This week has definately been a full and thorough introduction to real Ukrainain living. Yes, we've been here many times before and stayed in hotels or nice rental apartments, but this week we learned so much more about what it's like living day to day in a small agricultural village. One of the biggest differences from our every day life in America, is the amount of time spent on daily tasks, like getting food (the bazaar took me 2 hours to wade through the other day and I still only found half of the things on my list) preparing meals (for people and dogs/cats, all from scratch), washing clothes (hanging clothes on clothes lines, no dryers) cleaning ( all kinds of messes, especially by dogs), walking or riding a bike to get supplies (1-2 miles, sometimes many times a day), manuevering in smelly outhouse-like toilets (the stench has been unbearable for me.....I gag alot and cried the first couple days)(see photo), very scratchy toilet paper (which after we use, we must put in a pail next to us, not in the toilet), trying to figure out what a "banya" is and how to use it (shower room) (see photo) trying to tell the difference between 2 new languages (Russian and Ukrainian), going to sleep with 100s of dogs barking in every nick and cranny of this village, being awakened by dogs barking because the cows are passing by........BUT it really does have a major "quaintness" factor. Gotta say, "I love it".
