Things have been a little quieter for us since the beginning of January. We continue to do things around the house and we have been out a couple of times to visit with others and that has been great.
We closed out the year down on our hands and knees cleaning the tile in the house. We don't know what all was on it, but whatever was stuck to it, was stuck to it! Teresa had tried vinegar before, but very little came off. We ended up using a muratic acid mixed with water and it did the job. But did the mixture ever smell! The first time Shannon did some trial spots, the smell of the acid was very strong. Before we went at the rest of the tile, we bought some good rubber gloves, scratch pads and some dust masks. Then we went to work. We should have also found some knee pads, as tile and knees aren't meant for each other for long periods of time. We did a fair bit of cleaning on December 31 and then completed the task on January 1 and was it good to be done. When we completed the work, we fired up the jet tub and did that ever feel nice on the body. A big job done!
On January 2, before we left for Dnipro, the sun was shining! It is hard to understand how the lack of sun affects you, but we love it when it appears. Later we went into Dnipro for the day to do some shopping and then went to Victor and Lena's for dinner where we had some Ukrainian food that was very good. We enjoyed our visit with them as this is the first time we had met Victor's wife Lena. Dasha, Victor's daughter was also there as was Lena's Mom, Alexandra, who lives with them.
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| SUNSHINE!! |
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| Caviar, we think |
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| Traditional veggie dish |
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| Pork roast wrapped in pastry with plum base |
After dinner, we went to a local park a few blocks away and it was crawling with people. There were hundreds of people and many were young families. The kids were sliding on toboggans or cardboard or whatever they could find. You had to keep your eyes open because they were sliding from many directions.
Shortly after we got there, they turned on the Christmas lights and they were beautiful! We strolled for a while and took a few pictures as you will see. Victor says this park has been upgraded lots and we are looking forward to walking through it this coming summer. Shannon said from her first experience in July 2017, that people love to go to the parks late in the day and throughout the evening with the intention of visiting with someone they know or someone that they meet. Spending time with others is a very big part of the Ukrainian culture.
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| Victor, Lena, Shannon, Scott at the park |
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| Us in front of the huge Christmas tree |
On January 4, we went to Krivoy Rog for our Christmas get together with others serving in Ukraine and area. Garry had arrived back in the village about 5 hours before we left, so it was great to have him back and we chatted during an interesting drive. We complain about some of our roads in Canada at times, but they are good compared to some of the roads we drove on to Krivoy Rog.
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| Adam & Luba |
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Victor, Marina, Molly, Daryl
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| Gift exchange - A fancy party light bulb, that Garry wanted, so I chose again |
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We had a great time with others as we shared a Christmas meal together.
Was it ever good! Ham, turkey, stuffing, potatoes, homemade buns, salads and lots of dessert and snacks. There was lots of laughter and sharing with each other. We also had a Chinese gift exchange and that was a lot of fun. Shannon ended up with a 1 kg bag of brown sugar and Scott got a coconut chocolate bar. We were glad for the brown sugar, as you often can't get what we take for granted in Canada (brown sugar, chocolate chips, good breakfast cereal, molasses).
One thing that we did at the Christmas party was sing lots of Christmas carols,
IN ENGLISH! It is hard to understand how good that was. It was so good to be able to sing songs that you could read and understand. We enjoy our song services at church, but it will become even more meaningful when we can sing along with them, even if we don't understand all the words.
We have been doing some language study on our own using
duolingo and an on-line tutor and we are slowly adding to our vocabulary. We have made arrangements to start lessons next week with a lady in Dnipro, so we are looking forward to more progress! We'll keep you posted.
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