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'Eh!' He settled back down, looking puzzled and shaking his head slowly for a
good few minutes, before he finally looked up with a cunning smile, as though he'd
caught on to our game. 'There's no Yaminka here. Where are you really from?'
Now it was our turn to be confused. 'We've got to get to Yaminka,' I tried again,
showing him the map. 'It's supposed to be only twenty kilometres from here. Do
you know which of the roads we should take out of this village?'
He studied the page closely for several minutes then handed it back to me. I got
the distinct feeling that he'd never seen a map in his life.
'Very good then.' He smiled confidently. 'Have a good journey. Goodbye.'
We said goodbye and retreated on our bikes, totally unenlightened. We looked
around for somebody else and saw, in a nearby paddock, a gigantic ploughing ma-
chine.
The metal monster rumbled along parallel to the road, leaving a vast swath of
chewed-up earth and a billowing cloud of dust in its wake. We braked to a halt and
waved at the driver. The driver's arm protruded from a tiny window and waved
back vigorously. We waved harder, and so did he. In a final effort, we waved as
though we were trying to flag down a passing plane and finally got the desired res-
ult. The roar of the motor slackened and the machine grumbled to a ponderous halt.
The door opened and the man scrambled several metres down a ladder. He exten-
ded his hand with a smile. He was short and skinny but he had a vice-grip hand-
shake. We went through the preliminaries then got down to business.
'Could you tell us how to get to Yaminka, please?'
'Hey?' He shook his head. 'There's no Yaminka around here. Do you have a
map? Show me where you're trying to go.'
We handed him our tattered map and pointed out the road we were looking for.
He scratched his head and muttered for a minute then flipped a quick glance at the
front cover before looking at us. 'Where the hell did you get this map?'
We told him and he snorted derisively. He turned back to the map. 'The roads
are all marked wrong,' he announced. 'But I think you're looking for Ishimka. It's
across the border and you can get there …' He paused for a moment, as though try-
ing to weigh up our competence. 'No one from around here does though because
there's not really a road.'
Tim and I looked at each other and laughed. 'Oh well, at least there won't be
any snow this time.'
He went on to explain directions. 'Take that road there, about four kilometres to
Ribinsk,' he said, pointing. We looked at the road then back at the map. The vil-
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