Quarantine

Like you in Canada and in the USA, we are living under quarantine for corvid19. The measures were extended last week until April 24th, and we expect that will be extended. Everything is closed, except for some stores that sell essentials. There you may need to get our temperature taken, sanitize your hands, order and pay for your stuff and pick it up outside. Some restaurants are doing takeaway and or delivery, no one can eat inside. Meetings are limited to ten people.

The farmer/vendor markets are all closed, too which has affected many people living in the village, last week a neighbor with chickens brought Garry and Max two buckets of eggs to give to the students. Normally, a man comes to the village and sells them in the market in the city for him, but now he can't sell them.

Milk trucks are not picking up milk driving through the village like they normally would, and people can't sell in the markets, so people with four or five cows have a problem because they can't legally sell the milk their cows are making. The people we used to sell milk to five years ago would have been unable to sell their cheese products because the markets are shuttered. We now have an official contract with the milk company to pick up our milk. Factories with more than 50 employees had to shut down, so we were worried at first, because the milk factory has about one hundred employees, but food production is considered essential, so they are exempt.

Yesterday we had our staff meeting outside at the Crawfords. You can admire their beautiful lawn, and the masks Shannon sewed for everyone. We are trying to avoid contact with people other than the students. (Scott and Shannon are even avoiding them, as Scott has had lung issues this winter). Sometimes this is difficult, Garry says every neighbor is dropping in at the building site to check it out, and Ukrainian men always shake hands when meeting (even if it was yesterday they saw them). He's been trying to get everyone to use the elbow bump instead.

Last week he decided to get more serious about avoiding contact, trying to keep a meter between him and people (except the students, with no buses running its hard for them to contact people other than in the village). However, he says the man he bought lumber from was chasing him to his car to shake his hand after he bought the wood for the baseboards. Misha, our neighbor was following him around the van two times as he kept backing up to put more space between them. He finally yelled cor-rona vee-rus! to get him to stop, but he only smiled and shook his head.

The official numbers of positive cases (as of yesterday) in the area are 11 in the Zaporosia region and 8 in the Dnepropetrovsk region, but who knows if that is just the tip of the iceberg. Better safe than sorry, I am sure no one wants to end up in the infectious disease ward of the hospital in Dnepro. Remember I was there a few years ago with mono.

Thursday, Friday, Saturday

It's Saturday afternoon and Garry has gone off to Zaporosia (complete with a mask Shannon sewed) to pick up more cement powder and the boards he had made for baseboards. Yesterday evening I went with him to Zaporosia, but I was baking a cake when he left and it gives me a chance to grab his laptop and make a blog post for you to read.

Oksana with baby Matthew

My days seem to be filled from morning- getting lunch ready for the gang working, to evening. Okay, I admit I have been relaxing with crocheting and reading sometimes in the afternoon instead of remembering to grab the laptop before Garry comes home. Once he comes in the door he's got it until bedtime. I must be finally over jetlag, as I have slept the last couple of nights, no midnight blogging!

Here's the highlights of the last couple days. Work progresses on the house. Thursday they started mudding the drywall, it looks pretty good.

I made chili bean soup with omelet brodebrot (open faced sandwiches) for lunch Thursday (with my helper Valentina).


For coffee time in the afternoon, Shannon made chocolate chip cookies, and they were a big hit with the students, and with Garry!

Thursday evening we were in the house early for a zoom mission meeting at five our time (8 am for the home office people in BC). It was nice to see people we know well from the Europe area, and interesting to hear from some we've never met, to talk about how CORVID19 is affecting everyone, and to pray together. Our conference in June in Hungary has been cancelled. 

While we were doing that, I found headphones for Valentina (who was listening to prasie music on her phone in the same room, gave Vlad his clean clothes to put on after showering in our bathroom and told him to put the rest in the washer. (Garry had finally agreed he smelled bad, he has no shower where he's living, he's a former student who has been helping build) then found him a snack and made coffee for him and Garry. 

Friday morning they were sanding, because the screw spots were dry already. The weather had turned warmer but still windy Thursday. The corners did take two days as predicted. Garry and Victor, who was out for the day, (he also checked on the bees) were working on building the entryway porch.

I changed things up and made mac and cheese with hotdog slices (a huge hit) and cherry pie for dessert (we have a lot of bags of somewhat pitted frozen cherries, quality control was poor, Leila is good at speed, not accuracy).

The guys are finally almost finished with the cementing of the cistern. When it was cold earlier in the week I'm told they were assembling cabinets in the garage (machine shed).

Garry needed to pick up some chipboard at Nova Lenya for the entryway and we needed to drop off some money for a friend in Zaporosia (a friend of hers in Canada puts money in our Canadian bank account to give her quarterly). Garry had to breed a cow in a village on the way there. The kids in that village are still playing on the street, something we don't see in our village during the quarantine.

WE were right in the city center so we went through the Mc Drive. The apricot trees in the village are just starting to bloom, but the city is always ahead of us, and the forsythia bushes are in bloom.

Then we circled back around to Nova Lenya. I wore my mask inside (I had one in my coat pocket from visiting my dad in the hospital) and it turned out that now you needed to sanitize your hands (pure alcohol, made Garry's cut on his hand sting), have the lady take your temperature (on your wrist now) and get a mask on, she told Garry they had them for sale. He didn't buy one (a very flimsy one was 99 grivna, about 5 dollars). 

I bought the student parents more diapers and wipes (Kolya's Huggies were his 28th birthday present) and got some dish soap (Valentina uses more than I do). They were in they only section you could touch things in. Garry ordered his lumber and paint and we paid for everything, separate checks for Garry's stuff and then mine. Turned out the light bulb I picked up by the checkout was supposed to be a prepay and delivery out the back item, so no fixing the burnout bulb in the kitchen. 

Then we drove to the gate to get Garry's wood and paint. While we were loading the wood, a passerby offered to help, but Garry told him Thanks but no. Guess I look like a poor old lady helping load sheets of plywood. Garry laughed and said he doesn't know you used to milk 500 cows and take care of 8 kids and more.

When we got home Shannon and Scott had dropped off the groceries they had picked up for me in Dnepro. This morning Shannon dropped off the extra money and said you had to wear masks at Metro and they were limiting how many people came into the store. They are going to be extra cautious now. Scott has been sick since fall. Shannon gave us a mask she'd sewn this morning, which is why Garry had one to wear to go to the city.

This morning Garry had a group working, so it was beef barley soup for lunch.

 Andrey (Max's brother that used to live with us) is around, he's been working on ships as an underwater welder) and was working the fence post auger for the picket fence that will go in front.

I brought over coffee and cake at four so here's a quick update on the fence and cistern. Garry's back and spackeling walls.

Garry didn't actually go in at Nova Lenya this afternoon, he said there were 40 people waiting for their turn to go in, so he just picked up the planed boards at the lumberyard.

Tuesday Wednesday

It's actually nearly midnight and so almost Thursday now. I woke up a couple hours after going to bed. I got up to check the door since two of the girls were still out visiting their friends when we went to bed around nine. Sometimes they forget to lock it.

The heat is clicking, it makes a noise as the hot water  goes around the corner of this room. It will be nice when we can turn it off and save on the gas bill, but its been below freezing at night, and windy during the day.  Otherwise it's very quiet. The village has been quiet now for almost two weeks, and now the quarantine has been extended until April 24th. There are no buses or vans running to the cities. A lot of the people in the village wok at a greenhouse some distance away, that used to send a bus for them everyday, but now they can't get to work except by private cars, apparently there are people charging 400 grivna for rides to the city, according to Max.

The students are stuck in the village unless Garry or Max drives them out (which they haven'tour shopping t the mall is off, the mall is closed now). However, the stores in the village are well stocked with food. We have bought "pampers" at the building store for the two with babies. Apparently I bought the wrong ones, size 4 instead of 5 for Danil, and I didn't buy huggies for Matthew and now he has a rash. They only had bigger more expensive bags than they get at the grocery store, apparently, they had given us 200 grivna so I bought the ones that cost 240. Next time. Although with the new no touching rule...

Garry has not been back to the city since Monday night, Max went last night, and I think they actually didn't need anything today after work.

Tuesday morning we had English (only ten people allowed) and then I made chicken noodle soup with Valentina's help for the crew working. After lunch, whoever is milking walks over to the barn, so there is less help at the worksite for a couple hours, by three the ones who really like it are back, like Leila. Yesterday Valentina was milking, so I had no clean up without help after lunch. It would have been quiet, except Vika was off and she likes to watch annoying videos on her phone... like singing potatoes.

 Here's a few photos from Tuesday, when they finished insulation, drywalled some walls, did some electrical work and finished installing the ceiling. I took most of these at lunchtime. Victor went home Tuesday evening, after staff meeting.

Leila with the newest Muktar stuffed dog
(He's a German shepherd on TV, I'd like to find her one) 

Victor wearing the mask

Nikolai was one of the ceiling installers

Misha was up in the attic putting in insulation

Wednesday morning is usually cooking class and I divided up students by having the girls come cook and the guys work on the house. I had a small but busy group as we did not make soup today. It was gretscha (buckwheat) topped with farsh sauce (hamburger gravy) with a side of  kartoshka free (oven fries), bread with cheese spread and pickled beets. We also made brownies for dessert.

The guys got  very full. they had two ladles of gretscha and gravy, most of the girls had one and then I let them serve themselves seconds and Bear didn't get much in his bowl when they were done. They also got a scoop of fries which came out pretty good, the girls cut them Mc Donald's size.
















The guys seem to have been goofing off and taking selfies in the morning while drywalling.

They did get lights working over there today. If you are wondering where the power is coming from, remember the line we ran next door when Scott and Shannon had to run electric heat last year? Now that they have gas, its going farther. Max is still promoted to new Jeremy.

They finished drywalling and installed doors "because they were in the way" after lunch. I brought them coffee, tea and cookies (including more brownies) around three. 

We  are very eco friendly, no disposable cups, bowls or plates this year. I got tired of washing sugar out of the little cups at first, but they are getting better at not using too much in their tea. 

Sunday, Monday

Garry thought he'd go to church in the village, but before he got out the door, Leila was back to report that there was no church because of the quarantine. She also said she wasn't sick so why was she unable to go? Normally the church often has ten people or less, so Garry thought it would be fine.

We had a day of rest, Garry and I watched our son Matt's church service on facebook live in the evening (6:30 here). Time doesn't spring ahead until next week here. Garry now listens to a different sermon every morning when he gets up. Today it was Kent from our home church, Emmanuel.

I made lasagna last night for supper, Valentina ate with us (the other girls are often visiting their friends in the evening) and pronounced it farse torte (ground beef cake). She liked it, we had leftovers tonight.  I had bought the ingredients last week Saturday when I took the kids to Ashawn grocery store, before the quarantine. It's about the only place I can buy the noodles.

This morning I had English with the students before they started building with Garry and I started making pea soup. It was cold (4C) today and windy, the ground is still muddy from Saturday night, and Sunday morning's rain.

 Today they worked inside the house, finishing wiring, prepping the ceiling with a framework of boards until the rafters, insulating the walls and ceiling, and putting up the plastic ceiling and drywall.

Victor was out from the city today. (some of today's photos were his). This evening he went to Zaporosia with Garry to get a few things they need for tomorrow. Garry says that they are still taking your temperature as you enter Nova Lenya, but now you can't touch anything. You walk around a loop that's cordoned off and tell the employees what you want. they write it (number) on a paper, after you collect papers for all the ones you want, you go to the register and pay for it, and somehow it all comes outside the store where you pick it up. He said it took a lot longer to buy things this way.