Ukraine Experience 2014: Part 3

Another Ukraine installment......still listing the highlights of the trip.

5.  Fourth of July Celebration.  Our hosts were very tolerant and let us have a 4th of July celebration even though we weren't in the good old USA.  Charlie made potato salad and homemade garlic bread.  Someone went to the market that day and got some buns and meat (we think it was pork, but not 100% sure).  Someone also bought root beer syrup that we mixed with water with "strong gas".  Fresh lemons were bought so we could make fresh lemonade with mint.  We made homemade ice cream that we had to crank by hand (no motor assistance).  We grilled the hamburgers over the Ukrainian style BBQ and ate our supper outside just like it was a real 4th of July picnic.  And we sang the Star Spangled Banner for the Ukrainians at their request.  We asked them to sing the Ukrainian National Anthem, but they shyly declined.  We had some "getting to know you" conversations with our hosts (through an interpreter).  We capped off the evening with one firework, but that was really enough.  I'm not sure we could have taken much more excitement than one.

Some girls we got to know while we were there.

Our hosts with some of their family and friends enjoying homemade ice cream.

The Ukrainian BBQ.

4th of July picnic meal.  That's a burger with mustard on it in the lower right.  It was all delicious.

6.  Privileges.  We had lots of these.  Maybe not quite as many as Uncle Bex would have liked, but overall I thought it was a good balance of doing stuff and then going on a walk or taking it easy and reading a book or chatting with some of the other people.  We sewed (mostly with a machine, but a little bit by hand).  I hung a mirror.  We cleaned.  We helped do some cooking assistant tasks.  We did laundry of course.  We watched a bull calf be castrated (quite possibly the first one ever in Ukraine is what one person joked - because of the risk of tetanus).  We learned to be fairly expert at judging how many cucumbers or tomatoes or cabbage we needed to make 1 kilo.  We cracked eggs.  We cleaned up old dog vomit.  We cleaned up mouse droppings.  Just your standard stuff, really.  One day we were called cover girls (related to food, not magazines) and crackers (related to eggs, not our skin color or a crunchy treat).

This is where Bex schooled me in the Mother Mary Clothesline Commandments.

Lengthening some sheets.

Repairing a stuffed bunny that had an unfortunate accident at some point before we arrived.  Somebody almost knocked the stuffing out of him!

7.  Making new friends and seeing old friends again.  Some young, some middle-aged, and some older.  And maybe some of them we will never see again in this lifetime.  Maybe some of them we will - one never knows what life may bring.  Most of them touched our heart in some way - some big, some small.  But I liked what Dare Bear shared with us - that we can meet nearly every day at the throne of grace if we want to.

Aunt Eater, Uncle Bex, Mex, and Charlie.  You can tell we aren't native Ukrainians because we're wearing eyeglasses.  Apparently eyeglasses are not cool in that culture.

These guys gave us the idea.

Bex and I with a couple special girls we met there.  And they're not just special because of their height (they're using a bench for assistance).

A Ukrainian combine - for my readers whom I know will find it interesting.

Storks were all over the place - there was one living in a tree in the yard of the place where we were staying.

Afternoon milking session in the pasture.  Life as usual on the Ukrainian farm.

Here is a link related to Part #1.  If you're interested in seeing photos of some of the miniature stuff in the museum, check out this link:  http://microart.kiev.ua/en/galery.html