Strong Arm of the Law

Monday morning I had my second extended cooking class with the students because Garry had to go to Salonie again. It actually works well to have a class all morning, the first time we did it in October we made yeast bread and soup.

This week we made dinner for everyone ( there were 12 of us this week) for 100 grivna, with pork stew over pasta noodles and apple crisp. We had talked about how economical we could be. In next week's class we are menu planning for one person for a week on 100 grivna (about 4 dollars) to see if it can be done.




PS We now have 3 Sasha's 2 out of 4 new guys for this year, plus the returned Sasha and our grad Sasha. Four  Sashas! This week we are finding it confusing!



Garry taught all morning Wednesday, they are learning the parts of a cow and starting to do the cattle judging part of the curriculum. I walked down to the classroom with some printouts of cows for Garry, since he bought a new printer on Monday. Garry usually drives down the street to class, he took the students out to look at fields as he often does, so he was parked in front of the school.

 As Garry was driving home after class for lunch with Nelly and Alona (Nelly eats with us on our class days since she translates for us and Alona is our only female first year student and is living with us) he noticed that the police were two houses up the street where the gypsies live.

Then as he got out of the car, the police were down by our gate, so he went to talk to them. They told him that they wanted to see his passport. He came into the house and asked me where they were- he has a Canadian one plus we have Ukrainian visitor documents that look like a passport that are renewed every year.  We just got our new stamp in ours just before we flew to Ontario for the funeral.

I was busy trying to get dinner on the table and told him when it wasn't where he puts it away at that it must still be in his briefcase from the trip, since I did not think I had it. I had made a really nice dinner, complete with sweet potatoes I had brought back from New Jersey from my dad's garden. Garry went outside with his Ukrainian one and showed it to the four policemen. Literally, because he did not let go of it. He's a little leery of losing it with us going back to Canada in three weeks (from Thursday- less now).

They insisted on copying his name down off the document, but he did not let go of it. Then he tried to shut the gate to the driveway and they stopped him so he said dosvidonya and came in to eat my big dinner that was now on the table waiting for him to come in.

We were all enjoying dinner when the phone rang. The police had stopped one of the students driving the bobcat (skidsteer) from the new farm over to here to get grain and had asked for the documents. Garry finished the last bites of his dinner and went to talk to them. He drove the van down the street, hopped on the bobcat and drove it home and shut the gate. He uses it to make feed for the cows every morning. Once it's on your property with the gate shut. its not their concern. The student took advantage of the distracted policemen to run home. Garry had to go back for the van, so they asked him where the documents were for the tractor. he said it wasn't a tractor but a motorblok (rototiller).

Then they told him they wanted to see his real passport (Canadian one). He asked them to give him a letter explaining why before he'd show them. By the time I walked down to see what was going on, they had tried to drag him away when he tried to go home and he'd ended up sitting under someone's tree along the street.

A number of our non-student employees were there, one was videoing  the interaction on the his phone, a number of neighbors and passerby were stopping to see what was going on. Several people, including some old ladies told (or yelled at) the police that Garry was a good guy that helped everyone, why were they bothering him?

The mayor (whom Garry has a troubled relationship with) tried to get Garry to show him his passport, but Garry asked why he'd show him, he should stay out of it. He was still a little worried they might try to take it.
I have not told you about his driver's licence, which is why he was  worried about the passport. While I was in NJ he was given a ticket for entering the roadway improperly (like you can with the construction closing lanes) when some guy passed on the right whom Garry never saw because he passed the truck Garry did see and that guy went right to go around the van onto the side of the road and rolled his car in a field. The other guy got a ticket for passing because you aren't supposed to on the two way two lane sections- like no one does...right.
That's why I got to drive the rental car in Ontario, the police took his Canadian driver's licence and gave him a piece of paper to replace it and said he'd get it back after court. He's been to court twice now, (thus my extra long cooking classes) because  the judge decided he needed an official translator and they still aren't sure how to get one, he goes back on the the 27th. 

When I showed up Garry was sitting under a tree, while everyone was talking. He told me to take over videoing since I had brought the camera... thinking it could be an interesting blogpost, and at that point he said thought they would try to grab him again. I do have video, but it's mostly people talking in Russian.

 At these point they were claiming they were immigration and that's why they could ask to see his passport. Interestingly, they also told Garry when he said he didn't understand something they said that he was pretending not to understand, he has lived here so long that he must understand Russian. He does talk to people in Russian, and can argue with the police, so it must make sense to them.

Honestly, he is not that good at the language,  and I've been here just as long and can only get the bare essentials. Mostly I think "I know a few of those words, but have no idea what the topic of the conversation is!" Garry often says thinks he knows something but guesses wrong on some parts, too. Sometimes it seems he knows a couple ways to says something but there are dozens of ways to say the same thing, and he does not try using understand using the verb tenses with endings that change nouns.

 A babushka biking past stopped and yelled at the police for letting Garry sit on the cold ground, because he would get sick. She hung around until the end of the drama, along with a few neighbors.

Max Rudei drove up, and talked to Garry and the policemen, who were all big guys. Victor and Garry talked on the phone and Garry sent me to the house to copy the first page of his passport and the last entry stamp from two weeks ago when we came back from Ontario. I did it in color with that brand new printer, and walked back.

The guy in the black jacket was with the cops

 The cops looked at it and said it was good enough and left. Garry had offered a copy earlier that he carries in his wallet. He now has the beautiful color one there, just in case. Good thing he finally replaced the dud printer we bought last spring we could find cartridges for, or he might still be sitting there.

Late in the afternoon, we drove in Zaporosia to pick up Alona's bead kit she'd ordered (it's actually that DaVinci Jesus that sold for 450 million) and on the way home there were some police at an accident near the construction. As we drove past I pointed out they were the same police that had been in the village.

The second photo I took on the way there may explain the accident, we are all driving on the two lanes on one side of the divided highway and they block off part of one lane so you'll be careful where the bulldozer is working beside the road. When we went past it on the way home that sign with the arrow was smashed to smithereens.