Somewhere between the wheat fields of Belarus and the wide open spaces of Siberia, David Christof's underwear is running free.

By our second day in Belarus, my team (me, David Christof, Shiri Leventhal, and Emmanuel Kibet) was in crisis. We had no clean running clothes left to wear. Our laundry, which had been fermenting for almost ten days in canvas laundry bags, had started down the path to sentience. We were afraid to open the back of the van, in case a grungy pair of shorts or a dirty T-shirt decided to speak to one of us. Nudity was imminent. In a bold move driven mostly by desperation, we abandoned our horrible clothes in a hotel lobby in Belarus, hoping that some charitable person might take pity on them. Maybe they would get washed and catch up with us in a few days. Maybe not. Either way, we felt safer without them in the van!

Shiri received a bag a clean and folded clothes, all hers, the next day. I got someone else's clothes – nicer than my original stuff, but too small, unfortunately. David's underwear, however, apparently made a break for it while our backs were turned. Every single pair mysteriously disappeared.

Elevators in Belarus hotels are usually small, sometimes inoperable, occasionally nonexistent. My bag with all my gear is huge and heavy and acts like a badly behaved dog – one minute nipping my heels and the next yanking my arm out of the socket. And after hauling this badly behaved bag up seven flights of stairs, I seriously considered dumping all but what I was wearing. So, I wasn't too worried when a bunch of my clothes went missing; in fact, I was a little relieved. My bag was more manageable without them. Good riddance.

My clothes eventually found their way home -- mostly clean, mostly folded, mostly mine. David's underwear, though, is still at large.