Teaching week - or we eat a lot

ducks in the backyard next to the school

 Spring is here, I think, unlike in Manitoba, where schools and highways were closed earlier this week. It is cool in the morning, but is sweater weather by midday. The mud has dried up almost everywhere, the winter wheat had fertilizer spread on it this week,  and every time we drive to the city you can see the fields along the highway getting greener.

We teach classes for our students in the village on alternating weeks, and are off to Dnepro every Friday and Saturday afternoons for English classes. So this week was a teaching week, plus we had some special events this week. Garry is getting ready for both spring planting and the building team's arrival in two weeks, so it seems like we haven't stopped all week. He has drawn up lots of plans this week.

On Tuesday we had a guest speaker from a church in Dnepro, I made lunch for everyone, soup and brotabrot (openfaced sandwiches) with just mayo and sliced kielbassa. I didn't have cheese, like I normally put on. I had gotten Garry to pick up a few things on Monday afternoon when he drove the students to their classes in Dnepro, but he didn't stop at a big grocery store. The soup was lentil and meatless, but the students seemed to enjoy and and most of the adults who were there. I made coffee, tea and Cana-ski compote, as the students named it, or Kool-aid, as you might call it.

While we were eating Maria recieved a call from the "evening/afternoon school" saying it might not be worthwhile to come that afternoon as they were having short classes due to the holiday. The girls who go were so disappointed that Garry promised to take them on Thursday.

There was some food leftover, (I guess I made enough) so I put a plastic container of soup and one of sandwiches into the boys apartment fridge, and by six o'clock Sasha returned the empty containers, with a big smile and pajowlsta or thank you.

some of the 2nd year girls with their candy

If you don't know what holiday it was, Wednesday was International Women's Day or the 8th of March as many call it here. We had classes, but school was out in the village because it is one of the biggest holidays of the year. We have to get presents for all the female staff members, mostly boxes of chocolates and all the female students got chocolate bars. Garry bought my present on Tuesday, he forgets hyacinths make me sneeze. The new printer is great though, our 2010 model wasn't scanning anymore.

Thursday morning I had extra long English class- two 45 minute periods instead of one, since Garry, Maria and Luda went to meet and pick up a new female student Katya in Dnepro. Then I raced back home to make dinner so we could eat before the staff meeting, which had been moved up an hour because Garry was driving the students to afternoon school in Dnepro, since they had not gone on Tuesday. They usually go on two of the three possible days each week.

amazing cake 

Thursday at the staff meeting we had cake for Luda's birthday, which was the day before, she made and brought the cake, because in Ukraine that's how its done. Garry had to leave before it was over as he drove the students. As soon as he got home and conferred with Max for a few minutes, we were off to Bible study in Zap, after seeing a man and paying him for a load of brewers grain, since we were going to run out over the weekend. When Max heard where we were going (Zaporosia) he phoned the guy and we met him in front of a store. Garry rolled down the passenger window and counted out cash and handed it to the guy. I told him it felt like a payoff or a drug deal!
 Of course we had more food. Jo makes such nice desserts every week and we ate the new burger at Mc Donalds which is taco flavored with corn chips on. Its quite tasty.

Friday was supposed to be nice so Garry scheduled cleanup day and had the students and staff come to our house at ten am. He split them into teams and had them pick up trash along the streets in the village. They filled about 80 large trash bags. Maria says we embarrassed some people, who would see the students coming and run out and clean in front of their house, so maybe what he thought was community service was not the same as it would be at home in Canada. He mostly drove around picking up bags, after he started the fire for the hotdogs for afterwards.



They were back by 12:30, I had peeled the

hotdogs Garry had bought Thursday afternoon and baked some potatoes in the oven while they were gone. Every hot dog I have bought in Ukraine has a plastic wrapper you have to peel off each one. It takes a while to get them off. Since Garry had bought really cheap ones, they were pink and spam-like under a brown tinted wrapper, and kind of mushy, so you had to be careful not to break them. It took a number of tries to find the normal ones that Seth and Jonah liked when they lived here, which is the kind I buy.

one third done unwrapping "picnic sausages?"

However, every seemed to like them, they even ate some of them uncooked, which we have found is the norm here.

We had lots of ketchup, and bread too. Garry said some of them even put ketchup on the potatoes and cookies he bought, too.

That's our new student Katcha in blue

Julia cooking hotdogs

Garry has been walking without his walking boot, and when he concentrates he can walk with his foot straight and an almost normal looking gait on flat ground. It's more difficult to walk up or down hill, but stairs are fine. His biggest problem is the foot is still swollen, so its hard to get into shoes, other than the work boots he got from our visitors last fall and his "skater shoe sneakers" that are rather worn now. He could use a pair of size 14 sneakers with a rocker bottom for easier walking with an ankle fusion. I read sketchers make them, but we have trouble buying shoes his size here, so I guess he'll have to make do until the swelling goes away, hopefully in a couple months, or less.

We had that new burger at Mc Donalds for the third time this week. I even got a photo. We really like the taco taste, its the sauce. We even got home without hitting any big holes, so no flats or battery cable problems- last Saturday night we hit a hole and the battery cable - the ground broke and Garry had to jam a stick to hold it in place - we got a branch off a tree beside the road to make it home.

I almost got his post up before we went to Dnepro for the afternoon/evening, but still needed to proof read and polish it before bed. Garry went right to bed when we got home at 9:30 pm. He was tired from his busy day, and is supposed to milk in the morning with the students, Yana has weekends off.