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!!