Weekend Visit

We were blessed to have a visit with Maxim again today, even though it is Saturday. Generally, we're told, visits are not the norm on weekends.

This time we rode the local bus with Igor instead of riding in his car. Until now, he has been driving us back and forth each day from the flat he found for us to rent here in Kherson. He felt it would be good to get used to the bus for several reasons; mainly, on Monday the 17th, a new law takes effect here that everyone must wear seat belts. The police will be paying more than their usual attention to drivers. Igor says there is already a bit of corruption and he doesn't want to draw undue attention, even though we're not doing anything wrong. Also, it's good for us to get used to the bus so if Igor needs to be elsewhere on a particular day, we can still see Maxim.

This morning, we played with several boys so Daniel was especially wiped out when we left. One boy in particular has the energy of ten and really wanted to wrestle and just rough house a lot. Another boy, who is very friendly, came up to me with all his energy and clearly said Jackie Chan and then tried some of his "martial arts" moves on me. Another was simply delighted that I sat down with him and drew his picture. I can see where the ladies who work at the orphanage do not have the masculine, energetic touch that these boys crave. Everything was pretty quiet when we walked in but as soon as they saw us, they wanted to go straight to Daniel and play hard.

Some of the things we have enjoyed here are excellent quality yogurts and kefir, fresh bread from the market, cheeses, regular access to the Internet cafe (a fifteen minute walk from the flat), and unusually warm weather here right now (although the temperature has dipped a little the last couple of days). We have found food in the markets to be much less expensive than in the States while fuel is more expensive (about $4/gallon). The grocery carts are very small (think Little Tike's size, only taller), which makes sense as most people shop daily for what they need. The store we shop at has pretty much every thing we need, like a mom and pop store in the U.S.