Bylaws

Though we have been enjoying gardening in our yard, there is about a 4” by 30” patch of grass/weeds outside of the brick wall that surrounds our yard. This area is growing like crazy, but we have ignored it because it was outside of our yard. However, earlier this week we got a notice telling us we needed to clean up this area in front of our house by the street otherwise we will get a fine. We think it must be some sort of city bylaw we were not made aware of until now. So Laurie and I started weeding and got the majority of them. However when we were done weeding there was still a lot of tall grass left over. I thought to myself, “surely there must be someone on the street who has a lawn mower who cuts everyones grass for a fee.” Laurie wanted to take care of it ourselves by pulling the grass out. I thought that was silly. It would take over an hour just to pull grass and then it would be all patchy because some grass would come out by the roots and others wouldn't.

So we phoned our landlord to see what she normally does. Apparently her father knows someone who will take care of or “grass issue” and so I think about no more. In my routine walk to UBI, I have observed a few forms of grass cutting. One guy used a small electric mower that worked well. Another man I watched using a scythe got the job done as well so I figured I just need get me one of those and our grass would be easily taken care of. But then one of our neighbors shocked me.

Laurie and I headed out to our Russian lesson Friday afternoon and we walked by one of our neighbors pulling out the grass in front of her house. Her grass patch was bigger than ours so I was impressed that she was that ambitious. When we walked by she had just started and only had a small patch done. When we returned home about three hours later she was almost done. Wow...that makes me feel like a lazy bug. She pulled grass in the heat for over three hours while I didn't bother to pull grass for half and hour because of my pride. Next time I will not be so hesitant to pull grass, I'm not above that.

We are also constantly learning new things about this culture. We have been doing a lot of walking here lately and at times we just get tired. So sometimes we have sat down on a retaining wall or the edge of a flower bed and such. But each time we do this we seem to have the same experience. Shortly after we sit a militia (police) man or a security guard comes over and tells us not to sit there. Perhaps this is another bylaw here. But at least we know now that if we ever need help from the police we can just sit down on something that is not a bench and a militia man will come to us rather quickly. :)

Today Laurie had the opportunity to visit with the ladies at UBI. Every year Mary Lee either takes the ladies out or has them in her home for a meal for fellowship and to show appreciation. This year she was pressed for time so she took them out to a nice restaurant where they had a nice meal together.



Vova and I however planned to work. We order ten tonnes of sand and had it delivered to a Tuberculosis children's hospital. This hospital had a playground put in last summer by a short term mission team. The sand is to help the playground be more friendly, plus a sandbox, without sand is just a box...not very fun.



As soon as the sand was dumped, boom...thunder roared and the rain poured. We figured moving wet sand and working in the rain would be very challenging. So we will go back and finish the job on Wednesday. The weather is suppose to be better then.