Off to the Black Sea...

A quick post for our faithful readers to let you know that we are heading to the Black Sea tonight and will not be blogging or emailing for two weeks...unless, that is we can find an Internet Cafe at the small town we will be staying at. The town has a population of around six thousand so I'm not expecting one to be there. We will be with the youth from the congregation we attend and we are hoping this will be a time of bonding, sharing and resting.

So far this week we have been keeping busy with Russian lessons and harvesting. Our tutor is back from holidays and so we have resumed our lessons. She is starting to feel more like a friend than a tutor as we often visit and share different aspects of our lives. We also had our friend Victor come over and take our plums. Our plum tree was ripe and was making a mess by dropping plums all over the place. I don't fancy plums and Laurie likes them but can't eat a whole tree herself. So when Victor heard that we had all these plums that were going to waste he graciously offered to take them. And he sure got a load full, almost 80 lbs of plums. He said he was going to make some jam and compote with them but I also hope he knows some other plum lovers cuz 80 lbs, I think is not humanly possible to consume by yourself.

Rest & Expeditions

This past week has been harder on us because of the slowness and the heat. Laurie and I like to keep busy but there has not been many opportunities to serve so instead we have been resting and exploring the city. Donetsk is quite a large city, having the same population as Calgary. Last Monday we found a new park to walk through. It was quite lovely and in exploring that area we found two new discoveries. One was a large WWII monument that we believe was built in memory of all the soldiers who perished from this region. The second discovery was an old hidden park which has obviously been neglected for many years. Laurie was a bit creeped-out because she felt like we had walked on to the set of a horror movie. We were all alone, in a forested area with old sculptures ... hehehe, I thought it was fun.







With a new soccer stadium being built there, the road access to this park has been removed and its not easy to get to it by foot. So it is understandable why it has been abandoned. However it does have interesting and imaginative sculptures as you can see so I wonder if they will reopen the access to the park once the stadium is completed .

Tuesday brought on good news. We have our passports back and they are legitimate with being registered and all. So now, hopefully we will not have any more issues with the authorities. The next day we walked to a new tram line and explored the other side of the city. We are finding however that outside of downtown is all very similar with being not as developed. But in exploring more of the city we do feel like we are understanding more of the 'normal' life here. Downtown is where you see the more beautiful and ritzy life styles whereas outside of downtown is where I believe we see how the average Ukrainian lives.

On Friday Laurie joined me on helping with renovating the building we worked on last week. This again was a fun experience. Laurie and I got to try our hand at cementing for the first time as we helped to patch the walls. It's kind of a fun task as you get to literally throw the cement mixture at the holes in the wall so that it will stick. But after that you have to smooth out the cement and that is a little more tricky. We did that for the majority of the day but also helped with moving some junk out of the building.





After our English class on Saturday I broke down and decided we should by a ventilator (fan). Laurie has been telling me for the past two weeks that we should get one because everyone is telling us that the summer is only going to get hotter and hotter. And it has. The last week has been averaging around 35 or higher and cooling down to about 28, I would guess but when there is no breeze it doesn't feel like it cools down. So now our ventilator is helping our Canadian bodies cope. I can't imagine it getting hotter but they say it will!

Oh, and our white kvass as I found out by doing some research and talking to Ludmilla is actually not a rice drink. I asked Ludmilla if the 'sea rice' is reusable or just a one time thing. She says, “oh no, it actually grows...I don't know how, but it grows and you can use it again and again.” When she said that I thought, “well this is definitely not rice.” So after some Internet research I believe we have a special type of fungus that eats sugar, multiplies and produces carbon dioxide and lactic acid. This is why it is bubbly and white. Our batch tastes the same as we had at Ludmilla's but for some reason just knowing that I'm drinking fungus juice has made it loose its appeal.

On Saturday I asked our students if they like white kvass but I was surprised to hear that they didn't know what it was. Well, I have a two liter bottle of it in my fridge right now that I will be sharing it with them very soon.

Mug shots, fingerprints and a hefty fine.

Yup, we now have criminal records. Here's the story. When we first arrived to Donetsk, Jay Don briefly mentioned to us that we would need to register with the government in 90 days. And of course we forgot and so did everyone at UBI. Well, that is against the law so when we went to the passport office and spoke to the head honcho there she told us about the fines we had to pay and then she made a phone call. Up to this time we had Ludmilla with us and she was helping and translating for us. But when a fellow entered the office he asked us to follow him to the militia building next door while Ludmilla worked on the paperwork at the passport office.

The militia building was an older building that is up to normal standards here. He first took us upstairs where another man took our mug shot. We then followed the man down some stairs that led to a long hallway. I thought to myself, 'this better not be a prison.' Thankfully it wasn't we learned later on that this building was just offices. And so we were seated in a small room that was being shared by two militia officers. We waited some time and then another officer entered with a folder and a mini roller. He then proceeded to put ink on the roller and then take our finger prints, palm print and then full hand print.

After this the fellow brought us back to Ludmilla who then helped us to pay the fine. But this was only the first process on registering our passports. Luckily Ludmilla knows the ins and out of this process so she took this on for us and we will hopefully have everything cleared up by tomorrow. It is good that we did register before we tried to leave the country because the militia would have not allowed us to leave without doing this.

This experience along with many we have had here has taught us to be more OK with ambiguity. We had no idea that we broke the law and were not sure what would happen at the passport office and did not expect to be escorted to the militia to by fingerprinted. If we were on our own I would have been more nervous but with having Ludmilla with us I was confident that she could get us out of any trouble we got ourselves in.

The rest of the week was pretty eventful as well. We had Vova and Lena over dinner on Friday and learned something new about Ukrainians. They like their corn to be very well cooked. We bought some corn on the cob and growing up I learned that you cook fresh corn for a maximum of twenty minutes so that it is cooked but still crisp. Vova told us this was weird.

On Friday I joined Dema and Sergei with renovating an old building. An old culture/theater building was purchased by missionaries and this building was donated to the Church. It was decided then that this building would be transformed into a halfway house for orphans who are on their own. The building is huge so the upstairs is going to be living quarters while down stairs will be a workshops to help the young adults learn life skills and trades. It is a great idea and it was fun to help with this project.

However the building is far from done. As you can see from the pictures the whole building pretty much needs to be renovated from the inside out.






On Sunday I had the opportunity to speak in the service. At first I wasn't sure if I would be able to speak because I was having difficulties finding a translator. Everyone we know is busy this summer with holidays or with work elsewhere. However, once again Ludmilla graciously offered to help me so I was able speak. After the service Ludmilla then offered us lunch at her place. We had our first green borscht and white kvas at her place. Yum yum, I'm finding that I am enjoying a lot of Ukrainian cuisine. The white kvas was very interesting. It is made from 3L water, 9 spoons of sugar, 10 raisins and a cup of 'sea rice.' That is what Ludmilla called it but I have never heard of it before. After you put all these ingredients in a jar you let is sit in the sun for a day while it cooks. You then strain it, cool and serve. It is light like lemonade but has its own unique flavor. I was a bit puzzles as I watched her current pot 'cook' in the sun. It had little bubbles forming inside. Was the rice fermenting? I don't know what chemistry was going in there but it does taste good. She gave us some of her 'sea rice' so we are going to try and make our own white kvas.

Evil Mosquitoes!

For the past week or so we have been dealing with mean mosquitoes. Its not the number of them that is the problem, its their attitude and persistence. First of all I don't know how they are getting into our place. All of our windows have screens and we don't leave our door open. Laurie thinks they must be coming in when we come and go from the house and we just don't notice them. I call these mosquitoes evil because they attack you while you sleep. Every night, only a couple of minutes after the light is out we hear a faint 'bzzzzzzzz' that inevitably gets louder as they come in for the attack. I must have tasty looking ears because I feel them land on them all the time. However we are fighting back, we bought a plug-in repellent thinger that I'm hoping will help keep them away.

As I look back we had a good week. Monday and Thursday was Russian lessons and practice. Tuesday and Friday we spend time with a friend of ours giving private English lessons. Saturday we had our group English lesson and Sunday was filled with Church services. Laurie also got her hair cut...I forget which day it was but she was a little disappointed. We couldn't completely communicate what she wanted so now Laurie's hair looks a little more Ukrainian, which is not bad but different from what she expected.

On Wednesday we also remembered to celebrate Canada Day. In the morning we painted radiators in the church building, they are all done now. Then in the evening we decided to go out. There is a nice Italian restaurant about eight tram stops from our place. We have only been there once before but remember it well because they have the best salads we have come across so far.

We continue to notice culture differences from what we grew up with. Today for example as we walked to UBI to do some errands an interesting lady passed us. We could hear her from a distance and noticed that she was yelling something. Only one word over and over again, very loudly. At first I thought she must be singing her favorite part of a song but when she walked pass us we recognized what she was saying. She was yelling “MILK” down the street. Ah, then it hit us. She must be the milk lady announcing her arrival to all the apartments close by. Everyone's windows were open so I'm sure they heard her. The picture below is a milk truck where people come with empty containers (like 2L pop bottles) and buy milk.

I imagine this is cheaper than the supermarket but so far I have not been brave enough to do it. I just have so many unanswered questions. Is it fresh milk everyday? How often do they clean out that container? I know that container sits in the heat for long periods of time...do they recycle the older milk or.... For now I think we will stick with supermarket milk, it just feels safer to me.