shirt, swim trunks, Teva sandals and a sturdy band to hold my glasses on in case I went rafting and plunged into the raging waves. Responding to my doubts about whether I wanted to risk it, my younger brother Cooper texted me, “Come on!! Try something different!”

My reply: “Blub blub.”

Finally, I opted for the newness of whitewater rafting and zip lining. The guides at the Whitewater Center were extremely safety conscious, so I felt confident about taking the plunges, in the literal and figurative senses. My big concern was keeping my glasses on in the raft and not bonking my head on a rock if I got thrown into the water. I’m happy to report I stayed in the raft and the glasses stayed on my head. 

Next I did zip lining. After at least 30 minutes of safety prep, I climbed up the 100-foot launch tower for the Double Dare zip line and finally enjoyed 45 seconds (each direction) of soundless gliding over the water course and islands. I barely had time to orient myself to what I observed. But I found the airborne challenge exhilarating; the phrases "zipless" and "fear of flying" mingled in my mind.

I found myself musing, the experience took a half hour of talking and arranging, followed by a minute of ecstatic flying— so similar to other memorable adult endeavors, but that's a matter for another post (or another book). 

Daring zip-liner after challenging his fear of flying.

By that evening, when our team headed to the Optimist Mill food court for dinner, the afternoon of the strenuous life was already passing from activity to legend. During the cab ride, I said to colleagues, “I can take whitewater rafting and zip lining off my bucket list. I also want to go to Chernobyl, but that’s moved down my list, due to current circumstances there.”

One new colleague, Tanya, exclaimed, “You don’t want to go to Chernobyl! I grew up around there! Don't do it!”

The cabbie’s ears perked up. “You’re from Ukraine? I speak Russian!”

And he did. The driver and Tonya amiably chatted for a while then switched to English. Eager to join in, I offered that my paternal grandfather was born in the shtetl of Vishnevets, so I have that connection to Ukraine. I also talked about the itinerary of my 1987 trip to the USSR (Moscow, Tblisi, Sochi, Leningrad). The driver then shared more about his background. He came to the U.S. from Morocco, where he had been a dentist. He held up his cell phone showing a photo of him performing dental surgery. So he wasn’t jiving.

I finally asked, “How did somebody from Morocco learn Russian?” I was thinking, maybe he was an exchange student during the final years of the USSR, taking part in what the propagandists called the friendship of nations.

“Online dating,” he said.

“I can identify with that, that’s how I got interested in studying Brazilian Portuguese,” I quipped.

Besides English and Russian, our multilingual driver also spoke Arabic, French and Spanish, skills that must serve him very well while ferrying passengers around Mecklenburg County. He loved living in the U.S. and still returned to Morocco. He was the kind of tale-spinning, highly observant cabbie that pops up in movies. And here he was, in real life. What would have been a prosaic mile-long trip turned into a cross-culture, cross-languages adventure that I’ll always associate with whitewater rafting. 

And I also connect the ride to the delayed bucket list trip to war-torn isotope-ravaged Chernobyl. Just between us, I still want to get there one of these days, Tanya's well-informed warning notwithstanding. You know—YOLO. 

The wild waters, ready to welcome humans in rafts.