Some of you may have heard that of the Potatoe drama that ensued earlier this fall when I noticed that everyone was buying potatoes and onions. We proceded to investigate the reason why and were told that you HAD to buy them now or they would be ridicuously expensive later on.
Well, I bought 20 kilos of potatoes (40lbs) and I told Alister to pick up some more. He came back with 40 kilos (80lbs!!!!!) of potatoes. Our balcony was full of potatoes and i have been busy volunteering us for potatoe dishes eversince.
Additionally, we bought 18 kilos of Onions.
Well last week, we finished off the potatoes, or rather, we will have finished them off as soon as we finish eating the potatoe soup I made.
The onions too are down to the last five in the box.
I must admit, I was surprised we went through the potatoes. I was picturing them still sitting on the balcony until NEXT fall.
Not only that, but the price surprising hasn't gone up too much (surprisingly since Milk, eggs, hamburger, and chicken have gone up significantly - not to mention that bird flu is reportedly spreading in Ukriane now and so chicken will either be more expensive and harder to find, or a very much buy-at-your-own-risk sort of thing. We are warned to stay away from buying products on the street as we might be buying Chernoble mushrooms, chernobly fish, and other radioactive products)
I have to admit, not having to carry potatoes and onions from the super market was nice - and it was nice to have them around for last minute dinner ideas - but I'm also glad they're gone - to not feel the pressure - of must use them before they spoil.
Tuesday, February 5, 2008
Saturday, February 2, 2008
Pysanky
My newest hobby here in Ukraine is Pysanky. There are lots of very well laid out and explanatory sites about the art already on the internet – and I suggest you look at them to learn more or go to this article for resources and a quick HOW TO.
Basically – I always knew about Pysanky – always wanted to do it – and once I actually arrived in the country of its inception – of course I had to learn. I’ve done scores by now – but have given most away. We used the rejects – the ones with mistakes on them to decorate our Christmas tree this year. These are some that I did the other week when I had some extra time on my hands. Normally, I listen to Russian Audiobooks on tape – over and over and over again as I do the egg to try to build comprehension. Eventually I read the story in English and a light bulb goes on like – OH, so THAT’S what they were doing and then I listen to it a few more times before I try listening to the text and reading along at the same time in Russian. By that point – I understand the text a bit better and can quote back emphatic parts – Like Gogol’s Nose, in the Church when he looks down his nose at the Major and says “Вы ошибаетесь, милостивый государь. Я сам по себе. Притом между нами не может быть никаких тесных отношений.”
Basically – I always knew about Pysanky – always wanted to do it – and once I actually arrived in the country of its inception – of course I had to learn. I’ve done scores by now – but have given most away. We used the rejects – the ones with mistakes on them to decorate our Christmas tree this year. These are some that I did the other week when I had some extra time on my hands. Normally, I listen to Russian Audiobooks on tape – over and over and over again as I do the egg to try to build comprehension. Eventually I read the story in English and a light bulb goes on like – OH, so THAT’S what they were doing and then I listen to it a few more times before I try listening to the text and reading along at the same time in Russian. By that point – I understand the text a bit better and can quote back emphatic parts – Like Gogol’s Nose, in the Church when he looks down his nose at the Major and says “Вы ошибаетесь, милостивый государь. Я сам по себе. Притом между нами не может быть никаких тесных отношений.”
Other Pysanky Links:
Method and History and everything else - http://web.mac.com/lubap/PYSANKY/Pysanka_Home.html
Traditional patterns - http://home.earthlink.net/~okaczmar/egstamps.html
Pictures!
So I realized that the Blog was alittle text heavy - so here are some Pictures of the Botanical Gardens a few weeks ago after the snow - It was a perfect day just cold enough for snow - but warm enough to not freeze - and so bright and sunny!
Rumour has it that April/ May is the best time to go the gardens as then there is a grove of lilac bushes that are in bloom and the scent envelops the whole garden.
Monday, January 28, 2008
Ukrainian Hospitals
Alister and I visited my first Ukrainian Hospital on Sunday.
Like most things in the outskirts of Kiev, the building looked tired. When you look at the cement block and mortar buildings, you wonder if there was a time when it was ever new, and bright, and glistening like the hospital buildings you see in America. We walked past a garbage heap piled against the front entrance and a skinny girl sitting back on her heals smoking a cigarette.
Inside, the corridor was dimly lit and bleak. We climbed up six floors along a stairway lightly littered with garbage and faded back lighted pictures from Soviet glory years. We saw no staff, there was no reception, and it was only after several calls to one of our friends that we finally found the room we were looking for.
The room had four beds in it. This, I discovered later was unusual, there should have been six, but two of the patients had requested to be moved to the corridor because one of the other occupants shouted out all night in her sleep and it was impossible for anyone to rest. (We were informed of the shouting immediately as we entered the room by a talkative babushka peeling mandarins and sitting on the bed in the corner. She also informed us that she had fallen on the street. Though she herself was a patient in the hospital, she was also selling a miracle drug that would cure anything, but was purported to be especially effective against impotency - basically we had to talk past her in order to talk to the Babushka we were visiting.)
By each bed was a small bedside table. Every patient had their own food and eating utensils heaped upon it. An old fridge sat at the center of the back wall, and it was for them to use for food as well. Beyond providing their own food, each patient had to provide their own bedding as well as provide for it to be washed and changed. The nurses, employed by the state, are paid very little and so if you don't have family and friends who can come to the hospital and take care of you, you have to haggle with the nurses to get them to do anything for you - to put a bed pan under you and take it away - to bring you food and water - to bathe you. I'm not sure, but you might even need to pay them to administer medicines - which by-the-way - you also buy yourself. The doctor comes into the room says the patient needs x, y, and Z, and then you (a family member or friend) head off to the pharmacy located on the second floor and buy whatever was prescribed.
The room had no televisions, no curtains, no radio, no dividers between beds. The patients, for good or ill, become the friends, watchdogs, and entertainment for each other. A daughter came in to take care of her mother while we were there - and the other two patients immediately chimed in to give her a report that she had broken her bowl and needed a new one and how she was doing such and such, and how this and that had happened.
It made me think of how spoiled we are - when we send people flowers and teddy bears and mugs with get well soon plastered across them. Here are sick people to whom a get well gift isn't a pretty token that will become a piece of junk as soon as they leave the hospital - but it is a needed item for their next meal. Even flowers, though there was no place to put them, would have brightened up the room, become its focal point and even life breath for a day or two, rather than merely accented it as would a bouquet at home.
The other tangent running through my Mind is that the Tymoshenko government has announced that to each person who lost money in the collapse of the banks that resulted with the collapse of the soviet government - would be given $200. Earlier under Kuchma - a sum was also given - $5 - to each person who had lost money. Though $200 is a big improvement to $5 - a figure that was beyond insulting when you consider that these were peoples life savings that were lost amounting to thousands of dollars. When the payment was announced - Ukrainians flocked to the banks to be paid - anxious that if the offer be retracted - that they would already have the money in hand - while insulting - $200 is better than nothing and if you don't live in the city - it can even be stretched to pay for quite a bit.
And I wonder - could the government have done more with the money to benefit the people than what they could do themselves? While individually - $200 isn't alot - for 100 people it is already $20,000 - surely something could be done for 20 thousand? to improve hospitals, or schools, or prisons, which are reportedly nothing less than pits of disease and despair. Or would a public project of $20000 merely dwindle away through corrupt channels - amounting to even less than the $200 per person that is now being offered?
Its a catch 22 - If you haven't money for food, for shelter, for life, you want the government to take care of you - but if you don't trust the government to do these things then you are left to find ways to work around the system, to do what will most benefit you, to extract from the government anything it is willing to give, and hope that that will be enough to get by.
Like most things in the outskirts of Kiev, the building looked tired. When you look at the cement block and mortar buildings, you wonder if there was a time when it was ever new, and bright, and glistening like the hospital buildings you see in America. We walked past a garbage heap piled against the front entrance and a skinny girl sitting back on her heals smoking a cigarette.
Inside, the corridor was dimly lit and bleak. We climbed up six floors along a stairway lightly littered with garbage and faded back lighted pictures from Soviet glory years. We saw no staff, there was no reception, and it was only after several calls to one of our friends that we finally found the room we were looking for.
The room had four beds in it. This, I discovered later was unusual, there should have been six, but two of the patients had requested to be moved to the corridor because one of the other occupants shouted out all night in her sleep and it was impossible for anyone to rest. (We were informed of the shouting immediately as we entered the room by a talkative babushka peeling mandarins and sitting on the bed in the corner. She also informed us that she had fallen on the street. Though she herself was a patient in the hospital, she was also selling a miracle drug that would cure anything, but was purported to be especially effective against impotency - basically we had to talk past her in order to talk to the Babushka we were visiting.)
By each bed was a small bedside table. Every patient had their own food and eating utensils heaped upon it. An old fridge sat at the center of the back wall, and it was for them to use for food as well. Beyond providing their own food, each patient had to provide their own bedding as well as provide for it to be washed and changed. The nurses, employed by the state, are paid very little and so if you don't have family and friends who can come to the hospital and take care of you, you have to haggle with the nurses to get them to do anything for you - to put a bed pan under you and take it away - to bring you food and water - to bathe you. I'm not sure, but you might even need to pay them to administer medicines - which by-the-way - you also buy yourself. The doctor comes into the room says the patient needs x, y, and Z, and then you (a family member or friend) head off to the pharmacy located on the second floor and buy whatever was prescribed.
The room had no televisions, no curtains, no radio, no dividers between beds. The patients, for good or ill, become the friends, watchdogs, and entertainment for each other. A daughter came in to take care of her mother while we were there - and the other two patients immediately chimed in to give her a report that she had broken her bowl and needed a new one and how she was doing such and such, and how this and that had happened.
It made me think of how spoiled we are - when we send people flowers and teddy bears and mugs with get well soon plastered across them. Here are sick people to whom a get well gift isn't a pretty token that will become a piece of junk as soon as they leave the hospital - but it is a needed item for their next meal. Even flowers, though there was no place to put them, would have brightened up the room, become its focal point and even life breath for a day or two, rather than merely accented it as would a bouquet at home.
The other tangent running through my Mind is that the Tymoshenko government has announced that to each person who lost money in the collapse of the banks that resulted with the collapse of the soviet government - would be given $200. Earlier under Kuchma - a sum was also given - $5 - to each person who had lost money. Though $200 is a big improvement to $5 - a figure that was beyond insulting when you consider that these were peoples life savings that were lost amounting to thousands of dollars. When the payment was announced - Ukrainians flocked to the banks to be paid - anxious that if the offer be retracted - that they would already have the money in hand - while insulting - $200 is better than nothing and if you don't live in the city - it can even be stretched to pay for quite a bit.
And I wonder - could the government have done more with the money to benefit the people than what they could do themselves? While individually - $200 isn't alot - for 100 people it is already $20,000 - surely something could be done for 20 thousand? to improve hospitals, or schools, or prisons, which are reportedly nothing less than pits of disease and despair. Or would a public project of $20000 merely dwindle away through corrupt channels - amounting to even less than the $200 per person that is now being offered?
Its a catch 22 - If you haven't money for food, for shelter, for life, you want the government to take care of you - but if you don't trust the government to do these things then you are left to find ways to work around the system, to do what will most benefit you, to extract from the government anything it is willing to give, and hope that that will be enough to get by.
Saturday, January 19, 2008
6 months married
Alister and I celebrated 6 months married last Monday - (Thanks K for the green tea cake recipe!- The coffee grinder worked great on the tea leaves)
Six months is a small milestone - not even a decent warm-up some would say - but still we're enjoing it.
Here's what we have to show for it:
1) a few added pounds - like the fabled freshman-fifteen, it seems that newlyweds are bound to gain weight - blast those three square meals a day!
2) increased scrabble genius - Unfortunately, we've both increased in our skill to come up with words and place them strategically, So Alister still wins, but not as consistently as before.
3) a greater understanding of each of our own faults - as well as the others
4) a growing appreciation for the capacity of the other to forgive, laugh, and help the other to laugh as well
5) a plethora of recipes for how to cook 60 kilos of potatoes (mashed, boiled, fried, braised, grated (not one our favorite), mixed with spinach, mixed with meat, etc)
6) and alister insists that i'm cuter than ever - so i guess we can say marriage has improved us both
that's all we can come up with for now - but we are both very grateful for God's Grace and Providence in bringing us together - there are days when we both feel overwhelmed at the undeserved blessing of having the other, and how this is even one of the least of God's gifts to us.
Six months is a small milestone - not even a decent warm-up some would say - but still we're enjoing it.
Here's what we have to show for it:
1) a few added pounds - like the fabled freshman-fifteen, it seems that newlyweds are bound to gain weight - blast those three square meals a day!
2) increased scrabble genius - Unfortunately, we've both increased in our skill to come up with words and place them strategically, So Alister still wins, but not as consistently as before.
3) a greater understanding of each of our own faults - as well as the others
4) a growing appreciation for the capacity of the other to forgive, laugh, and help the other to laugh as well
5) a plethora of recipes for how to cook 60 kilos of potatoes (mashed, boiled, fried, braised, grated (not one our favorite), mixed with spinach, mixed with meat, etc)
6) and alister insists that i'm cuter than ever - so i guess we can say marriage has improved us both
that's all we can come up with for now - but we are both very grateful for God's Grace and Providence in bringing us together - there are days when we both feel overwhelmed at the undeserved blessing of having the other, and how this is even one of the least of God's gifts to us.
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
31, 33, and 44 tomatoes
The Sauce Aisle is one of the wonders of the Ukrainian supermarket. Though not to be compared with the Vodka and Cognac aisle - the variety of sauces packed into jars is overwhelming.
Yesterday, crouching in the sauce aisle at Velika Kushenija, I pondered tomato sauce. Do I choose the one that has the word "pretty" in it? Krasnodarcka? - but it also has a picture of apples, and this other one, says its "Ukrainian" Sauce and puts peppers on the label with the tomatoes. Still another says it is for Shashlik (like barbecued meat - but not BBQ sauce) and then others have the innocuous name of "tomato sauce" but with no pictures for further revelation. Fortunately, just as I had almost given up trying to make up the differences between sauces and which would give lasagna the most "normal" taste - a woman came up and pointed to another shelf of sauces.
These labels contained only pictures of tomatoes and Numbers. 44, 33, and 31 tomatoes. The woman pointed to the sauces and said that this was rally the best - but especially the 33. "See she said - how much brighter it is than that one you're holding?" I was holding one of the innocuous "Tomato Sauce" jars. Yes - in comparison, the one in my hand looked dark, and bruised, while her 33 tomato jar seemed bright and plump, dripping with vine ripened goodness.
Having rescued me from buying a the wrong sauce, the woman bustled off, intent on her own shopping. I briefly glanced at the other jars, they varied in price, increasing with the quantity of tomatoes trapped beneath the glass. In the end I bought the 33 tomatoes - she did say it was the best - and so why spend more on 11 tomatoes that you don't really need?
The sauce was great- almost a paste - but not quite. And the lasagna, my first, turned out amazingly.
Yesterday, crouching in the sauce aisle at Velika Kushenija, I pondered tomato sauce. Do I choose the one that has the word "pretty" in it? Krasnodarcka? - but it also has a picture of apples, and this other one, says its "Ukrainian" Sauce and puts peppers on the label with the tomatoes. Still another says it is for Shashlik (like barbecued meat - but not BBQ sauce) and then others have the innocuous name of "tomato sauce" but with no pictures for further revelation. Fortunately, just as I had almost given up trying to make up the differences between sauces and which would give lasagna the most "normal" taste - a woman came up and pointed to another shelf of sauces.
These labels contained only pictures of tomatoes and Numbers. 44, 33, and 31 tomatoes. The woman pointed to the sauces and said that this was rally the best - but especially the 33. "See she said - how much brighter it is than that one you're holding?" I was holding one of the innocuous "Tomato Sauce" jars. Yes - in comparison, the one in my hand looked dark, and bruised, while her 33 tomato jar seemed bright and plump, dripping with vine ripened goodness.
Having rescued me from buying a the wrong sauce, the woman bustled off, intent on her own shopping. I briefly glanced at the other jars, they varied in price, increasing with the quantity of tomatoes trapped beneath the glass. In the end I bought the 33 tomatoes - she did say it was the best - and so why spend more on 11 tomatoes that you don't really need?
The sauce was great- almost a paste - but not quite. And the lasagna, my first, turned out amazingly.
Monday, January 14, 2008
Waitsburg on the map!
So after years of complaining that there is nothing to do in Waitsburg - that it is a dinky - do nothing town - my friend sends me the following:
In Arthur Frommer's Budget Travel an article titled"10 Coolest Small Towns." - Low and behold town #6 is WAITSBURG, WA!!! I was like "Wow, I've been there before." The places they said were cool to go were "Whoopemup Hollow Cafe, Jimgermanber, AMO Art, Laht Neppur Brewing Co, and Monteillet Fromagerie." I didn't recognize any of these names, but I just thought it was cool that Waitsburg was considered a cool town by a national magazine. "
When I read that I LAUGHED OUT LOUDED (Alister - who was trying to work - glared at me)
So I checked it out and lo and behold - the article exists. http://www.budgettravel.com/bt-dyn/content/article/2007/08/06/AR2007080600786.html Now, Waitsburg is a nice town - very quiet and quaint and lovely (For things to do I love the Buffalo feed and Days of Real Sport myself) - but still reccomended places are mostly all eating establishments - and not very "budget" ones at that - so for Budget Travel - (note that my idea of budget is quite frugal - and thinks 'family' or student) It's not the best tourist destination unless you are grown, with money - and hungry, or hankering for a short walk up and down mainstreet.
As for me - I hadn't heard of the Fromagerie before - and have put it on my places to check out next time I am home.
Bravo Waitsburg - for making it on the map! Just add some other activities to the line up and it will really be a place for visitors to linger in. (Personally, I think a trail, hiking, biking, walking, roller blading along the river - from Prescot to Dayton would be great - might even be able to be done along with greater flood prevention by building up the dikes)
In Arthur Frommer's Budget Travel an article titled"10 Coolest Small Towns." - Low and behold town #6 is WAITSBURG, WA!!! I was like "Wow, I've been there before." The places they said were cool to go were "Whoopemup Hollow Cafe, Jimgermanber, AMO Art, Laht Neppur Brewing Co, and Monteillet Fromagerie." I didn't recognize any of these names, but I just thought it was cool that Waitsburg was considered a cool town by a national magazine. "
When I read that I LAUGHED OUT LOUDED (Alister - who was trying to work - glared at me)
So I checked it out and lo and behold - the article exists. http://www.budgettravel.com/bt-dyn/content/article/2007/08/06/AR2007080600786.html Now, Waitsburg is a nice town - very quiet and quaint and lovely (For things to do I love the Buffalo feed and Days of Real Sport myself) - but still reccomended places are mostly all eating establishments - and not very "budget" ones at that - so for Budget Travel - (note that my idea of budget is quite frugal - and thinks 'family' or student) It's not the best tourist destination unless you are grown, with money - and hungry, or hankering for a short walk up and down mainstreet.
As for me - I hadn't heard of the Fromagerie before - and have put it on my places to check out next time I am home.
Bravo Waitsburg - for making it on the map! Just add some other activities to the line up and it will really be a place for visitors to linger in. (Personally, I think a trail, hiking, biking, walking, roller blading along the river - from Prescot to Dayton would be great - might even be able to be done along with greater flood prevention by building up the dikes)
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