I was thinking typical, but a few things happened this week that don't happen every week, so...
Monday I spent the day cooking, because we'd decided that this weeks student dinner would be Canadian Thanksgiving, just a week late. Scott and Shannon were doing dinner for the students every other Monday, with Victor translating a little message from Scott, and it was so popular with the students, we decided to keep it up.
In the summer it was pretty easy, hotdogs over the firepit, some bread and a couple of salads and we had dinner. The first week we were back, we still ate outside, because the students started the campfire, but it was baked beans with ground beef and hotdog pieces and salads. However, we decided it was time to move inside, with shorter days and cooler nights, and we had a feast. I cooked turkey breast (it weighed almost 6 kilos) in the big crockpot, stuffing in the small one, pulled the last of the beets from the garden, made a huge cabbage salad and peeled five and half kilos of potatoes to mash. I had made apple and cherry pies on Sunday afternoon.
Victor had been feeling quite sick the week before, but he was able to drive out on Monday afternoon and translated Garry's message about being thankful. He also asked them what Hope for Each (our program name) meant, and Nikolai gave the answer he liked best, everyone here has the chance to change their life if they want to work. We told the students to not take more than 2 spoonsful of anything as they headed down the buffet line. They decided the girls could go first, like Scott told them, but they still piled the plates really full, and had trouble eating it all!
They were a bit disappointed in the small field that had grain corn, although the ears were bigger, it didn't do as well as they'd thought, and it was pretty high in moisture still. The cold wet season is upon us soon, so it wouldn't dry very fast now. However, the corn from the big field yielded more per acre and was much dryer. That corn was the taller stuff for silage, but they didn't need it all as silage, so some remained to combine. There was so much corn they had to put some in another shed, and Friday afternoon, Garry and some of the guys had to shovel it around to fit it all inside. The company wouldn't buy it right out of the field, but they have already sent away a sample, and hope to have a deal soon, because the price is good now. Most of the crop will be sold.
Just had to run and check my pie in the oven. Tomorrow is the twins' birthday (Kolya's younger brothers, Vasili and Misha) and Garry and I will be away so I am making their cake today, or a cake for Misha and an apple pie for Vasa, he asked for one last year instead of cake. Misha was gone to trade school the last two years so they weren't together then. We'll have them tonight, after Garry gets back.
Next week is going to be very atypical as Garry and I are off on the Red Sea vacation we had booked for April with the Rempels, who won't be joining us this year. We had delayed as long as possible, but it was go or lose your money (luckily we finally got their money back recently when the tour company resold the tickets.) In order to go, we had to get a Covid test done. That was a bit of adventure on Thursday morning, as we had been given the wrong address.
We went to 101 Kirova as texted to us, but there was no way into that building without a key card, so Garry called the travel agent. She talked to the office, and sent us a new address, 141 Polda. Garry checked with google maps, it said downtown, 15, 20 minutes away, we followed the directions and it looked all wrong, and we ended up back on Kirova twenty minutes later at #141, there was a medical building tucked in behind the 141 building we could see when we arrived. All we had needed to do was drive up to the other end of the street. Five years ago, when they de-Soviet named streets and cities, Kirova was renamed Oleksander Polya Street, so some people use the old name and some the new, or rather O. Polya, and maybe just call it Polya.
After all that we did get both our noses and back of our throats scraped and Garry paid. As we were driving away, he mentioned that it cost less than the travel agent had said it would be. Twenty minutes later he got a phone call, we had only paid for one test, they said. Eventually he went back in the afternoon when he was doing an English class to pay for mine and realized the price was now higher than the 1800 grinva she had said. Garry tried to understand why it was so expensive. Finally they told him it was only 1800 for residents, not foreigners and Garry said but we are residents and they said okay and he just paid the difference.
Today he's picking up the certificates of the covid 19 test for getting into Egypt, and he was a little nervous, the results were supposed to be ready at two o'clock. He dropped his empty semen tank off at Victor's house this morning - all week he's been telling people, he's sorry he can't come breed their cow, because the office was not working all week where he buys it, so Victor will buy some on Monday). Anyway, when Victor was sick last week the doctor said he didn't need to get tested for Covid, but he had an antibody test for it this week and it just came back positive. Maybe we wouldn't be going away after all.
However, we got an email at three o'clock saying we are negative, so Sunday morning we're off to Sharm El Sheikh and the Baron, the hotel the Rempels wanted to stay at.
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