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.