Just thought I would amuse you with the full understanding of how precious bread is here in Ukraine.

I once accidentally dropped a piece of bread on the floor. [Gasp!]

I reverently moved the sacred slice to the side with my foot (my hands were full, I couldn’t help it.)

I was met with a few gapping mouths. How dare I touch the sacred slice with my dirty, filthy, blemished, sinful foot!!! That audacious American!

Yesterday, I got a full understanding of this small escapade. It was explained to me that children were taught in school that bread is holy and it should be treated as such. One staff member told me the story of how she was taught, that if a piece of bread fell to the floor she was to pick it up, wipe it off, kiss it, and use it! I might (probably not) pick up a piece of the floor and wipe it off, but I certainly would not kiss it! In fact, I probably would not even eat it, I would hope that someone else would eat the fallen piece…

Dima also agreed and shared that he was told a story in school about how a child once played with bread, kicking it around. He doesn’t remember what happened to the kid (probably because it was so awful he blocked it out of his memory.) Dima only remembers being shocked and horrified that a child could possibly play with bread. He told me his aunt would never throw away bread, if it by some unfortunate cause, became moldy and was truly unusable, she burned it. It was never put into the garbage.

Most children were taught this as a result of the famines that have taken place in Ukraine. Bread should be conserved and seen as precious. I also discovered that there is a museum of Bread in Kiev, the capitol of Ukraine. Traditionally, a visitor is offered a loaf of bread and salt as a sign of hospitality.

So do not, ever, under no circumstance, even think about kicking a sacred slice of bread while in Ukraine!

I know this is old, but whatever. I can still talk about Easter.

I did not spend Easter in Ukraine, but rather went to Moldova for the holiday.

I will simply add some pictures of our adventure there. I will say though that Easter is a three day celebration here. Saturday people bring baskets of special food for the priest to bless. Sunday is the official holiday and Monday is like a day of rest. What I have not been able to verify, is that apparently on Monday you can go around and throw water on people. Not sure yet if this is true or perhaps it is only true in the villages… I stayed clear of any populated areas on that day just in case.

Waiting for the meat

Mmmm shashlik!

Playing "Kill the duck" (or something like that)

The Easter gang at sunset

After Easter, I helped Ruslan’s family get their garden ready. I felt like I was at home. We also went to a beautiful public park while the weather was nice. It was nice to see more of Moldova when everything was blooming.

Pulling out old raspberries

Note how cute their house is!

Playing with Ruslan's sisters

Hooray for sunny days in the park!

Here are some pictures of my new home! It is pretty cute I think.
We are about a 15 minute walk from the base and I have discovered all the quiet shortcuts through the parks. There is a little market just around the corner and the bus stop is right outside our pantry window.

View from one side of our building

Living room (door in background goes to a small enclosed balcony from which previous photo was taken.)

Closet/foyer (Door to the left is to the living room, unseen door to the right is to our bedroom.)

Bedroom with me in it! Can you guess which side of the bed I sleep on?

Awesome kitchen!! Window goes to a small pantry.

Notice there is no refrigerator. We are still looking for one…

View of the other side of our building from our pantry. That's a huge, strictly-traditional, Pentecostal church.

I have found an apartment and am sharing it with a dear friend named Marichka. Marichka does not speak or understand English well. It has already been an interesting first few days together! Just last night we had a few fun misunderstandings that did not help the communication gap!

Scenario #1
Marichka enters asking if I want chai (tea in Russian). I said “yes, I would love some.” She asks me which kind of tea I wanted in Russian but with a tone of uncertainty. In my attempt to affirm her in my understanding Russian, I said “yes which tea.” She said “which?” I said yes. Hooray, English has been learned… or so I thought. Five min later, I finish what I was doing and go into the kitchen to discover Marichka looking at all my boxes and tins of tea. She looks up and says “Meggie, I no find which tea. I looking and looking, I no find.” Poor Marichka was looking for the fictional tea called “Which.” When I explained the misunderstanding we had a good laugh.

Scenario #2
Marichka wanted to use my laptop for a skype date with her friend. My laptop is a little slow and so I told her to wait, but I said it in what I thought was Russian. Marichka, very confused, stood up from the couch. I looked at her very confused and she looked at me very confused. Apparently I said the word meaning ‘to stand.’ So when I was saying “wait, wait” I was really saying “stand, stand.”

Scenario #3
I was going through my Russian vocabulary cards and came to the word car. I proudly said, again, what I thought was the word for car, but I guess the word for car and man are very close. I mean very close! Marichka just laughed at me.

Oh, the adventures we will have!

I have been inundated with Ukrainain humor being here. Sounds like it would be fun right? Let me just share a bit of the humor with you and you can decide.

#1 A doctor came to check on his patient and found that he had already died. He asked the nurses if he had sweated a lot before he died. “Yes! Yes, he sweated a lot,” they replied. “Oh good, good, this is very good,” the doctor said.

When they told me that one, I said “is that it?” Still don’t get it.

#2 In the congress in America, if I asked a congressman a question they give me an answer. If I ask a congressman in Russia a question, they will spend 15 min explaining why I am an idiot.

They got a half chuckle from me on that one.

#3 Once a student had to take a test on animals. Unfortunately, he had only studied about fleas. The first animal was a dog. He said, “well it has ears, eyes, hair, a tail and four legs.” The teacher raised her eyebrows.” And all dogs have fleas, and fleas…” The teacher stopped him and showed him a cat. Again, “well it has ears, eyes, hair, a tail and four legs. And all cats have fleas…” Teacher shakes her head, then smiles and shows him a fish. “Oh, fish, fish, fish. Well it has eyes, a mouth, it breaths, and… but IF it had fleas…”

??????

#4 There were two lines of people in heaven. One line was for men who were the head of the house and the other for homes where the woman was the head of the home. The line for where the woman was the head was going on for eternity (I added that bit.) There was only one man in the line for where men where the head. Gabriel thought this was weird and went to ask the one man why he was the only one. “Why are you the only one in this line?” “I don’t know, my wife just told me to stand here.”

I actually laughed pretty good here.

#5 A man heard someone knocking at his door and opened it find a poor man standing there. The poor man said “please can you help, I just want something to eat.” The other man said “well before I give you any food you need to drink 10L of water.’ The poor man thought about it and decided it was worth food. So he drank and drank and when he was finished the other man asked what he wanted to eat. The poor man replied “well I’m not so hungry anymore.” “What?! You came to my door asking for food, why did you lie? Why didn’t you say you were thirsty?”

I guess it has something to do with slavik hospitality, but that still doesn’t make it funny.

#6 A man came home from work and sat down at the table. He slammed his fist on the table and shouted “who’s the head of this house?” His wife came in with her hands on her hips and said with an attitude “What?” The man instantly cowered and said stammering, “I just wanted to ask, is it ok just to ask a question.”

Another half chuckle

When they see that I don’t find their jokes very funny they ask me to share some American jokes. I haven’t been able to think of any though. Anyone know some good American jokes that only Americans would find funny?