Chasing the ball

There's so much I've failed to report in this blog. Living life and not writing about it. But here goes a quick sum up since the last report on the break I took to climb Mt. Hoverla.

Our cow died, by our, I mean Maria's, the grandma I live with. While I was out hiking in the Carpathians, she, the cow came back home from the pasture and decided to eat 40liters of unprocessed wheat grain. This left no room in her stomach and she swelled up as the grain absorbed water. The town doctor/vet was called, but nothing could be done without surgery. So after Maria's third sleepless night talking to and massaging the cow, they called the butcher and sold the milk cow for meat. They saved some of their investment, but the price for meat is not nearly as high as the price for a working milk cow that was only 9 years old. But the price didn't matter to Maria. For her it was like loosing a limb. She had milked this cow three times a day for 8 years!

During the fight to save the cow, Maria's son's wife disappeared for a few days. This left a house with three kids and no parents, since Maria's son was on one of his transport runs to Poland. This puts a lot of pressure on Maria to run two houses at once, and is forcing Ira, the oldest sister, who I teach in 8^th grade, to grow up faster than a kid should.

I guess I haven't written much about my living situation since I moved in February, but that's because everything has been working out fine. We had turkeys, but we ate them. We have 9 chickens and one rooster. 14 chicks hatched yesterday morning. The house is surrounded by a small yard which despite its limited size has fruit trees, potatoes, tomatoes, beans, peppers, poppies, morning glories, strawberries, onions, garlic, and parsley. Almost every inch has something growing on it. Not only is there a garden around the house, but she has two other fields 5mx10m and 5mX5m which have cucumbers, corn, more potatoes, more beans, carrots, and squash. I helped with some of the farming, particularly turning the soil and breaking dirt clumps, replanting tomatoes and trimming strawberries. I really wish I could help more, but I spend most days in school, and often on the weekend I like to get out of the village on Saturday and then Sunday is not a proper day to work on.

Maria wanted to buy two piglets to fatten over the summer, but never found the black ones she wanted, and thinks it's too late now.

April Showers extended for May

Today after class I rushed to Lviv to meet some friends and go to the last professional football game of the year. It was a derby between FC Lviv and FC Karpati which the former had to win to stay in the top league. A relegation match. So, as Ukrainian professional soccer compares poorly with the MLS, it was not a pretty game.

 

Before the game started we had an adventure trying to get cheaper tickets. My friends waited for me to finish a long transaction at the bank (last part of my grant) and by the time we arrived at the stadium, they were only selling more expensive tickets, not due to lack of seats, but according to a profitable supply and demand calculation. Walking around to the other side of the stadium to check with the other ticket counters (they don't use computers and can't see what the other locations have sold), we encountered a group of boys who had found a hole in the fence and were paying the police officer who guarded this hole a price much cheaper than any remaining tickets. Deciding that as Peace Corps volunteers, it was a bad idea to support corruption, we went back to the first ticket office and paid the higher price.