Continued... slightly delayed

I intended to write this Sunday afternoon,  but when we returned home from church,  we discovered that the internet service in the village was not working.  Later in the day, Garry was talking to one of the students and found out they had phoned to find out that it would be back on sometime Monday.

It actually did come on around the time we were at the Crawfords with the students for the biweekly dinner they are hosting for the students.  They are upgrading the internet service, but it's been a little slow since it came back on, so we are hoping it really does get better!

So last week the corn was combined and most of it was put in semi trucks and sold right out of the field. Once it was off, Garry,  or Max and the guy students were out in the fields every afternoon pulling the plastic dripline tubes up in the field. The boys finished it Monday afternoon and it can be plowed up now. The New Holland  tractor has been out everyday until after dark plowing fields. They were busy plowing gardens for the people we rent land from also. The sunflower seeds are finally moving out of the shed into trucks to fill the contracts that finally were made to sell them. The winter wheat fields look good, nice and green, I'll try to remember to get a photo soon.

Thursday afternoon we had visitors from Kirvoy Rog,  Daryl and Molly Porter,  and Adam Nikkel and someone we hadn't had visit before, Nazar, who is one of Daryl's translators for his sermons. They were a little late for lunch because they had some car trouble,  but enjoyed some chili after they arrived around one o'clock.

Then we left Leila doing her normal after lunch floor washing,  since I'd decided to come along on their walk to the barn with Garry. When we returned home, Leila had gone visiting at Julia and Dima's, as she  often is, and Valentina was milking, so the door was unlocked as it often is since the girls moved in.

Later we had the Crawfords join us for dinner, along with Kolya,  Oksana and baby Matthew Mazhara since Kolya and our guests are all friends so they could meet the baby. As we were starting to clear the table,  the lights went out.

Monday night they went out four times, Victor was staying overnight in the summer kitchen and turned them back on three times (the breaker at the front of the house was flipped). Then the electricity was off until four am when Garry woke up and turned it on. It happened twice Wednesday night, once again around 9:30 p.m. It was closer to seven on Thursday...

Anyway,  the Mazhara family headed home and Garry took the guys to watch him breed a cow, and Shannon and I continued washing up the dinner dishes,  when off the power  went again. Once again, we turned on our phone flashlights to see, luckily Scott was still in the house so he went out to turn it back on, then hid at his house with the lights off, hoping to catch someone in the act as we were beginning to suspect that it was kids doing it.

After Garry and guys returned,  we phoned him and Scott came back and we played games at the kitchen table until late, the power stayed on the rest of the night. Unfortunately as they were heading to bed, Daryl noticed some money missing from his bag he'd left in the hallway when they came in. More on this in my next post.

Friday morning our visitors stayed around after a big breakfast with hashbrowns (I had forgotten about peeling and cooking potatoes the night before). They left around noon, and Garry took the guys out to pull up dripline while I baked a pear ( mostly pear, they were free from the Crawfords yard) and apple pie in a 9 by 13 pan for Vasa's birthday.  We were having birthday pie at five pm, and Garry had promised the students a trip to Ashan (the students enjoy buying cheaper groceries than in the village and eating some goodies from McDonald's). We try to go several times a month.

Unfortunately,  Garry was so tired from working in the field (it's a dirty job, pulling long lines out of the soil, tripping over corn stalks) he elected me to drive the van into Zaporosia.  We left at six, arrived at the mall at 6:40, so I told them we'd meet at the doors at eight. The store was packed, since it was Friday night instead of the usual Thursday,  and I was lucky to get them in the van by 8:30.

 So Garry and I went to bed, and 20 minutes later,  just before ten, out went the electric.  Then someone banged on the outside of our bedroom window, pretty much verifying the neighborhood kids theory.

On Saturday afternoon,  Bear and his house moved to the front yard, just by the breaker. For some reason, the power has stayed on, although Bear was barking around 10 and midnight the first couple nights.

More on the missing money in the next post, I'm too tired to write about Saturday tonight.

Busy week

We did visit three English groups last Saturday,  two schools,  with two different schools at one school.  Both schools are owned by lovely Christian  ladies we met at our very first SEI back in 2008.

Salo is like ...
uncooked bacon

Sunday we took a group of students to village day in Petropol, a nearby village,  where the highlights included lots of free food. There were sandwiches with salo, and hot tea, for breakfast and by 11:30 am, roasted potatoes plus Garry bought some shaslik (bbqed meat) to share.

That's one guy pulling a jeep

We watched a strongman competition between three villages,  and cheered for the Nikoliapolia team. They finished second to the home team. As you can see in the photos,  we've been having very foggy mornings.
 Sometimes it doesn't burn off until afternoon.

There was popcorn and cotton candy for kids, and Sasha Borchuk was sharing the popcorn he managed to get when he stood in line.







In the afternoon we had an adventure getting to the Zaporosia professional basketball team game, because parts of the city roads had been closed for a half marathon.

We did get there before it started and sat with our friends the Harders. Garry even bought a team jersey at the shop. He wore it when he took me out to dinner afterwards.

Monday morning the vacation was over, as I was supposedly teaching English at eight am.  Garry told the students but not me!
 I was a little late and unprepared.  However,  Tuesday's class went better. Shannon came along, and while I checked if they remembered the colors in English,  they tested Shannon on the words for Russian.  Garry had the new boys after on both days for dairy cow conformation classes. Three out of four guys, with Victor translating. Arthur returned by lunchtime Tuesday.

I did my first cooking class on Wednesday morning,  it was beets. We made beet oven chips, beet and cabbage soup, and beet brownies.  Of course, eating is the best part of cooking classes.  That evening we drove to Kamskoaya for our first SEI follow class of the year. Both of us had students who'd been in our classes attend.

Well its three am, not sure if that's old or new time, since time changed tonight,  so I guess I'll finish telling you about our week sometime later today. As you can guess, I am not sleeping well yet. I may be over jetlag by the time I fly back in two and a half weeks.

I made it

Landed safely in Dnepro in less than 18 hours from taking off from Winnipeg Wednesday  afternoon.  I wasn't overly tired when I arrived,  but still jetlagged since it's my second night here and it's three am and I'm writing this post.

Ukrainian airlines from Toronto to Kiev was the old, tightly packed plane (the Crawfords had a new one one way) and the food was not great, but I had two checked bags free all the way from Winnipeg (a surprise when I checked in online with westjet,  I thought I'd have to pay for them to Toronto). I hunted the house Tuesday evening and found a beat up one wheeled suitcase in the basement,  so almost everything made the cut. I brought some things for next summer's youth institute,  plus everything Garry told me he forgot.

 Honestly,  my worst problem on the trip was before we left Winnipeg when the guy in the seat behind me was looking through his bag in the overhead bin dropped his cell phone on my forehead.  It's still a little sore.

Up to that point, I'd had a great day, I'd even had time to make sandwiches and box up lunches for the crew making corn silage in the muddy field before Micah and Crystal picked me up to go  to the airport.  We went out to their favorite sushi restaurant and made a quick stop at a thrift store (where I picked up the book I read on the flight) before they dropped me off. That's the other thing about the Ukrainian airlines flight, only a few TVs overhead showing old movies... I read or dozed on the overnight flight.

I arrived in Dnepro Thursday night Ukrainian time (only noon hour back in Manitoba). I had a connection from Kiev,  and didn't even have to pick up my bags, just go through passport control,  out and upstairs and through security to the domestic flights waiting room.

We relaxed Friday morning at the hotel Garry had booked near the airport before coming home by noon and unpacking my suitcases.  Garry actually went over to the barn and changed the inflations right away (the rubber liners for the milking machines) as it was one of the things that he'd forgotten to put in his luggage. 

Friday evening we enjoyed a Thanksgiving dinner with the Crawfords and our Zaporosia missionary group at the Crawford's home.  Great food and friends and played a card game about planting beans until eight pm.

Today we are visiting one or three English classes in Dnepro.  Its also village day in Nikolaipolia,  Garry tells me the village is celebrating the 150th anniversary of its founding this year. 

Packed and almost ready

I have finally got my bags packed for my flights tomorrow.  I'll fly out around 3:30 in the afternoon Wednesday and get to Dnepro at 8:30 pm Thursday.  You lose eight hours flying to Ukraine from Winnipeg.  I discovered while checking in today I could check two bags, so some of the stuff I wasn't going to bring is packed now.

I did stay until after Canadian Thanksgiving as I planned.  We had to do it on Monday because even though we only had rain here at the farm, two hours west in Morden there was two feet of snow! That's where we went to eat and after dinner the kids had fun making snowmen.

Meanwhile Garry has been busy, he taught the new guys on Monday and Tuesday with Victor translating.  Victor also translated for the Crawford's student dinner and devotions Monday evening. Victor sent me some photos from class. Larissa's going to teach on Thursdays this year. I may do cooking class on Wednesdays.

He made it

Garry arrived safely in Ukraine on Monday and made it back to the village from Kyiv by train and Victor picking him up, arriving in the wee hours overnight.  He spent Tuesday checking on everything,  which I'm happy to report that he said all looks great. They planted the wheat a week ago, and had a couple nice rains since.

He met a new student, Arthur, and played some pingpong with him. The students had their first day of class with Larissa Tuesday and she posted a couple photos.  Only two new guys in the photo, and the Sasha who returned after working his way around Ukraine. 

You might notice Vika (pink jacket) in one photo,  she had a couple days off work and came out to the village to visit. She does have a new nephew to visit now (she's Oksana's sister).

Garry is on his way

Its still too wet to get in the field here in Manitoba.  On Tuesday evening we drove out to Morden for a lovely dinner with our daughter and her family.

Wednesday we helped our oldest son and family pack the UHaul truck for their move to their new church and home in Saskatchewan.  I helped with more packing all day Thursday before they drove out on Friday. 

They made it

Garry went on a three day road trip to Wisconsin and the World Dairy Expo, with son #2.  They got back home Saturday around noon and he immediately packed his suitcase with various free samples he brought back and all the parts and tools he bought while he was here. He also tucked in Leila's birthday present,  because her birthday is in the next week. Right now he's somewhere over the ocean on a plane from Toronto to Vienna enroute to Kyiv.  Then he'll take the train to Dnepro. 

We had a bit of a family dinner  (the ones that live in the village of St Labre) and then this morning Garry drove to the airport (in the rain of course). I drove home later in the day, not as much rain then, but its pouring and thundering now at seven pm. 

I have booked my ticket for ten days after Garry, after Canadian Thanksgiving as planned, and hoping my return will get me here before our new granddaughter arrives.