And more

Garry has a cough, no, it's not something he caught from me, he was coughing before I came back from New Jersey! He decided to cancel his English classes this weekend. While the schools have closed here for three weeks, private English schools are mostly still holding classes. A few have gone online.

Tonight he even stayed home while I drove the students into the mall for their weekly shopping trip. I think most of them just came for the ride, I had three students walk around the grocery store with me, with the guys pushing my cart and one asking me what everything I bought was in English if he didn't know.  Most of them bought something at Mc Donalds, though.

I have heard that there are shortages of toilet paper in North America. There was plenty on the shelves here, although sugar, large bags of flour, gretsckha (buckwheat) and bagged salt supplies were running low. Only two large bags of flour, both ripped, were on the shelf, so I bought two smaller ones, since it was on my list. Unfortunately, Garry will have to continue to blow his nose on toilet paper, because I forgot to look for tissues. However, we shouldn't run out of food. Or toilet paper.





So our attempted self quarantine didn't work today, since we had students running in and out of the house all day. Scott even stopped in and asked about starting the tractor, Garry got a photo of him discing his garden.

I was a little busy at the time, Leila had helped paint the fence and even had paint in her hair when she came in the house. Right after Scott came in the girls realized my black winter coat hanging by the door had several large white paint spots on. They weren't quite dry, but I spent twenty minutes washing and rinsing it and hanging it out on the line (where I realized there was paint to wash out on the inside, too). Hopefully its all gone, or at least not too noticeable!

Garry did spend almost all day on the Mennonite couch, while I took a morning nap and fixed our duvet. I had tried safety pinning two old quilts in it last month, but I tacked them together instead this afternoon, because one was bunched up by our heads, and last night we both got stabbed with pins that had come open.

I think Sunday is going to be  a slow restful day for us also. Friday Ukraine announced it was closing the airports down at midnight between Monday and Tuesday. Our friend Marina phoned this morning about picking up the beds Garry bought from them. They are immigrating to Calgary. They were flying out on Wednesday, the same day the team was arriving here, but now Victor is driving her, her husband and sons to Kyiv on Sunday to catch a plane before its too late.

Hopefully the airports are open by the middle of April, since we hope to be home in Manitoba to attend Max Boradin's graduation from Providence University College on the 18th. Oh yeah, we got a message about needing to re-book our Egypt trip, too. The airports will probably not reopen by the 29th, so the tour company wants us to pick a new week.

Rapid changes

Well it's just after midnight in Ukraine, and I am awake (I have been asleep earlier tonight) and here I am on the Mennonite couch next to Box the cat typing into Garry's computer (my tablet has arrived at my father's house in NJ- yea!)

I have been a little under the weather today. I can't decide if it's just jet lag with the sore throat I had a week ago before flying home, or maybe the virus. Feeling pretty good right now, so probably jet lag. I did drive to the city this morning, however to pick up more paint for the girls painting fences. They have repainted ours and have been painting next door at the Crawfords.

I also stocked up on cleaning supplies as we are out of almost everything. However, the pump wasn't working, so I had no water to use them with when I got home. At the time, I was still somewhat hopeful that the building team from BC  would be arriving on Wednesday as scheduled.

Garry was busy with Max and most of the students building more walls. It looks like it will be cold and rainy by the middle of next week, so he was thinking that they could have the roof on before the team arrived. As you can see the house will be set at the back of the lot. You can see it looking through the Crawford's back yard in the upper photo. Notice how green their backyard is? Spring is coming fast here. They planted that beautiful grass last year.













Thursday they got the longer front and back walls up.

Friday it was looking more like a house by one thirty!

At eleven am I brought snack.

So now for the bad news, all about COVID 19, of course. Wednesday afternoon Ukraine closed all schools for three weeks, starting Thursday, throwing a big monkey wrench into our plans to do a VBS in the school. We were scrambling over changing those plans as we went to bed,  then when we got up Thursday morning, we found out about the American border closure to Europeans. How would this affect the team, flying through Montreal and Vienna? Would Canada follow suit? Would they be able to return home if they came? We were remembering the teams that could not fly ten years ago with the ash cloud from the volcano. That's how we met Jack and some of the guys on the BC team actually, they were in Ukraine and couldn't leave while our Steinbach team had to postpone their trip here.

Marcie and Doug cancelled their flights yesterday, so we had to cancel their part of our planned vacation with them to the Red Sea for the first week of April today. They had a lot of crafts packed for the VBS and were really sad to cancel, but Doug's mom is sick, so they couldn't stay here indefinitely, if things fell apart. Jack was still leaning toward coming, in spite of the idea that currently they would have a two week self quarantine after returning to Canada, but late today we found out as of Sunday, all foreigners cannot cross into Ukraine for the next two weeks. I think they lost 200 dollars each on the cancelled flights from BC.

So Garry plans to put the roof on the house on Monday, and we'll see what his building team of students can do. We will really miss Jack's useful suggestions for building,  Jeremy doing the electric and Matthew finishing the drywall perfectly. We may be able to video chat some of that advice, I guess.

Back in the village

I'm back in the village, working on my jetlag, hoping to get prepared for the building/VBS team's arrival in (gulp) less than a week now. I arrived here Sunday night and sleeping at night has had mixed results, it should work itself out by the time they arrive next Wednesday. Interestingly, everyone on the plane had their temperature taken by two ladies with forehead readers before disembarking in Kyiv.

Today the government announced that all schools (including daycare and universities)  in Ukraine would be closed for three weeks starting Thursday. Not sure how this will affect our plans for VBS, since we were going to have it at the village school. We may hold it at the church and our classroom instead, and hope people send their children anyway.

 Blog posting has been hampered by leaving my tablet in the rental car. It was dark when I arrived at JFK airport and it must have fallen on the floor by my bag. Luckily it was found, but I didn't realize it was missing until I was going through security. It's now on its way back to my dads; since it was 33 dollars to ship it there, and 137 (US) to send it home to Canada. No, I did not check on sending it here, we plan to go home in April for Max Boradin's graduation, and I plan on a trip to NJ afterwards.

Otherwise, my flights were okay, although the first half of the flight over the ocean was rather bumpy, turbulence had the seatbelt lights lit for a couple hours. I thought I'd sleep on the flight but I think we were going through the offshore storm that was the remnants of the Tennessee tornadoes.

Shannon volunteered to continue teaching English class this Monday and Tuesday at eight am, although I did teach cooking class to everyone- even Sasha Borchuk came-  Wednesday at nine. We made a coffee cake and looked at old photos from the trade school blog while it was in the oven. I also handed out a pair of socks from America to everyone. I picked them up while looking for Garry's seeds for the garden. He plans to start tomato and pepper seeds any day now.

My only completed project since arriving was bleaching the mildew that was growing in the vinyl seal in the washer Monday morning, after I located the source of the awful smell in the the bathroom. Today I hope to go to Luda's old house with Garry to see what needs doing to put some of the team over there, figure out when we are moving the girls out so I can prep the bedrooms here, and figure where everyone will be staying, and get ready to cook a lot of food.

Garry, meanwhile, has been building the trusses for the house build with some of the students, and even started building exterior walls yesterday. I will try to get photos later today but here's a couple from one of the kids in the village (its four am as I type). The guys have been working on cementing the cistern they dug, too.

He's also ordered more lumber as they are going to build more trusses to double the size of the hay shed by the cow barn this spring. He says they used almost 100% of bales in the shed, but only half of the ones they stacked outside covered with plastic as the birds (and or mice) made holes in the the plastic and they spoiled from moisture.

Getting ready

Garry has been busy getting ready to pour concrete for the pad for the house the building team will build when the come on March 18th. He plans to do the big pour (with cement trucks) on Saturday.

They've been busy leveling the site, tying rebar and need to get the plumbing drains in place Friday.

Wednesday morning Garry had the students each make their own sushi roll during cooking class. I don't think I can top that next week!

Thursday Larissa was teaching and had the students write about their plans and dreams for the future.

Saturday evening I will drive back up to New  York city and fly back at half an hour past midnight to arrive  in Dnepro  at    8:30 pm   on international Women's day. I'll be leaving just ahead of the spring ahead time change here, it will change in Ukraine in two weeks.

Bees

Its been warm enough to get the bees out of the hive, Garry took a photo of them enjoying my crocuses.

Church

This morning I left my sister in charge and slipped out to go to the 8:30 am service in Allentown  (NJ) at the Presbyterian church.  This is the church Garry and I were married in and attended as a young family until we bought a farm in the Catskills Mountains of New York state.

The church is celebrating its 300th anniversary this year.  The current church building was built in 1837. I have ancestors buried in the cemetery (where we took our wedding photos with the lake and trees in the background! )

Today the pastor was preaching about the story of Samson,  and he mentioned baptism,  and dedicating children to the Lord. I thought back to about forty years ago,  when Matthew,  our preacher son was baptized as an infant there.

 Reverend Schulte, who was the long serving pastor there, baptized Matt, because Garry's parents had just moved to Canada from New Jersey. Shortly after we were married, Reverend Schulte told us he was sure we were going to be missionaries. We just smiled,  because we had no idea that he would be right about that in thirty years.

Garry attended church in the village today with the girls. He said Max Rudei sat next to him.

Happy Spring!

Today (March first)  is the first day of spring in Ukraine. Garry tells me its going to be pretty nice weather, so he hopes to get the concrete poured for the slab for the house build. The team arrives in 18 days. I will be back in Ukraine before they arrive. I think I'll fly back in a week.

My father is home from the hospital for a week tomorrow and slowly recovering.  Hopefully in a week one daughter 24 hours a day will be enough,  rather than two.

Garry has been busy, of course, one day they worked on the site last week, but they've had some wet weather,  so they haven't gotten as much done as he'd like. The planed lumber for building the walls has been delivered,  and a bunch of the other building supplies have too. Garry has ordered doors and windows for the house, they should be ready soon. Prehung doors, or as close as they come, we are getting them with hardware attached,  Peter would be excited,  he had to put all the knobs and hinges on the doors for the Crawford house.

Garry plans to start building trusses, but with the normal rough lumber that's normal to buy. It's the first time we've been able  to buy wood all the exact  same size to build with. 



The students were excited to go bowling one day last week,  always one of their favorite excursions... and according to one of the girls Facebook posts,  exactly one year since the last time we took them bowling.