After Dinner Tonight

We had company over for dinner tonight. I made Pumpkin Peanut Ginger soup with the addition of tvrog, which is like a slightly sour dry curd cottage cheese. A little onion, a little garlic, some cayenne pepper and salt. Yum yum!! Served with whole grain and sunflower seeds bread topped with melted cheese. Tomatoes and cukes on the side. Tasty.

I needed this.

I did something I have not done before. I confronted one of the women about her relationship with Christ. It was at the end of the evening and I asked if I could ask her a personal question, she agreed, I asked. Won't go into detail, but her answer concerns me. In some ways I told her I was pleased - she stated that this is not an easy decision for her. I told her that was better than a hasty "I believe" when you really don't. It concerned me very much that she hedged all around the question - do you believe Jesus Christ is the Son of God and that he died to pay the penalty for your sin? That one made her very, very uncomfortable - squirm-y even. And that saddens me oh, so very, very much. She gave several excuses as to why she won't take communion IF she does believe - excuses for which answers have been given over and over and over again. And if she is not a true Believer, I am so glad she does NOT take communion!! So I will pray for her, even more. We've all known her and worked with her for over 13 years. But my heart is sad tonight. She told me it was easy for me to believe because I've been a Christian for almost 50 years. I found that an interesting statement in a number of ways. Gives me food for thought, trying to figure out her reaction and the rest of the conversation. When we're just talking in conversations, she sounds like a true Believer in Jesus Christ. But "something" is missing - is it the Holy Spirit in her life? Or is it courage to come forth? Or is it something else I have no clue over at all?

Time is short. You don't know when your last breathe will be taken. I will be focusing on her in prayer over the next few days and we'll see what happens.

My tutor, who gave a testimony and joined the church years ago, quit going when we had a situation with the then pastor, and she now says "Ukraine has her own church." So, my heart is heavy on two sides tonight. Every time I bring the subject up with her now, she gets real sleepy (she often is sleepy when she's teaching me Russian - I think it's self-defense for what she's hearing!! :) :) ) and can barely keep the conversation going. There is a real spiritual battle going with her. I have many questions as to what to say and what to do - - but I know I must pray for her, that the Holy Spirit will open her heart and draw her to Christ. She is such a "good person" that most people would never think she was in danger of hell.

Actually, she is the one who has kind of spurred me on tonight. The best friend of one of her friends suddenly died last week, at 61. The woman was very healthy, energetic and so forth, but went in to the hospital for a 'female procedure' and died from 'a blood clot'. My tutor was in shock over it. Maybe this is what is needed to wake her up? I don't know. I will continue praying.

Yet even after all this, I feel so much better than when I wrote earlier today. Amazing how that works. Maybe someone read that post and prayed for me? I may never know who you were, but I thank you from the bottom of my heart.

I also wonder, was my conversation later in the evening the reason I was in such a funk earlier in the day? The older I get, the more I realize what a spiritual battle we are in and that all things are connected. ALL things.

I Never Know

I never know what I'm going to find when we get back to our flat after someone has stayed here while we're gone.

One year we came back and the top of the washer was cracked. The washer is a front loader and the top has a plastic-rubber type covering on it, I think to make it 'non-slip'. I found out later that it was cracked because the gal staying here had smacked it over and over again with the heating element of the electric tea kettle, "trying to get the ants out". She was concerned that the ants were going to destroy the heating element of a cheap electric tea kettle and in the process ruined the top of a rather expensive washer. I don't think she has ever realized that she is the one who cracked it. Of course, the crack has grown and chipped a bit and is quite ugly, even if it's not all that big. I see it several times every day.

This time I've found at least two things so far. Different person, more damage. Actually, I know at least 6 people were in our flat while we were gone, so it could have been anyone who did it.

The glass door on the top cabinet was broken, up in the corner near the hinge. I did not know this, so when I opened the door to get some spices out, the glass door fell out of the hinge and almost knocked me on the head. Instead of my head, thank God, it hit the counter. Because it landed corner first, now I have a pencil eraser sized gouge in my counter top. At least it wasn't my skull. But, now I'll get to watch a slow disintegration of my counter top. Sigh. We bought them 9 years ago and I've kept the tops undamaged for 9 hears, aside from a knife mark someone else left while we were gone.

Today I was cleaning the stove top again and wondering why it's so hard to clean now. The stove is also 9 years old and I've kept the top totally clean - no marks, no scratches, no burned on food. Well, I finally felt the top with my fingers and found that someone apparently burned some food and tried to scrape it off with a sharp knife. There are several scratch marks in the enamel, some 6 or 8 inches long. Now keeping the top clean is going to be a much harder job. No more simply wiping down splatters and spills - now it's going to entail scrubbing them out when they are stuck in the scratches.

I am flummoxed. Why?

Well, I know why, to an extent.

People don't take care of other peoples' property. I saw this recently with furniture. The furniture was taking a beating and I asked why that was allowed and the comment was "it's not our furniture." This person didn't like the owner of the furniture, so the person didn't care that it was being abused and torn apart. (What a Christian witness to an unbeliever!)

OUCH!

I was taught from very young childhood to respect other peoples' property. I was taught "do unto others as you would have them do unto you". I am a firm believer that I need to care for others' things as well or better than I care for my own. It saddens me, but no longer surprises me, to find that other people do not think the same way.

It is a symptom of the society in which we live. All for me - I don't care about you. I am the most important person in the whole world and I really don't care about your well-being, except for how your well-being can make me feel better.

I am so glad God does not think this way! He cares for us and wants for us the very best of the very best. How can we, as Christians, model this to the world? By putting them first, by taking care of their possessions, by showing that we think of them more highly than we do ourselves - by LOVING them.

This is not an easy thing to do.

So, I came home this time to a ruined washer top, ruined counter top, ruined stove top. At least they are all still functional and I don't have to buy anything new right away. I'm just sad that my things (and me) were thought of and treated so poorly.

I am also reminded that things are not important - people are. Therefore, rather than being upset with the unknown person(s) who did the damage, I need to forgive and just go on. Things can be replaced, eventually if needed, but damaged relationships are very difficult to mend.

Wednesday Afternoon

Mel and I walked over to the little coffee shop again today. On the way over he told me about some of the things he and the rest of the guys talked about yesterday in the Session meeting. He doesn't tell me everything, of course. :) When I commented about one of the issues they discussed, he decided to call Sergei K. So, as we walked down the busy sidewalk, dodging open manholes, cracked pavement/concrete sidewalks and people, he asked Sergei to come meet us. (He knew that Sergei was already in town.) He wanted me to tell Sergei what I was thinking and also ask him the same question about it that I had asked Mel.

Sergei arrived. He drank tea while Mel had coffee and I had cocoa. We talked around the world and it was great. It's been a long time since I've really talked with Sergei. He's been busy or gone a lot this winter and with Sunday School starting right after church gets over, I never get to talk with anyone now after church. So, it was good to sit and talk and listen to him.

We met this young man when he was not even 18 yet - a tall, skinny kid who had a hollow leg come dinner time. Well, he's still tall, but not quite as skinny (no one would ever say 'fat' and 'Sergei K.' in the same breath, though) and his leg is not quite so hollow. However - he is not a 'kid' any more. I was struck by this a few weeks ago at church while watching him do something in preparation for the worship service. Our Sergei is truly grown up and a man now. I kind of have the same feeling as when I realized my own sons were men, not little boys or even teenagers any more. It's a good feeling, but it also is a bit sad. While they grow up, I grow older. Such is life. And it is good.

After talking around the world he and Mel left for about half an hour. I am not feeling well - I think the cold that is going around has finally come around my direction. (Whenever I say aloud or even think "I'm not feeling well" it actually comes out, with Mel or in my head, "I'm not feeling a hundred percent, Charles." If you don't understand that, think the movie, "The Edge". If you've never seen The Edge, well, I can't help that!) So, I'm not feeling 100%, Charles. In fact, I'm feeling much less than 100%, Charles. I stayed in the little coffee shop, the only customer there for most of the time and had another cup of cocoa and worked on ideas for this summer's VBS.

After Mel and Sergei got back, Sergei headed off on direction and we headed on home. We took the trolleybus. There was plenty of room on it, even at 3:45pm. The crisis in this country is really starting to show - there is a lot more room on public transportation right now during most of the day. I sat down, at the back, facing backwards. I looked at the broken and "repaired" window and thought to myself, "I should take a photo of that." Mel sat down beside me, looked at the window, leaned over and said, "You should take a photo of that." So, I pulled out my handy dandy little camera and took a photo of it. There is a hole in the window and it has been 'mended' with two pieces of metal (a piece of metal on each side of the glass, held together with a screw).We got off and Mel offered to buy me a Coke Light and I said, "Sure." I went in with him, saw these Korean carrots and M&M's and asked him to buy them, too. And he did. So for dinner tonight we will have Italian lasagna and Korean carrots and cucumbers possibly from Turkey or Israel. Yum yum!After we got home, I took the photo of the carrots and brought the camera in here to the office to download today's photos onto the computer. As I sat down, I looked out the window and thought, "Oh, why not?" I had to take this photo carefully, cutting out the graffiti on the far left, conveniently behind the tree, because it is obscene. Sigh. We have had such a beautiful gray wall to look at for a couple years now, but some stupid person finally decided to make it their graffiti canvas. The face here is ok, but the other is, well, let's just say I know that no man has ever been built like that. sigh. Hopefully someone will paint over it because as it is now, I can't take any more photos of the dumpsters. Bummer. hahahahahahahaha!

Fantastic Friday Fotos

Alliteration. Gotta love it.

We walked over to the Thorntons this afternoon for a team meeting and prayer time. Actually, we walked over to the big bus stop about a quarter of a mile from our flat and took a marshrutka down to the city center, not far from the river. We got off there and walked on over to Thorntons. It's about a 2.33 kilometer walk, according to the map I use to determine distances. For those of us who hear 'kilometer' and think "I wonder what that is in American?" it comes out to apx. 1.45 miles. A nice early afternoon walk in sunshine and cold temperature. I wore just my zip up sweatshirt and was fine walking, but it would have been pretty cold to just stand around in.

We also walked back to that same bus stop and then down the street a ways farther to a pizza place. Chilentanos has great pizza. I also had a very interesting salad - Feta Salad. I wish I'd thought to take a photo of it, but alas, I didn't. It was big chunks of feta cheese (we are talking over an inch square here!) in an oil season with slivers of hot, very delicious garlic (yum!), golden raisins, peppercorns, whole cloves, a few pieces of dried apricot, and a sprinking of fresh parsley. Sounds kind of gross, doesn't it? The feta was swimming in this oil with all the other ingredients. Maybe some kind of flavored vinegar, too - there was a tart taste to it as well. But it was delicious! I would never have ever thought to put those ingredients together. Fresh garlic and raisins?? Never! But I will now. I'll have it again some time - hopefully they will still have it!

It's a good thing we walked on home from there, after all that cheese and oil (no, I didn't eat the oil, but how do you get rid of all of it off the cheese??). Plus pizza. Plus a Nutella crepe. Mel and I split the crepe and he had some of my pizza. I didn't even fill stuffed when we left. It was just right, somehow.

So, all in all we walked over 10 kilometers today (apx 6.37 miles), broken into 3 segments. By the time we got almost home, I told Mel I'd broken off more than I could realistically chew, so to speak. I was trudging the last kilometer, one foot after another, after another, barely lifting them off the ground, in the dark, on very uneven streets, "sidewalks" and dirt paths. I didn't quite look like the Volga Boatmen in the previous post, but I was beginning to feel kind of like that! I came in the house, went in the bedroom, took off my shoes, and just collapsed on the bed for about 20 minutes. My only concern is that when I've walked like that in the past, I often get sick a couple days later. So, I'm praying that God will spare me and keep me healthy. It's kind of like my body uses up all it's energy reserves and caves in to whatever bug is going around. And they are going around right now! Silly me.

So, (why all these 'so's' tonight??). So, while we walked to and from Thorntons I took a few photos. And here is a sampling!

I have no idea who this dude is, and am not going to even try to decipher the fancy font his name is written in from a photo. But I really like the coat. In fact, I told Mel tonight after watching Zorro - there's just something sexy about a man in a long coat...We saw a bazillion cats today, out enjoying the sunshine and clear weather, I'd guess. These two were 'speaking' to each other in that amazing cat language that consists of "I'll stare at you harder than you can stare at me, and the one who stares the hardest wins." But mostly I took the photo for the road. I'll have to go back and get better photos of this road, I'll be there again without a doubt.Can you find Miss Kitty in this photo? ...Reminds me of the old televison program, Gunsmoke. I met Chester one day at a rodeo and got his autograph, but I digress....Ah! Here she is!As Mel and I walked over to Thorntons and then especially on the way back to the center, we kept getting black curls of ash dropping on us. There were black curls of ash all over the street, blowing in the breezes, skittering here and there. Some of it was up to 3 or 4 inches long. There were a few times when white ash landed on my dark blue sweater and I had to blow it off. Where did all this ash come from, you ask? Well, we have two seasons in Kherson, in all of Ukraine actually. Spring burning season and fall burning season. They have already decided that it is Spring burning season. Due to all the smoke in the air allergies are really bad right now, and people with asthma oftne have a very difficult time breathing when the wind blows in their direction. Here is a photo of the view across the river. And the say America has a pollution problem and needs to reduce her so-called 'carbon footprint!' Seriously - this happens every year and for several weeks Kherson is covered in black ash from burned reeds and grasses across the river.I really like the added ambience of the beer bottle in this photo - it just adds a certain pizazz to the whole scene.Not only were couples like the one in the above photo there watching the fires across the river, there was the traditional "wedding photos at all the war monuments" going on. I will never in all my born days understand why a woman would want her wedding photos to be taken beside tanks, canons, monuments to dead soldiers, and so forth and so on. I can hear Mel now - something about "today is our wedding day - the war has just begun!" :) :)I don't know who they are, but they do look happy, don't they, standing there in front of the eternal flame that was and now is not.As we were about halfway home, Mel pointed out this beautiful conjuction of the moon and Venus to me. I'd read about it at SpaceWeather.com - earlier this week there were 3 planets and the crescent moon. We didn't see that - but this was absolutely beautiful.

And finally, a photo that asks a searching question that seemed fitting after all the other photos today. I'll leave this with you to think about tonight - :

Two Things

Two things and then I'm out the door for the day.

A spider has been living in our shower room for the past few months. I leave it alone because it's a Daddy Longlegs type spider and it eats ants and mosquitos. It has lived a long spider life up in the corner above the shower.

Now I do not like spiders, but this spider has done nothing to bother me. In fact, I like what I see in it's web - dead ants. We have an ant problem. The whole building has an ant problem. I've written about his before - old news, I know.

This morning, however, Spider had built it's web down to connect to the shower head. The shower head is the kind you can take down and move around. Mel took it down to rinse out the tub before he got in for his shower. That's when he found out Spider had a one-strand connection to the shower head. Down came Spider and down the drain Spider went.

Does this sound like a children's song to you? It does to me.

Mel told me Spider was gone by reminding me of a Twilight Zone episode I'd watched many, many years ago and had told him about many years ago.

The episode where the woman washes a spider down the drain and it keeps coming back up and out of the drain, bigger and bigger, until she thinks she's finally washed it completely away. She leaves the sink, goes into the other room and there is the spider, as big as the room practically, waiting for her.

Gave me nightmares for years.

So - guess what I kept thinking about as I took my own shower this morning?

I refrained from checking the drain over and over again, but kept praying I wouldn't feel something crawling over my foot and up my ankle.....

~*~*~*~*~
And on that happy note :) as soon as I finish this I will be leaving to go interview - I hope - a new interpreter.

I asked Olya K. if she knew someone at the institute she is attending and she said she'd ask around. I need one to help me when I teach.

She called me yesterday afternoon and said she'd told a few of the girls I was looking for someone, but the were "afraid." Afraid of what? Well, afraid of me, of the church, what they might have to translate I guess.

You know something? I say - Good Girls!!! People need to be more careful! There is so much garbage being taught here in Ukraine, all under the name of Christianity. People NEED to be more careful in what they listen to, in what they are involved with.

One of the girls later told Olya that she would like to meet me, but not at the church. I said great, I'd like to interview her.

What is her name?

I don't know.

You don't know her name?????

No. (and then a funny little laugh)

Ohhh-kaaaay. How old is she?

I don't know.

Ohhh-kaaaay. What does she look like?

And I got a very short description that could be half of the young women I see on the street each day.

So I agreed to meet her at a local pizza place, talk with her, and if she is agreeable, then we'll walk over to where the church currently meets so I can show her how to get there.

I'm going to go meet someone that I don't know, I don't know her name, I don't really know what she looks like, but I'm going to meet her.

This could be very interesting.

I love my life.

Those Nasty Old Pipes

When we first moved into this flat, the water drained really slow from the bathtub. One day I stuck a wire down the drain, swished it around a bit and pulled out a wad of 'stuff' the size and appearance of a drowned baby muskrat. I was grossed out. Totally grossed out. Hair, dust, lint and who knows what else, all wadded up in a gray mass that stank like all get out.

Yuck. Double yuck.

Well, that was 9 years ago. Immediately after that I ordered one of those drain cleaner wire things to come in our next box from the States - it looks like a long wire with a hook on one end and a circle on the other. The circle is for hanging it on a nail some place, I would guess. The hook is for cleaning the gook out of drains.

I use it every time I take a shower. Because I have long hair and seem to be losing more than my fair share right now, I have been extra careful to make sure there is always a plastic 'hair catcher' in the drain hole and that I clean out the drain with the wire after I shower and sometimes before as well.

For awhile, after the removal of 'dead baby muskrat,' the water drained fairly quickly. However, it slowly but surely plugged back up. Mel bought packets of powerful chemical drain cleaners and we used them once or twice a year. Sometimes the water would even drain a bit better after that, but sometimes it seemed to make no difference. Mel would use the toilet plunger on the drain, pumping it up and down, leaving a semi-permanent black ring around the drain hole in the tub, a ring made out of decomposing toilet bowl plunger rubber bonded to the corroded surface of the tub by the force of his actions. :(

When we got back to Kherson in March this year, the tub was almost 100% plugged up again and took a long time to drain after a shower (leaving us standing in deep water by the time the shower was finished). I said to the gal who stayed here, "Why didn't you buy some of that chemical pipe cleaner-outer stuff and use it?" And she responded, "Because we were afraid that if we used that, the rest of the rust in the pipe would wear through and the pipe would have a huge hole in it."

Huh?

Then she showed me the pipe. Sure enough, behind the cat box there in the corner under the sink, the drain pipe was beginning to drip rusty drops of water. This pipe runs from the kitchen sink, through the wall into the bathroom where the tub connects to it, then the bathroom sink connects to it, and then it goes through the bathroom wall into the toilet room where it finally connects to the toilet pipe that goes down into the sewer. It was developing a hole right at the floor level where it went through the wall into the toilet room. Then she told me that when they'd called the landlord to come fix the running toilet (another story for another time), they showed him the beginning-to-leak pipe. He promptly blamed it on Cheyenne.

Huh?

Well, Cheyenne's litter box sets right beside that pipe, so obviously she had been peeing on the pipe and that is why it was now beginning to leak.

Grrrrr. My Cheyenne has NEVER peed on anything or in anything in this flat, other than in her litter box on the litter. Grrrrr. I have had cats who pee all over the place and believe me, she is NOT one of them! But we cannot blame the pipe or the age of the pipe because then the landlord would have to fix it, you see.

When we first moved in here, Mel and I decided that rather than calling the landlord every time there is a problem with something (like a running toilet, light switch that doesn't work anymore or plugged up drain) we would just get it fixed ourselves. Sure, everyone else makes the landlord do it, but then the landlord is in your flat/house all the time, complaining about this or that that you are or are not doing. So, over the years Mel has just fixed the running toilet over and over again and we've called in 'masters' to do electrical fixes or plumbing fixes. It's a lot simpler for us and much less stressful.

Now if they had not shown our landlord this leaking pipe, he would never have blamed our cat for something that happened due to lousy plumbing practices, lousy pipe construction, and simple age causing problems. Sigh.

We tried to contact the plumber that had been recommended to us by Melinda. Had one of our friends call him, but he never showed up. Finally, Melinda called him to come and fix something in her flat (again, something that was broken due to lousy plumbing in the first place, plumbing that had been done as cheaply as possible with not very good supplies). She had him talk to us while he was at her flat and Mel set up a time for him to come over and check out our problem.

He came over, took a look at everything, wrote down a bunch of stuff in his little notebook, did some calculations and then gave us an estimate of what it was going to cost. Labor and parts - all for 625 griven, or $137. We agreed and he told us when a guy would come over - next Monday (today) or Tuesday (tomorrow). The guy came today.

I was very impressed. He was very professional and when all is done and said, it appears that they did a really good job. Of course, time will tell on that, but it sure seems that way now.

Dima, the man who did the actual work, replaced the whole pipe, from the kitchen sink to the toilet pipe. He had to chop out some concrete in the floor and concrete in the wall. He replaced the metal food/hair catchers in both sinks and in the tub (I'll still use the plastic ones as well). It took him about 5 hours to get it all done. Stasic, the guy in charge, came with supplies, went after other supplies, and basically made sure the guy was doing a good job. Wow! In the past, the owner of the flat or the renter would be given a list of supplies and then would have to go and buy the supplies from the market. This makes much better sense, since the guy who is doing the repair work knows exactly what he wants and needs. Wow! So much easier for us, so much easier for them. If it costs a bit more, big deal - it saves us time and the frustration of looking for whatever is needed and they already know where to go and which is the better product. Wow!

Dima gave the old pipes to Mel and Mel took them out to the garbage. Sure enough, when Mel checked that main pipe where it was beginning to leak, it was so plugged up that maybe less than 10% was still open. No wonder everything drained so slowly! And the water just sat in there for so long every day that the pipe was rusting faster than it normally would have. Of course, the more it rusted, the more build-up there was and the more plugged up the pipe became.

The new pipes are all plastic and were sealed with a silicon sealer. We are waiting just a few more minutes for it all to set up and be totally dry before we can run water through the pipes again.

I tried to get some photos of everything, but my camera is acting up again and refuses to work properly, so I missed out on some good pictures.

Oh well. You will just have to imagine it all in your mind.

I am just so glad the pipe is fixed and I'm also glad Mel is so willing to get down on his hands and knees to clean up some of the mess. I just can't do that right now due to my knees. The guys did a very good job cleaning up after themselves - also a new thing here, which is wonderful. But Mel is using water now to clean, which they couldn't do.

I am happy. :):):)

On the Way...to Biting the Dust

Oh my poor laptop! It is dying a very slow death. From what we've been told by two different computer repairers, it's dying because of coffee. Yep - too much coffee. BUT it's NOT my fault! No - I am not the one who spilled coffee on it many, many moons ago. I lay that blame firmly at the feet of two other unnamed family members (you know who you are!). I thought the first repair person had cleaned it up - but Mel told me a few days ago that no, it had not been cleaned. Nor had it been cleaned by the second repair person, although they said it was very dangerous to not clean it. I confess - I don't get it. We took it in to be fixed and they tell us it needs to be fixed and send it home. Huh?? Sigh. I don't know if there is any hope now - I really did think they had cleaned it the second time we took it in ... I wonder what they are waiting for - detailed instructions? "First you take the thing apart and then you clean it. Clean - as in, make it not dirty, not covered in coffee wherever it is covered in coffee, and remove the cat hair, dust and whatever else is in there stuck to the coffee. Then you put it back together again. We will PAY you to do this."

I'm using Mel's very old laptop to post this today. I can turn the newer one on and I can even check email on it. But there is absolutely no way at all that I can pull up a web page. I have tried a dozen different ways ...... and crashed the computer every time. Yesterday I also had no Yahoo! Instant Messaging or Disc Clean-up program. Today they are both back. Instead, when I clicked on the File button in the email program, the email froze up and the computer crashed. It's like there is a little gremlin in there under the keys, running here and there, messing with not only my computer, but also my mind. :) I have a anti-virus program - more than one, actually! A malware program and a spyware program. I don't know what else I can do to protect it from outside attacks... and apparently I'm not too good at keeping it from coffee addiction either.

At least the weather is a teeny bit cooler. And the entry way is ready for the first coat of paint tomorrow (which I still have to buy). And I'm almost finished reading, Redwall, by Brain Jacques (loaned to me by Nadia).

The 'crazy lady' was yelling out on the street again awhile ago. I went out on the balcony and looked, but could not see who she was screaming at this time. It might have been the old man who was out there when we walked by on our way home from church. "Young man, you are a nice young man (he was talking to Mel). I am a 70 year old pensioner. Can you give me some kopecks?" Since we have no idea who this man is, and what he wants the money for (probably vodka or beer, I'm sad to say), we did not give him any. I felt really sad, though, because this man is approximately the same age as my own father. I thought afterward that I should have given him one of the bananas Mel had in the bag he was carrying. Several minutes later when I looked out the window in the kitchen, he was carrying a bunch of stuff he's just pulled out of the garbage dumpsters. He was headed for the same entry way the the crazy lady lives in, and she was sitting outside - so, it might have been them going at it. Very sad. It breaks your heart.

So, in the great scheme of life - I fight with my computer, something I need for what I do - write, finances, keeping up with news, communication with people in the States, etc. While outside, some of the poorest of the poor scream and yell at each other, fighting over garbage and most likely the crazy lady's pitiful dog and kittens. I am very aware of the incongruity of it all. I wish there were simple answers to these problems. I could sit here and feel guilty and horrible, or I can continue to pray for that woman (she really does have severe mental problems) and work in the areas God has called us to work. I cannot help her, other than being friendly when I see here, and making sure that when I throw out 'good food,' it is wrapped up so she can use it when she digs it out of the dumpster.

We walk a fine line so often here. Life, both the good and the bad, is so 'in your face' all the time.

Another Boring Day in Ukraine - Hah!

Very early this morning a construction company started tearing up the main road outside our bedroom window. We are not sure what they are doing – never saw any pipes or anything else that looked like it needed to be repaired. But they dug a ditch clear across the road, totally stopping traffic. This road is the main traffic artery on our side of the city.

So – where do the cars, trucks, vans, taxis, buses, semis, motorcycles and every other vehicle you can think of – where do they go?

Down our quiet little street in front of our building. Let me tell you – this has been an awful day. Noisy, the clothes I had drying on the balcony stink of exhaust. One vehicle after another after another after another. Thousands. I am serious – thousands! The street is barely one car wide and the traffic is going both directions, passing each other on the sidewalk or even as close to the trees as they can get with out scraping the sides of their vehicle.


So, what do you do? If you are a babushka you take things into your own hands. You get together some of your friends in the building and you go out and you move the dumpsters into the middle of the street. You stand in the way of the cars and buses and big trucks while the drivers open their windows or doors and scream curses at you. You yell and scream right back, as loud as you can. And inbetween you laugh with your friends and encourage each other in what you are doing, what you are trying to accomplish. You try to stop the occasional driver who gets out and start throwing the dumpsters out of the way, but they are much younger than you, and just as angry at you as you are at them.

In the end, you lose the battle. I’m not sure what happened, but they have now moved the dumpsters back where they had been originally. The traffic continues to roar down our quiet little street.

I admit, I don’t understand why the city did not direct the traffic another way. There are several other ways to get around the hole in the street other than this little road. Wider streets that are used to the traffic. It makes no sense to me.

All I know is that I also am tired of the noise, the traffic, the stink of the exhaust. I hope they finish the repair quickly and get the main street reopened. Someone could easily get hurt if this continues. If I were just a little braver, if I understood the language a bit better, if I knew I would not get arrested and thrown out of the country for civil disobedience or something – I would have gladly joined them. We are all heartily sick of it.

Just another boring day in Ukraine!

November's Thanksgiving - The Trash Lady

I’m not sure exactly what to call this woman, so The Trash Lady will have to do for now. Every day our two (yes, we still have two!) dumpsters are piled high with trash, often overflowing onto the ground. Almost every day now the garbage truck comes. With mechanical “arms and hands,” the truck grabs hold of each dumpster, one at a time, lifts it up and dumps most of the garbage into the top of the truck. Most of the garbage – the rest gets strewn all over the ground and in the roadway. The main reason this happens is because the garbage is piled so high in the dumpster that as the arms lift it up and turn the dumpster toward the truck, a great deal of the pile immediately falls off – before it is positioned over the hole in the top of the truck.

Well, that is life here in Kherson. At least we have two dumpsters now and at least we have a garbage truck that comes almost every day. These alone are things to be thankful for and rejoice over. But this thanks is for The Trash Lady.

Early in the morning a middle-aged woman arrives, broom in hand. Her broom is made of small sticks and broken branches tied to the end of a long pole. In the summer she is dressed in a dress with a lightweight housecoat covering it, wearing socks and thick soled flip-flops or slippers. In the fall she wears a heavier housecoat (I’m not sure what else to call it – these were very popular for housewives when I was a little girl in the late ‘50’s and early ‘60’s), heavy wool stockings and heavier slippers. Yes, slippers. These are not typical clogs, etc., but house slippers that you give your guests when they arrive and take off their shoes. This is what she works in all day. (In the winter she will wear boots.)

Trash Lady spends a couple hours sweeping everything. She sweeps under all of the trees, around the bushes, all of the sidewalk, the street, the dirt areas between the street and the walkway near the building – everything. She piles it up into small piles here and there, then grabs her “dust pan” and scoops it up in a swift and practiced motion using both her foot and the broom. Then she carries it to the dumpster and deposits it there (I like her dustpan, it has a handle about two feet long so she does not have to bend over all the way). As the dumpster fills, she takes a heavy stick and pounds the garbage into the dumpster, breaking glass jars, smashing boxes and crushing plastic bottles. Sometimes she will spend ten minutes on each dumpster, pounding and smashing, compacting it more firmly. Trash Lady will take large candy boxes or a thrown out toilet seat, or maybe some Styrofoam or other large piece of trash and push it in around the edge to make the dumpster taller on the side that tilts toward the ground when the truck picks it up. I’ve watched her from the window and from the balcony and she really does have all of this down to a science, using as few movements as possible to do the most work.

Autumn is here now and leaves are everywhere. Her job has become harder. Each morning she arrives and sweeps everything up into piles. Now, however, she must separate the real trash from the leaves. I am amazed at how people just throw stuff on the ground (we were told once – this way the street cleaners will have something to do. Sigh). Trash Lady piles up huge pile of leaves after huge pile of leaves. Several days in a row, the piles grow bigger and bigger. Soon a tractor pulling an open wagon will arrive and (usually) two men will shovel all of the leaves into the wagon while a third man stomps them down by foot so more can be piled in. Sometimes Trash Lady is part of the group. Then she has a big woven plastic ground cloth that she lays on the ground beside the pile, sweeps the leaves onto it, folds the corners together and then lugs it to the wagon. The men help her lift it up and the man inside the wagon empties it. Sometimes it’s a big canvas bag, but often it is the plastic ground cloth that is used.

After the garbage truck comes and goes, there is always garbage scattered everywhere. Most days Trash Lady returns and begins her work all over. This time, however, she only picks up what the truck has scattered, replacing it in the dumpster.

Trash Lady has a mostly thankless job. She works in harsh conditions – hot and humid summer days, cold and humid winter days. Sometimes she argues with the neighbors, sometimes she laughs with them. Sometimes she chases the same dogs and cats out of the dumpsters over and over again (they are hungry street animals). I admire this woman. She is probably paid pennies each day, and maybe she is not paid at all some times. Yet, she continues her job, working harder than most American women work. If she did not do this job, our street in front of our flat and three floors down would soon look like a dump. How do I know this? I know this because Trash Lady was not always here. She has been working our area for only a couple years. I well remember what it looked like before.

I am very thankful for Trash Lady. She makes living here a lot more pleasant than it would be otherwise!

Babushka

Sasha, Cindie, Babushka, Niece, Dima


Olya


The thin old woman sits across the room from me. Her hands folded peacefully in her lap, fingers gnarled and swollen with age. She sits with no curve in her spine, barely leaning against the hard back of the chair, feet clad in heavy black wool socks, firmly planted side by side on the floor, head held high and faded blue eyes brightly watching all that is happening around us. I wonder, “Who is this woman? Why is she sitting alone in the midst of so many people? Why does no one talk to her? Why do they ignore her as if she does not exist?”

Babushka had entered the room with Victor’s mother, Sasha. Sasha was dressed in a bright red floor length dress, with her blonde hair beautifully cut and styled. Babushka was dressed in an equally stylish mid-calf length dress, dark blue with tiny white polka dots, topped with a matching solid dark full length vest, her thin gray hair tightly pulled back from her face and held with combs. Nothing seemed to escape her sight and it was plain to me as I watched her off and on that she held strong opinions about each thing that happened. Her face changed from pleasure to annoyance, from apprehension to disappointment, to pleasure once again as events unfolded around us. Still, my heart went out to her and I wondered if this woman was partially deaf and that was why no one spoke to her, or maybe she was senile. Yet when I took out photos of my grandchild and passed them around she watched eagerly for them to come to her. I was shocked when the woman sitting next to her passed them on to someone else. Babushka could plainly see, she was not blind, and she had very much wanted to see them.

I was also alone in the group. As the only American woman there, as someone who only understood parts of the conversations around me, and understood only parts of the social interaction between people, I too, was mostly an onlooker at the party. As the women came into the room and then left again to unknown parts of the house for unknown purposes, Babushka and I sat quietly across the room from one another and observed. Often when I took my eyes away from the little ones playing on the floor or lying on the bed I would catch her looking at me. Never a smile was sent my way, but a certain twinkle in the eyes let me know that she was aware of me and of our situation, that she was interested in me as a person, as an American, as someone new, that she wanted to talk with me as much as I wanted to talk with her.

I actually enjoy being an onlooker at events like this. I am not really required to do anything other than to be present. I once offered to help in the kitchen, but was told by my translator in no uncertain terms that as a guest I must stay out of the kitchen. So, from that time on, unless specifically asked by the hostess or another woman, I do not offer. I just sit and wait and eventually someone will come over, someone who is brave enough to try to talk to me. One day I will be invited.

All of the women disappeared with their children. Most of the men wandered out of the room. But Babushka and I sat quietly, glancing often at each other. Olya returned and I motioned her to come over. I quietly asked her if it would be ok to show Babushka my photos of Stirling, my grandson. Eyes widened in surprise, she answered, “Of course!” I opened my purse, withdrew the photo envelope, stood up carefully on creaky sore knees and hips and walked over toward Babushka. Immediately her eyes lit up and she smiled a big toothless grin at me. Well, almost toothless – I know she had two or three and at least one looked to be covered in gold. She pointed to the chair at her right side and commanded me to sit down. Olya pulled another chair up in front of Babushka and we began to talk.

I showed her my photos and with shaking hands she took hold of them. Her fingers were bent and swollen and separating the photos one from another was difficult. Olya also has arthritis and her fingers are mostly frozen, but she gently reached out and helped Babushka view them one by one. As she held them, Babushkas hands began to shake even harder and very quickly she motioned for me to take them once again. I slid them back into the envelope, laid them on my lap and reached for her hand with both of mine. Gently I applied a bit of pressure, just enough to let her know I was loving her, that I was glad to be able to meet her and communicate with her, and she smiled a smile a mile wide.

She started talking about their garden and how many trees were in it, how many fruit bushes, and how many different kinds of vegetable they plant each year. Because her words were simple, spoken in Russian with little Ukrainian mixed in (I think!) I understood a lot of what she was saying. But Olya’s translation was an incredible help. (I still have so many problems with Russian verbs!) She explained that she used her money she received from the German governments’ restitution to help her family buy the house and land they now owned. There was still so much to do in the house. It needed a lot of repair, new pipes, running water, and heat. They had worked on the heat before winter set in, but as I understood, there was only heat in one room during the whole winter. And this winter has been one of the coldest in written history. Life is very difficult, she told me. Not just the work or the repairs needed – but life itself. She was too old to work out in the garden now, but she could add her pension money to help with all the costs involved.

I watched Babushka’s face as she spoke to me, and once again her eyes revealed so much of what she was thinking. Excitement, joy, amazement, sorrow – just to name of few of the emotions that slipped across her face. Soon another woman joined us and I realized that she, too, was Babushka’s relative – a niece I think. This woman asked me how old I am and I responded that in a few days I will be 52. She smiled and told me that she is 45. Sasha popped into the room for a moment, spoke a few words to me in broken English, and then told her mother, “Tell her about Germany!”

Babushka was 19 years old when Germans invaded the Soviet Union in 1940. Once they had some kind of control over this part of Ukraine, the soldiers began rounding up women and sending them back to Germany to work as slave labor. I had seen the movie, Schindler’s List, and most people think that the people who used as slave labor were only Jews. But hundreds, if not thousands, of Soviet citizens were hauled off by force as well and worked until they died of exhaustion or starvation, or were finally confined to a concentration camp and executed. Babushka was starving when she arrived at the farm to which she had been assigned. She told me that the people there had been very kind to her, giving her only tiny bites of food to eat each time, until she could hold a full meal down once again. She was put to work as a milk maid. In the family was a 15 year old son, and she beamed with pride when she told me that he had told his family several times that “Babushka has the most beautiful hair, it shines so!” She said that in German first and then in Russian. And then she explained that she never learned to speak German, living there four whole years, she did not learn. After saying that, she promptly repeated something in German – a poem maybe, or a long saying. I wasn’t sure it was German at first, due to the heavy Russian accent, but some of the words just had to be German from their sound!

The niece broke in and said that both of her parents had also been in Germany. I am not sure I followed her story completely, but the gist of it was that her mother’s family hid her from the Germans for as long as they were able. Somehow the soldiers knew she existed, so they threatened the family and told them that unless they gave their daughter to them, they would take their son instead. Because the son had already started a family, they gave up their daughter. After the soldiers took her away – they took the son as well. The daughter worked in a factory which produced war machines of some sort. I’m not sure what happened to the son, but someone in the family ended up in a concentration camp in Germany. Both this niece and Babushka beamed with joy when they told me, “And then the Americans came and liberated us!” The niece told me the American soldiers gave everyone chocolate, cigarettes and chewing gum and I laughed out loud. I’ve heard that story before – American soldiers are known all over the world for handing out those particular items to children and to people they liberate. The niece’s mother and father, both Ukrainians, met each other while working as slave labor in Germany, came back to Ukraine, married and had a family.

I remembered a story that Vitya told us last year, a story about his Babushka. And I realized that this was her! He had explained that everyone in Ukraine had thought she was dead. Because Stalin was killing those who returned from Germany, she had to return very carefully, sneaking back into the country and being careful that the authorities did not notice her. Vitya told us that day, when Babushka returned to her village, she was afraid to go home, so she sat down on some steps to rest. One of her relatives found her there, barely recognizing her, but joyful that she was still alive. Stalin was insane with paranoia and had thousands of returning slave workers, released concentration camp prisoners and soldiers returning from the German front killed because he was afraid that they were really spies. After all, they could not have survived unless they had collaborated with the Germans in some way!

And then I realized that the “German restitution money” she had referred to earlier was the money the German government paid to Ukraine not long ago. I was so glad to hear that she had received her money! It could not ever repay the years she had lost, the starvation and only she knows what other things happened to her. But that money had helped her help her family now, and she was proud of that.

We did not stay much longer as it was getting dark. As we prepared to leave, Babushka invited me to come to her village and visit this spring or summer. I am sure that Vitya, or possibly his wife Lyuda, will pass along an invitation to me later this year. And I hope that I am able to go. I would love to see her home, to see her in context, to see the things she loves, the people in her life.

I am blessed to have met this woman!