This is the small building that we hope to convert into a chicken house. We have not been able to decide whether we will have laying hens or raise birds for meat. Students are researching the market and the input costs and we hope to go from there.
Tuesday, February 22, 2005
Possible DCU Chicken House
This is the small building that we hope to convert into a chicken house. We have not been able to decide whether we will have laying hens or raise birds for meat. Students are researching the market and the input costs and we hope to go from there.
Chkolova Farm
This is a picture of a farm that MCC has supported over the past 5 years. They have a chicken operation of about 1000 laying hens and have been operating for a few years. They have also rent around 800 hectares of land and raise some hogs. It is located in Priazovia, just a few kilometers from the Sea of Azov.
Inside the Barn
Here is a photo iside of the barn (the red one in the previous picture). They have partitioned the building and are raising laying hens in one part. I have more photos (for anyone interested) but thought I would post one so people can see that they are only a few years behind technology in the states. We may try to replicate this operation on a significantly smaller scale.
Monday, February 21, 2005
Strangers
We spent the last weekend in Zaporozhye experiencing our first "Winter Retreat." It went well and we were able to relax a good deal and reflect on our past 3 months as well as listen to other MCCers reflect on their past six months. It was interesting and helpful in getting a better picture of what MCC is doing in the Former Soviet Union as well as think back on what had happened in our own lives.
This morning, we arrived at the bus station early with hopes of getting on a marshrutka (small bus). We talked to the driver, but he kept asking us if we were on something that we did not understand. We figured out that he had a list of passengers that called him last night to reserve seats in the van. He thought the van was full, but a group of around 6 people waited outside the van just in case. We spent the next 45 minutes speaking broken Russian to a very nice lady outside the van. She was very interested in what we are doing here, where we are from, how long we are staying and the other traditional questions. She was very friendly and patient with us.
As the departure time approached, the driver walked past and she spoke very rapidly to him and gestured in our direction. He said "I know, I understand...." and gestured for us to get in the van. A few minutes later we realized that the lady, who had been waiting longer than we had, was not going to get a seat. We have concluded that she was kind enough to tell the driver to give the last two seats in the marshrutka to us. As we drove away, we saw her standing there, waiting for the next marshrutka, which left two hours later.
In the past few months, the election situation has caused us to be very deliberate in not broadcasting the fact that we are Americans. We have tried to talk as quietly and little as possible in public because of anti-American sentiments in our area. Today we were reminded of the kindness of strangers.
-Dave
This morning, we arrived at the bus station early with hopes of getting on a marshrutka (small bus). We talked to the driver, but he kept asking us if we were on something that we did not understand. We figured out that he had a list of passengers that called him last night to reserve seats in the van. He thought the van was full, but a group of around 6 people waited outside the van just in case. We spent the next 45 minutes speaking broken Russian to a very nice lady outside the van. She was very interested in what we are doing here, where we are from, how long we are staying and the other traditional questions. She was very friendly and patient with us.
As the departure time approached, the driver walked past and she spoke very rapidly to him and gestured in our direction. He said "I know, I understand...." and gestured for us to get in the van. A few minutes later we realized that the lady, who had been waiting longer than we had, was not going to get a seat. We have concluded that she was kind enough to tell the driver to give the last two seats in the marshrutka to us. As we drove away, we saw her standing there, waiting for the next marshrutka, which left two hours later.
In the past few months, the election situation has caused us to be very deliberate in not broadcasting the fact that we are Americans. We have tried to talk as quietly and little as possible in public because of anti-American sentiments in our area. Today we were reminded of the kindness of strangers.
-Dave
Thursday, February 17, 2005
Church
Moving to a new place and finding a new church can be difficult for anyone, let alone us foreigners in Ukraine. However, we are happy to say that we have now found a church that we call home. There are no Mennonite churches in Donetsk, so we attended a variety of churches in the first couple months, and have settled on a Ukrainian church with Baptist affiliations. The people at our new church, Light of the Gospel, make us feel quite welcome. Even on our first visit we were greeted with many hearty handshakes (for Dave) and kisses from babushkas (for me) along with “Privyetstoyu,” the traditional Baptist greeting. Our church located in the nearby town of Makeevka and it takes us about 45 min. to get there by bus. I would guess that there are about 150 people who attend the morning service, a good mix of young and old, and quite a few familiar faces from DCU. We meet in a square, two-story, gray building with green trim around the windows that doesn’t look much like a traditional church from the outside.
Of the churches we visited, this is one is the most traditional with the least American influence, which can be both good and bad. That means that the entire service is always conducted in Russian, and few people attending the church speak any English. It’s hard to understand now, but good for our Russian practice. We sing from a songbook (hymn-like songs) and accompanied by the piano most of the time, but sometimes will sing more contemporary songs, some of which are familiar, but only the melodies. All songs are in sung in Russian. A choir sings every Sunday, and there’s usually at least three other individual “special music” solos throughout the service. Usually soloists accompany themselves on the guitar and sing songs in a folksy style. Dave and my favorite soloists, Andrei and Tanya, sing duets while Andrei plays guitar and sometimes harmonica. We’d like a recording of their music. Music is definitely the highlight of church at this point, although poetry recitations also make the service interesting. Many Ukrainians are amateur poets, and several recite their original poetry each Sunday, or sometimes a memorized chapter of the Bible or two. Sermons at Light of the Gospel are long and generally unintelligible to us, and there are usually at least two during the two to two and half hour morning service. Recently we’ve been catching a few more things, since one of Dave’s Saturday English students, Oleg, attends our church and sits next to Dave to translate now and then throughout the service. Before Oleg was there, Lyuda, Oleg’s mother and the secretary at DCU, would help us out from the choir loft. Whenever the hymn number was called out, she would not very inconspicuously hold up her fingers to show the correct hymn number. We felt like dumb foreigners, but what else is new? We really appreciated it.
Laura
Of the churches we visited, this is one is the most traditional with the least American influence, which can be both good and bad. That means that the entire service is always conducted in Russian, and few people attending the church speak any English. It’s hard to understand now, but good for our Russian practice. We sing from a songbook (hymn-like songs) and accompanied by the piano most of the time, but sometimes will sing more contemporary songs, some of which are familiar, but only the melodies. All songs are in sung in Russian. A choir sings every Sunday, and there’s usually at least three other individual “special music” solos throughout the service. Usually soloists accompany themselves on the guitar and sing songs in a folksy style. Dave and my favorite soloists, Andrei and Tanya, sing duets while Andrei plays guitar and sometimes harmonica. We’d like a recording of their music. Music is definitely the highlight of church at this point, although poetry recitations also make the service interesting. Many Ukrainians are amateur poets, and several recite their original poetry each Sunday, or sometimes a memorized chapter of the Bible or two. Sermons at Light of the Gospel are long and generally unintelligible to us, and there are usually at least two during the two to two and half hour morning service. Recently we’ve been catching a few more things, since one of Dave’s Saturday English students, Oleg, attends our church and sits next to Dave to translate now and then throughout the service. Before Oleg was there, Lyuda, Oleg’s mother and the secretary at DCU, would help us out from the choir loft. Whenever the hymn number was called out, she would not very inconspicuously hold up her fingers to show the correct hymn number. We felt like dumb foreigners, but what else is new? We really appreciated it.
Laura
Friday, February 11, 2005
Birthday Cards
My little sister and brother both have birthdays in the next two weeks. Laura and I thought that they would be interested in receiving Russian birthday cards. On Tuesday, we were in the city for language lesson and we thought we would swing by the store and pick up a few cards. We knew the translations of the key words: brother, sister, happy birthday... so we were set.
We bought two cards. One said "To my sister" on the front and the other said "Happy birthday means it's time to..." with several cute, animated frogs saying some verb we didn't know on the front. We assumed it meant "to celebrate" or party or something like that. On the two cards, there were only a handful of words that we didn't know (which is a lot better than usual) and we thought we got the gist of them.
We came back and showed the cards to one of our Russian, English-speaking friends. She said they were really cute. We asked for literal translations and were informed that one said: "To my sister... from mother's favorite daughter." Oops. She didn't think that was too big of deal because: "They can't read Russian anyway." We also found out what the frogs were saying. They were saying "To get drunk, to get drunk, to get drunk." Who would have thought that those cute little frogs would say such uncouth things? Anyway, I took out my trusty sharpie and crossed out the words in the dialogue bubbles and wrote in the verb "to celebrate" and all is well. We hope they like them.
Dave
We bought two cards. One said "To my sister" on the front and the other said "Happy birthday means it's time to..." with several cute, animated frogs saying some verb we didn't know on the front. We assumed it meant "to celebrate" or party or something like that. On the two cards, there were only a handful of words that we didn't know (which is a lot better than usual) and we thought we got the gist of them.
We came back and showed the cards to one of our Russian, English-speaking friends. She said they were really cute. We asked for literal translations and were informed that one said: "To my sister... from mother's favorite daughter." Oops. She didn't think that was too big of deal because: "They can't read Russian anyway." We also found out what the frogs were saying. They were saying "To get drunk, to get drunk, to get drunk." Who would have thought that those cute little frogs would say such uncouth things? Anyway, I took out my trusty sharpie and crossed out the words in the dialogue bubbles and wrote in the verb "to celebrate" and all is well. We hope they like them.
Dave
Wednesday, February 02, 2005
In a Hurry
One of the things that really excited me about doing a term of MCC service was the exposure to different cultural norms. I thought that exposure to one of these might end up being especially beneficial to me. I was excited about a non-North American view of time.
In the last few years, I have been fortunate enough to be able to keep a lot of things on my plate at one time. The excitement of having to hurry to finish one task so I could get to my next one really kept me going. And things moved at about the right pace most of the time. However, there were significant drawbacks to always hurrying. When things did not go as planned, I became frustrated rather quickly. I also spent a significant amount of time being very tired. I was very excited to go to a place where schedules were not so important.
In Ukraine, it is oftentimes a bit more difficult to get from point "A" to point "B." The public transportation system does not pride itself in its timeliness. Things almost never start on time. In general, it seems that people are not as animate about being punctual. I can't tell you how many quizzical looks I have already received as I was almost running to get to my language lesson or some other appointment on time.
The weather also slows things down greatly. It has snowed around 2' in the last week, yet many roads and sidewalks have not seen a snowplow or even a shovel in that time period. People just walk and drive where they think they can make it through.
The intent of this entry is not only to complain (or inform), but it is also an attempt to predict. In the next 3 years, I might learn from the people here and adjust to their lifestyle. At this point in time I may be getting frustrated frequently, but I am working at taking things as they come.
-Dave
In the last few years, I have been fortunate enough to be able to keep a lot of things on my plate at one time. The excitement of having to hurry to finish one task so I could get to my next one really kept me going. And things moved at about the right pace most of the time. However, there were significant drawbacks to always hurrying. When things did not go as planned, I became frustrated rather quickly. I also spent a significant amount of time being very tired. I was very excited to go to a place where schedules were not so important.
In Ukraine, it is oftentimes a bit more difficult to get from point "A" to point "B." The public transportation system does not pride itself in its timeliness. Things almost never start on time. In general, it seems that people are not as animate about being punctual. I can't tell you how many quizzical looks I have already received as I was almost running to get to my language lesson or some other appointment on time.
The weather also slows things down greatly. It has snowed around 2' in the last week, yet many roads and sidewalks have not seen a snowplow or even a shovel in that time period. People just walk and drive where they think they can make it through.
The intent of this entry is not only to complain (or inform), but it is also an attempt to predict. In the next 3 years, I might learn from the people here and adjust to their lifestyle. At this point in time I may be getting frustrated frequently, but I am working at taking things as they come.
-Dave
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