Regular Update

We are finished with the camps and are relaxing in the city. Our relaxation involves going to the giant bazar, learning Russian, going on strange "excursions" and having lots of fun. 

We miss Mr. Nate and Audrey, who made our team completely perfect. We also miss our camp- but we do not miss the food, which was very very awful this year and made our stomachs hurt and ourselves sick. 

Praise to God, no one is sick anymore or dead. It is a good thing that we made this trip so long, otherwise we would have been sick for the entire time. 

We went to help clean up at the camp a day ago, this was very interesting because there was a group of helpers, who didn't want us to clean up. 

The scuba diver told us "Go swim! On the sea! Then clean!" But we told him that we like to work. 

He also said "по-английский - Haley, I like byecause- very beautiful girl" and we laughed so hard. 

Haley and Mary used a tent without a zipped door for their changing room, because we took down all the tents...(foreshadowing....) Haley was going to change, and she said "I don't need to make someone hold the door...I will just change real quick" Just before she was changing, scuba diver man came and whipped open the door and exclaimed "Haley!" 

Scuba diver man - who we think was drunk, kept arguing with Lёsha. He was arguing for the second time and came stomping away, feeling victorious, looked at us with a big smile and said "а это правда", as if trying to convince us - but he said it like a child..:) 

First mistake we made - to make the "alcoholics" as Maksim calls them angry - was Mary and Lydia cleaned up a tent, without looking inside to see if anyone lived there...only after they had collapsed it, did they notice it was filled with belongings, which they threw on the dirt, because everyone had decided that it was time they left the camp anyways. 

Lydia was a witness of the brown man who came to find his tent gone and his belongings on a table in the middle of camp.

"Nope- no comments, I went away, I knew he knew I was the one who took it down, so I went away. He just dug through his pile of stuff and first pulled out his charger and his bat."

The second mistake we made, to make the men mad, was when we cleaned up the swimming pool. It had hardly any water and lots of green slime. When Vova came over and questioned what we were doing and who told us to take it down...Mary didn't apologize, she just translated and Vova said "Where are we going to wash, we will be so dirty"  then Haley said "Душ!"and she made a little walking person symbol with her hand and showed Vova that there were showers down at the beach. He gave up and said "fine! Thank you." But he was smiling, so Mary thinks he wasn't that mad...after all, Haley was his favorite. 

As we were loading the giant bus, Vova found a ёжик, that was so friendly and he handed it to Haley saying, "подарок". Haley says, "This is a very good podarok!" He was very curious, and friendly, and he sat in her hands and just looked around. "He's very prickly too." 

After we had loaded everything, eaten shashliki (the most common picnic Ukrainian summer meal) - (Mary still isn't sure if she says "picnic" or "battle" ...) Dennis/Grant helped cook the shashliki, he's a good Ukrainian boy. 

We asked Maksim to let us ride on all the stuff in the back of the bus. Haley said "this feels like a third world country" We were piled on top of the stuff and we drove away from the camp and started singing songs. After we had bumped along the road, through Kotoskovo, we dropped off all the stuff at the gypsy church in Palarma. 

The man who lives there as a guard, wouldn't open the front door.. "He is a bad boy" was Maksim's explanation. Instead, we opened a window and we shoved all the stuff from the bus through the window. (Did we mention that there were 100 tents, 300 sleeping bags, pillows, and heavy mattresses, 3 bags of shoes)

Every time the girls tried to take something heavy, the Ukrainian men would say "No! Not for girls" or "You still need to have children! May it be so!" We tried to take the bags of shoes (about hundred pounds) and run with them...so that no one would catch us. 

"I got away, but Sasha caught me when I got tired" - Lydia 

Then we rode home, in an empty McDonald's truck, as Lesha showed us, by "ordering" through the middle window. 

God Changes Lives: Nelly

Lydia and Mary went swimming with Nelly, a lady who has trouble walking and talking. Red beard Sasha took her down in a wheelchair and she said she didn't like it, but she kept laughing. 

Then Mary and Lydia helped her take her clothes off and we went swimming. We didn't know that she liked to swim so deep...at first she just kept wading and we let her hold our arms to steady herself. 

Then she started to jump in the water - "it was hilarious, I don't know, she became this energetic little girl" says Lydia, "she was smiling and had this amazing joy" 

Then she swam so deep, we started plotting what we would do if she started sinking...we decided that one of us would dive under for her and the other would swim to go get Roma. 

Earlier in the week, we had been talking about what profession we wanted, and he said he always wanted to be a lifeguard. In fact, he said "I am a lifeguard! If I see a girl drowning, I can jump in and save her..even right now!" Then Karina and Lera were laughing, because he had specifically said girl, and not just "children" or a "person". :)

After a little while, Nelly turned around and swam back towards shore. On the way back in, we decided to jump with her. 

Why You Need an Audrey

Why you need an Audrey in your life:

She makes sure the tent is cleaned and organized 

She runs up and down the stairs with you 

She takes care of Skee Skee

She makes sure all the cats and dogs are properly appreciated 

She understands the importance of reading to recharge 

She keeps people awake when they aren't supposed to sleep because of jet lag (don't get slapped!)

She isn't afraid to tell the grandmas she -will- help with dishes and soap will be used!

She goes on the long toilet walk with you 

She gives lovely manicures to all the camp attendees

She doesn't kick when she sleeps 

She doesn't snore

She understands why a person needs a hammock in their life 

You will be sure to have peanut butter and peach juice when she's around 

She makes friends with the kitchen people and therefore you will get food benefits 

She adopts Ukrainian girls as sisters 

She soaks up Russian even when she doesn't try

Russian Lessons

A day at Mary's Russian language and Ukrainian culture school:

Wake up and have an amazing breakfast prepared by a wonderful grandma. Practice telling the grandma how amazing the cooking is and various food related words. (Very important.)

One person puts the food away and washes the dishes while everyone sits at the table conjugating verbs. It is very fun. The verbs will be used later in the day; you had better remember them!

Peak in the fridge and realize that there is no more персик juice. Better run to the store! If you can remember the word for ice cream you can get that too. Or just say что это and point and someone will tell you how to say it. 

On the bus practice reading advertisements. 

As you are out and about, Mary will suddenly say "What is that word?!" and you get to read a word you will understand. Or she will say "Listen!" and you get to hear a phase you know. Or she will repeat a phase and wait for comprehension. 

The ladies in the bazaar love to talk to you, so buying things is very necessary for language development. You can make lots of friends! They might even say you are so pretty they thought you were Ukrainian. 

The afternoon is the time for advanced Russian lessons. If you are less advanced you can attend however and get a jump start. This is important as Mary has a Seven Time rule. You need to be able to remember and use something after the seventh time she has taught it to you. Fortunately Mary's genius students learn by the third or fourth time so she rarely has to go to extreme measures. These usually involve object lessons that are calculated to make an impression, involving headscarves, cucumbers, and more. 

In the evening are Grant's lessons. They are funny to listen to because people get giggly at night and Grant has a funny vocabulary. Things like любимые другs, would you like to be stung by a bee, and things related to traps. 

Mary will stay to all hours if people want to learn Russian. So your dreams will even be filled with Russian. 

Why You Need a Mr. Nate

Why you need a Mr. Nate in your life: for many reasons, but we can't cover them all, so here some. 

1. Constant supply of milk and black currant juice and candy

2. He leaves soap, towels, toothpaste, olives and juice

3. He doesn't need an interpreter because he speaks everyone's language-...😃

4. He even interprets for those Americans who don't understand. (:D) 

5. He makes your life longer because you laugh so much

6. He comes up with games from the trash

7. He helps you remember words like хорошо = horror show = fine. Or "как" (how) - a Ukrainian Indian. 

8. He gives medicine and vitamins to all the children every morning...these medicines taste strangely like candy...

9. He has everything you need: including a chisel, trowel and bug spray. Unfortunately, he forgot his washboard, "I picked it up to put it in my suitcase...but I decided no" 

10. Every morning after he left the camp, Inna would come and hug Haley and cry "Meestyerrr Nait! 

11. He plays uno endlessly, making everyone happy

12. Mr. Nate teaches English with Skittles--and his students actually learn English. 

13. He has the most accurate melon sniffing nose 

Host-Family Life

We made a dish that Larissa liked so much, she bought the ingredients for Haley to make it again. 

We made salad, chicken and strawberry shortcake desert with the cream we whipped and cookies instead of shortcake :)

Anton said "do you eat this every day in America? Or just holidays? I will come to America if you make this every day!" 

Dennis asked Larissa how much the ambulance cost, she leaned back and just laughed at him, as if she would never tell. Then she said :) 

Strange Noises

Today Mary, Lydia and Dennis were sleeping in the room. Mary heard Lydia make a snorting snore sound and she tried not to laugh...Lydia heard this sound in the middle of the dream 

Lydia in Russian "I need to wash my dishes" (instead of hands" 

Haley, "How do you say tomorrow?" 

Mary, "zavtra" 

Haley, "How do you say tomorrow?!" 

Mary, "zavtrak"

Haley, "Does that mean that today (syevodnya) also has it's own breakfast?" 

:)))) Hahahahahha

Mary doesn't know the difference between hair salon and bakery...

"I'm going to the hair salon." 

"Why?"

"For bread..of course"

Someone handed money to Lydia and asked her to pass it forward, along with the name of the bus stop. She passed the money to Mary with a mumble...! 

We are driving ourselves crazy to find a bakery, which we know is less than a mile away. We've spent 3 hours looking for it...it's almost as if it has disappeared. This is our life without Mr. Nate. 

We eat so much food every day...we buy as much ice cream as we want, peach juice - liters every day, fresh peaches, raspberries, strawberries, plums, nectarines...and cookies :) lots of cookies:)))

"We had already been here for a week and I was totally used to having a foreign language around me...it was a total new realization of being in a different country when I heard someone talking to their dog..I guess I assumed they would at least talk to their dog in English" 

"Вы хотите сок? Вы хотите молоко" - Haley 

This morning we snuckily cleaned the kitchen while Larissa was out. Whenever Anatolik came in we would set our scrubbers down. :D