Last days in Ukraine

After twenty two months and quite a number of entries this is the final blog for our Ukrainian adventure.

The last school term of 2015 was seven weeks and I have to confess that I counted the number of teaching days that were left and marked them off on my calendar each day. We really enjoyed our time in Ukraine and were glad to be of assistance to the school and the families there but the call of home and family is very strong.  Even though things were coming to an end there were still many adventures left for us in the last weeks. 

There was our last snow fall which was as late as the 20th of April.  The previous winter the last snow was in the middle of February.

One of the beautiful cherry blossom trees in front of our apartment when spring arrived.

There were our three days without any water supply.  As was the case each time this happened during our stay, there is no warning that the supply will be cut so there is no preparation for it.  One moment you switch on the tap and have water the next moment you do the same thing and there is no water and no indication as to when it will be restored. There is much rejoicing when the supply returns!

There was our exiting process.  This process can take up to a month with forms to be filled out and stamped by officials and assistance from lawyers. We needed to go to a passport office in our area but no one including the lawyer who works in this field could tell us where it might be.  One very serious suggestion he gave us was to go to the babushkas (grandmothers) who sell fruit and vegetables and other things on the footpaths and ask them if they know where the office might be.  He said in his email 'babushkas know everything'.  Well we did manage to find the office without resorting to these dear ladies. It was a process and took many hours and a number of trips to various offices but we did de-register correctly. If we hadn't, the group that had sponsored our entry into Ukraine would have been heavily fined.

The last couple of weeks were very hectic with final exams, marking and packing up.  We wanted to bring home only what we could fit into one large suitcase each and a backpack each.  We had no way of weighing the cases so it was with a sense of trepidation that we packed as much as could into the bags. Our heavy winter clothes that we would not use in Australia we were glad to give to those helping refugees from the east of Ukraine.  All the good-byes were difficult.  Even in just two years, we had made such good friends. Our final contact with the school was at a track meet just two days before we left for home.  As we walked from the oval at the end of the meet we could see and hear some of the kids we had grown to love waving and calling goodbye.

My 9th grade English class.

One day the staff were asked to wear something Ukrainian to school.

We took a month to make the trip home.  First we went and visited a nephew of ours who now lives in southern Poland with his wife and two little children. 

Arriving in a small town in southern Poland to visit our nephew Russell and his family.  It may have been late May so summer, but it was very cold and raining quite steadily.

Wherever we went we liked to go walking.  Here we were trying to reach the tree line above Łodygowice in Poland. I look so quaint because there was no path and it was very boggy under deep grass and lots of tangled roots. We did make it up to the forest but with no paths we were not prepared to go into it in case we had to have people out looking for us and no one knew exactly which way we had gone anyway. The views were fantastic.

This river marks the border between Poland and the Czech Republic.  We had done a Saturday parkrun that morning in the area you can see that went into both countries.  Part of the run was on forest paths and I managed to lose myself for a short time and came in last!

Even though for the most part their English was as limited as Bill's polish the people were very welcoming and friendly.

Then we had a most delightful four weeks in Ireland. My father's mother came from County Cork in Ireland. We have no family contact there now but we thought Ireland would be a great place to visit, and it was.  We could fill a couple of blogs about our holiday there but suffice to say it was a time we will long remember.

This the highest point in the hills above Belfast. The climb was steep and quite long but with beautiful views on the way up and down and magnificent views from the top it was well worth the effort and the wind and the cold. It was also about the only day in our eight days there that it did not rain a great deal of the time. At one time on our first day in Belfast in summer, it was blowing a gale, the sun was shining it was raining and then we could hear this rattling noise and realized it was also hailing!

We also went to a small town called Cootehill.  We stayed in the house you can see.  It is a working farm which does accommodation as well. When we mentioned to a young woman in the bank that we were staying there for a week she was very surprised that anyone would come to Cootehill for a week's holiday. It is quite well known for its fishing though. We had some wonderful walks there and really enjoyed our stay. 

Most unexpectedly we came across a pipe band competition when we were staying in Tralee.  All my Irish and Scottish heritage rose up in me and we spent almost two hours listening and enjoying.

Walking on the Dingle Peninsula in the far south west of Ireland:  We almost didn't come here because it was an hour each way on the bus and the tourist office said there was just a one kilometer scenic walk at the destination. We did decide to go.  After only about ten minutes on the bus and seeing the incredible scenery we knew we had made the right decision.  At Dingle itself we were able to walk far more than one kilometer. We sometimes walked through fields finding paths just from seeing where people had walked before because we could see the grass was crushed with cows and sheep grazing less than a metre away. Eventually we reached the end of the bay and could see the open Atlantic stretching into the distance.  A great day. 

Our final adventure was our return home.  It was to be a simple flight from Dublin at 9:00am Monday to Dubai a brief stopover of just a couple of hours and then a direct fourteen-hour flight from Dubai to Brisbane. It did not turn out that way.  Our flight from Dublin was delayed seven hours and that made for more delays down the line.  When we arrived in Brisbane we had been awake well over forty-eight hours (neither of us sleep well on planes).  Our wonderful family were there to meet us at the airport at 7:00 am Wednesday and then we had a great day together.  On that Wednesday night we were going to sleep as we spoke. Seventy-two hours had passed without sleep!

Home - at last!

Except for Bill breaking some ribs and coughs and colds, we had a safe two years in a tumultuous and grieving part of the world.  So as our blog ends we acknowledge God's goodness to us in all the time away and ask you to continue to pray for Ukraine.

‘This is my Father’s world. O let me ne’er forget

That though the wrong is oft so strong, God is the ruler yet.’

Spring break in the Carpathians Mar-Apr 2015

In Kyiv central train station as our holiday began.

At the end of March and beginning of April we had a week's school holiday and travelled by train to the Carpathian Mountains to a small town called Yaremche. It is down in a valley but is at about 550 metres above sea level. It was a great time. We expected that we would see snow on the heights but not fairly heavy snow in the town itself, which we did. We spent many hours most days there walking and scrambling through the hills around the town.

This was one place where we could actually see the trail.  The snow had not begun in earest but the cloud was very low.

There was was a track we found that could be used to reach the highest point in that area of the Carpathians and we decided to try to reach it.  It will stand out as one of our most memorable days in Ukraine. The description of the track was that it was rocky at first and then you reached the meadow area and after crossing that you reached the summit. Rocky track was a very generous description.  It was basically a steep hillside covered with large boulders that you clambered over as best you could. Eventually you reach the top of the ridge and follow that ridge line to the highest point. The views were spectacular but we couldn't always see them because the cloud came down and snow began falling unexpectedly and fairly heavily.  Eventually in the distance at the top of a steep, steep snow-covered hill we saw the cross marking the summit.  With many stops and much puffing and panting on my part we made it to the top at 984.5 m! 

We emerged above the clouds.  I felt like Edmund Hillary on Everest.

It was cold and windy. The return down this mountain required a long hike back, so we only stayed there about fifteen minutes taking in the views – it was like being on the top of a beautiful, unknown world.

The previous picture was my sir Edmund Hillary imitation.  I always see this picture as Bill's 'Scott of the Antarctic' picture. The scenery is stunning.

Not another person around with the Carpathians stretching on and on into the north. 

The trail we followed to reach the summit. Yaremche is in the valley below.

We had many other adventures there and it was a lovely break and a real refreshment.  We always seem to have adventures when we travel by train here. I will just recount one.  On our trip back to Kyiv we had to catch a train into L’viv at 3:00 am.  On waking up we found it was snowing heavily. The walk to the train station takes about fifteen minutes.  It was dark and the snow was falling steadily and quietly. Walking in the dark with the snow falling silently and the snow mounting up in front of the big suitcase that was being wheeled was like a captivating, fairy story. When the train came in everyone except us knew there was very little time to board the train.  People even in the snow were running to the train.  There was about a dozen passengers boarding there.  We couldn't see numbers on the carriages.  We needed number six.  Finally I saw a number eight but neither carriage on either side of it had a number we could see.  We went left.  A lady railway official began calling very sternly and loudly for us to get on any carriage.  The entrance to the train is very difficult and with a large heavy suitcase it was not easy at all.  As we attempted to board 'any' carriage as instructed, another railway official on board the train told us that this was not carriage six and we needed to go to our right. He didn't want to let us on but the lady on the platform was still telling us to get on the train. Bill just flung the bag into the train. We were able to make our way through the train to our carriage and find our seats almost in the dark, hopefully without waking too many people who had boarded the train at an earlier station.

What a great holiday. 

From Ukraine - with our love!

Fear and Flamingos

This is our second winter and in many ways it has been different from our first.  One thing is that the snow began about ten days earlier this year.  There had been no forecast of snow but we woke one Sunday morning in mid-November looked out of the window and snow had obviously been falling for some time.  The whole world outside our windows was white and covered with about ten centimetres of snow. 

The very first snow of the year.  There were children on sleds in the park and even some small snowmen had been made.  Just twenty-four hours earlier Bill had been able to go for a 4k run in this area.

We had quite a few days then when temperatures went even to double figures below zero. For about a week around Thanksgiving we had snow falling for hours a day.  Because the weather was cold the snow did not melt.  Then we had a period of warmer weather and the snow did begin to melt.  This is where the fear comes in for me. At Thanksgiving itself when we went out to the village we found that there is no snow clearing there and the streets and footpaths would be covered with ice about two centimetres thick. It was extremely slippery.  We were told it was better not to try to lift your feet but rather to sort of slide or almost skate.

We didn't take this photo but this is what it is like walking especially out in the village at Thanksgiving.  The paths are a little clearer in Kyiv itself in most places. In an area like this it is better to walk in the snow and not where people have walked down the middle.

For a few days the trees were even more  beautiful.  There were ice crystals growing on all the branches and so the outline of the trees became blurry. It was like living in a fairy tale  and it was also dazzlingly white.  This is the park across the road from us.

We leave for school in the dark now and arrive home in the dark and street lighting is fairly minimal. As the snow began to melt during the day it would refreeze during the night and refreeze as ice.  We didn't have to far to walk but each step for me was challenging. There are a lot of steps in even three hundred metres! When the ice is white you at least know it is icy and can take precautions but there is often the black ice.  This is where the ice is just a thin film over the surface and doesn't show up with any colour so you put your foot on what looks like clear ground and you feel yourself slipping. I found the black ice very scary.  I didn't know then that there is something even scarier - wet black ice!  For a couple of days we had light rain falling.  The temperature was low enough for the ice to stay icy but it was now also wet!  This is if anything even more slippery!  I was so glad when the temperatures rose a little more after about a week and the ice all melted away.

At the beginning of December we had an unfortunate event :(.  One afternoon we were coming home and were looking through the dimness to see if it was our bus nearing the bus stop. The bus was still about seventy metres away.  Bill was looking up to try and read the number and I had just begun to say to him 'Watch the ice there', when he put his foot on it and over he went. It was a very heavy fall backward onto the backpack he was wearing. We believe he cracked a few ribs.  He is now taking things very carefully as we wait for the six week healing process. 

Right now we have come to Cyprus for eleven days to warm up and refresh ourselves. We are in Larnaca which is on the south-east coast, right on the Mediterranean.  The days have been for the most part sunny and warm. We have enjoyed the walks on non-slippery paths and the beautiful views.  

 The blue sky and the blue Mediterranean. The beach is sand as opposed to the pebbles in Wales and  some of the beaches in France but not quite the white sand of home.

One thing that we didn't know about before we came is that flamingos come to Cyprus for the winter.  About a fifteen minute walk from where we are staying is a large salt lake and when we went there the other day we saw hundreds and hundreds of flamingos in groups scattered across the lake.  They were not close to the shore but you could tell they were feeding flamingos!  We saw one fly in and join a flock and the underside of its wings that we could see as it settled were a bright crimson.

The flamingos stay a reasonable distance from the shore but you can tell they are flamingos.  The salt lake is quite large and we saw many many groups of flamingos feeding.  We read in some of the tourist information that the channel connecting the lake to the ocean closed in 1050! 

We had climbed a small knoll and the white patches and specks on the lake are flamingos.

The birds closer in the foreground are the local seagulls. We think that the buildings and hills on the far side of the lake look like a painting rather than the real thing. 

The temperatures here have been maximums in the high teens.  In Kyiv the minimums are forecast to be in the minus double figures when we return so we are absorbing as much warmth as we can to take back with us.

A local teenager took this for us.  The monument was erected by the Armenian community showing their appreciation for the way the people of Cyprus accepted them when they were fleeing the 1915 genocide.

Football and Food

It is the last day of November and as I type snow is gently falling outside.  The temperature outside is said to be -5⁰ C but feeling about -10⁰ C.  I decided to do a brief blog about the football season here at the school.  Bill was assistant coach for the upper school football team.  The football season is short here because the snow can start any time in November and some years earlier and school basically starts at the beginning of September. There are about eight games in the season and to fit them in sometimes there are two games in a week. There are however very few schools that our teams play against so they play each other usually two times.

KCA is a small school, so that means there are not many children of the same age. To come up with between 11-15 boys or girls of the the same age is difficult. The schools they played against are much larger and so have a considerably bigger pool to choose from. The upper school boys team could come just from grades eleven and twelve but for KCA the largest number in the boys team were from grade 9. This made it hard for them playing against teams made up mainly of  boys from grades 11 and 12.   Another factor for KCA was that we do not have a field for the teams to train on.  We do have a field just outside the school but it does not belong to the school and to call it a cow paddock is being kind.  It is not the size of a full field and it is far from level.  There a low patches of grass over a lot of the surface and other than that it is patches of loose sand and dirt. Sometimes Bill would come home from training and his feet even inside his socks would be almost black from the dirt.  Cleaning the socks was almost impossible.  I don't know if they will ever be their original colour again. One of the schools they played against has a state of the art artificial turf field to train and play on (not full size). At times KCA hired a better field to train on but this meant time spent traveling to it so this was another factor. The kids don’t complain about their facilities, they just train on.

There is one boy missing. Five of the boys are grade 9's.
( I think they were told to look very determined but Bill didn't get that message)

The sport here is taken very seriously. The teams would train three afternoons a week after school and also play a match on another day or sometimes two days. Playing football at KCA is very character building.  You learn how to lose graciously.  Last year the upper school boys team didn't win a game and lost most by very wide margins.  This year in their first game they lost 11-0 and everyone thought this year was going to be the same and there was some little feeling of discouragement.  However within a day or so of the loss the enthusiasm was back.  Then for the rest of the season all the games were close.  There were loses of 1-0 and even a 3-2 game.  Scoring was a cause of huge excitement! In one of the last games they were able to outscore the opposition in the second half!  Then came the final two games of the season and they won them both!!!!  I was able to go to a few of their games and really enjoyed them.

Now for the food part of this installment.  We participated in our first Thanksgiving celebrations. We were invited to join with some people we know from church and school.  Three families live close together in a small village on the outskirts of Kyiv.  We arrived about 3:00 pm for a progressive meal.  It was already quite dark just because of the time of year and low cloud and fog.  Dimly through the bus window when we were almost at our destination I saw some people on a large expanse of ice with small poles looking down into the ice they were standing on. I heard later during the evening that this was a lake we were passing over and the people had cut holes in the ice and were fishing!  I had not expected to see that.  It was a cold and snowy day and walking between houses was a slow and for me a difficult exercise.  Inside however it was warm and cosy and the friendship and food were great.  We had the traditional Thanksgiving delicacies of roast turkey and pumpkin pie and hot punch.  It was all very nice. A little unfortunately I had quite a heavy cold so did not taste too much of the lovely food. 

Most of the people here we know from school and some of the children either Bill or I have taught.  I am in the far left corner and was so busy eating I didn't realize the photo was even taken. 

It was great to have a four day break from school for Thanksgiving and return refreshed for the last three weeks before the Christmas holidays.  With the preparations for exams and marking the posting of this is unfortunately very delayed.  :(

On a Friday afternoon the high school classes have a period where they do 'fun' activities.  I have been teaching six girls from grades 6-8 to crochet.  We are trying to make a small cot size blanket for use by a refugee family.  The girls are only learning and so fairly slow so I am trying to make up some squares to help so I was doing some here before the meal was ready.  Bill has been taking some students for chess in one period and supervising and sometimes joining in with ultimate frisbee in the next period. Ultimate frisbee was in the snow the last time just before the Christmas break. The kids had a great time!!

Summer holidays 2014

It is about two and a half months since we returned from our holidays. The very next day we started back at school so it has taken a while to put our holiday into the blog.  We had a most wonderful break of almost three months. 

For the first month we stayed in Kyiv and literally for me recuperated, from my school year.  I did a lot of 'nothing'.  By that I mean I read and slept and crocheted and did things at a very slow pace.  I found it delightful!  Bill also had a good rest but he also spent many hours organizing our European holiday.  It is going to be our one opportunity for an extended time in Europe so we tried to plan it as well as we could. Not having any family or friends to go to we had to organize everything ourselves and for Bill this meant many hours of work.  We spoke to lots of people here too asking for suggestions and eventually we were as organised as we thought we could be.  We were to fly to an airport just north of London and then travel about thirty kilometres to London and meet Charise who was to spend three weeks with us.  Our plan was to spend nine days with Charise in London and see as much as we could and then we would go to a seaside resort in Western Wales for a week.  Just days before we were to leave Ukraine we had heard from Bill's cousin who lives in the U.S. to say that  she and her husband were to be holidaying in the south of France and asking us if we would like to visit. We very thankfully accepted their offer and so the final week of Charise's stay was to be there.  Again not long before we left for England we became aware there was an evangelical conference in Wales in August in exactly the town we were to be staying in in July.  However there would be a two week gap between when we left France and when the conference began.  We were keen to go to the conference but where would we stay for that interval?  We contacted the conference organizers and they were able to put us in contact with a Christian group who run a coffee shop as an outreach in another small Welsh town about forty kilometres from where the conference would be.  They have student accommodation over the coffee shop (it is a university town) and it was university holiday time so the accommodation was available. So we would go from France, back to Wales, go to the conference and then back to Kyiv and start back to school.

We were able to do all the things we had planned, in a most wonderful seven weeks and four days.  I have never before spent seven weeks as tourist  and the memories we have of the places we saw and the friends we made, especially in Wales, will stay with us for the rest of our lives. 

Part of the planning of our destinations also were guided by wanting to do some parkruns while we were away and we were able to do five.  We did two in London and three in Aberystwyth in Wales.  After not doing any for almost a year it was great to join in again.  The parkrun family is very friendly and the structure is the same all over the world so we felt very much at home each week.  Now for some pictures of our fantastic holiday! Thank you, Lord.

Charise had arrived in London at midnight after a thirty hour trip from Brisbane but felt alert enough to go to church at 11.00 am. We went to Spurgeon's Tabernacle and really enjoyed the very traditional service. We estimate the church could hold about 1500 and it was full. The preaching of the word of God was really good. 

This is a place called Bunhill Fields. It is in central London.  Many non-conformists are buried here such as Isaac Watts, William Blake and Daniel Defoe. Charise and I are standing in front of the tomb of John Bunyan.  You can see Pilgrim with his burden on the side of the monument.  Now we wish we had taken the photo from the other side.

We spent a day at Hampton Court. To walk where Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn and Cardinal Wolsey and so many others walked was amazing.  Having taught history for many years it was fascinating to be in the place where so much history took place. The tapestries were so amazing.  I had to keep reminding myself that they weren't done by machine. 

This is mid-summer in a seaside resort in central Wales. We stayed in Aberystwth for about a week. The beaches there were all pebble beaches, so very different for Australians. One of the things that tourists can do there is go on the coastal walking path.  There is a path that actually goes almost 100 km along the Welsh coast, but we only walked a very small portion of it. The headland you can see in the background is part of the walk.  We did climb it.  In the photo it looks rather innocuous but in real life it felt almost vertical and there was no real path.  Charise and I managed to go up but knew we could not go down so after a five km  hike along the cliff top we walked back by the road, further but easier.

Such beautiful, beautiful countryside, well worth the climb up the headland.  There is nothing between Aberystwyth and Ireland except 50 miles of Irish Sea and we were over 400 feet up, so it was very windy.  Wind is something you become very familiar with in Aberystwyth. 

Looking back to Aber as it is usually called there. Aber is Welsh for 'at the mouth of', so along the coast there are lots of Aber towns. Abergiveny, Aberaeron etc.

Charise enjoying Wales!  This is another headland near Aberystwyth, but on this one there is a monument to Wellington.  There is simply a high tower there and no real indication of what it is there for unless you read the tourist information in you accommodation. This was a much easier climb than the previous one because the path wound around the headland instead of going straight up the side.

It is not easy to find a photo that proves that Bill was there too enjoying everything.

On our way with Bill's cousin, Larisa, and her husband, John, for our first sight of the Mediterranean. It was about 29 degrees and the warmest weather we had had in almost a year.  We had one day in London when it was 27.7 and the newspapers were talking of the 'extreme heat'.

We had a week (Charise a little less) in the south of France and the weather was like this most of the time.

The blue Mediterranean looking east toward Italy.  We did travel one day to Italy and also went through Monaco.  You are only in Monaco for a few minutes on the train but almost the whole time you are in a tunnel so you don't see much of the country at all. It was a steep climb to the lookout but the view was well worth it.

For about ten days after Charise had returned home Bill and I returned to Wales and  stayed in a small Welsh town called Lampeter. It is a university town and we were staying directly across the road from the University. The grounds and building you can see are part of the Uni.  It is the third oldest university in the UK.  Only Oxford and Cambridge are older.  Wales is a great place for history.  In the grounds of the Uni are the remains of a mote and bailey castle (a type of fortification).  I remember teaching the children  about these castles and to see the remains of one was very special.  This one was built by order of William the Conqueror in the 1070s.  It was only successful for a few years and then the Welsh men stormed the castle and were victorious.  My grandmother's family was from Wales so it was great to stay there and tour round at least some of Wales and hear Welsh being spoken.    

 We stayed above a coffee shop run by a local church.  The brown building behind me is the coffee shop .  Bill especially, helped out while we were there washing and drying many, many dishes.The coffee shop is run as an outreach and the Christians there are praying and serving with gentleness the community around them.

Before church one Sunday we were there.  The service is in a local hall.  The morning service is in the English but the evening service is in Welsh with translation available.  It is a small congregation but more arrived after this was taken. The singing was so good! Good sermons too!

Wales is very wet as you can see by all the moss growing everywhere. I often felt we were on the set of 'The Lord of the Rings' when we went on walks around Lampeter.

We were taken for a drive to the northern part of Wales.  This is a huge reservoir. The water from here is not actually used in Wales but is piped to Birmingham. I had not realized there were so many sheep in Wales until we went on this drive. The land is mostly too infertile for cropping and it is also very hilly so raising sheep is the main farming activity in Wales.   

Some of the very good friends we made in Wales.  Some of them work in the cafe on a part-time basis.  The view from this hill top church cemetery was spectacular.  Fifty miles to our left behind us is Ireland.

At home in Australia Bill and I had started doing parkruns.  These are 5 km timed runs on Saturday mornings.  These began ten years ago in England and now exist in many parts of the world.  There are no official ones in Ukraine.  Bill and I have done some unofficial ones in the park across the road from our unit.  So when we decided to holiday in the UK we particularly looked to see if there were any parkruns near where we were staying or if we could find accommodation near a parkrun site. We were able to and in  the seven weeks we were away we were able to do five parkruns.  Here I am going in on my last gasp in our last run of the holidays in Aberystwth in Wales.  I had about fifty metres to go and I knew there was someone close behind me.