Halloween Party/English Club

Though there isn't Halloween in Russia we celebrated it tonight anyway. We aren't that big into the holiday ourselves- though we do like to carve a pumpkin! Still have yet to do that this year- I have a pumpkin that is the normal size/shape but it is green:) Anyway, the students at some of the schools, universities in town put on a Halloween party the other day (in English- sort of:) where they had a contest for the best Halloween performance. Hard to explain what they did really but David and our american co-worker were the honoured judges. We continued the theme tonight at our English Club- trying to answer all their questions about what Halloween is all about and our views about haunted houses and ghosts and UFO's and all kinds of things:) We had great spooky Halloween food (thanks Bobbie!). David helped Bobbie and I with a few of the menu items- severed hands, chocolate spiderwebs, egg eyeballs...mmm:) A few new girls came- even a Mongolian girl and a couple of Russians- we miss our Mongolian girls from the other years- they are back home now:( Our club is really growing- if they all come at once (which they never do) we would have a very full living room.

We will be going out to the yurt one of these days- just waiting for Kongar-ool to give us a call and say he's on his way to pick us up. Maybe tomorrow!?!

The start of winter...

We don't have snow yet (though it has flurried a few times) but it is getting COLD. Not sure what the temp. is but it hurts your hands if you don't have mitts on and I'm considering wearing long johns:) It is nice not having snow yet though- much less of a mess in the foyer at least:) And Kenya doesn't get all wet!

Let's see...what is new...

We are really focusing on learning Tuvan right now- we both have language sessions everyday and are doing a lot of studying outside of our sessions. Because of focusing on Tuvan right now it is hard for me when the cashier/store clerk is Russian! The word for tea in Russian is Chai but in Tuvan it is Shy. Words like that are hard for me to quickly pick the right one at the store. It really is fun learning Tuvan right now- though once we get into more of the grammar etc. I'm sure it won't be:)

We will be visiting Bichi-ool and Bichi-kis maybe this next weekend? We were all set to go out to the yurt (to visit them) on Sunday but Kongar-ool couldn't get his new jeep to work:( He'll call us one of these days though- we have pictures and food all set to bring out to the families out there at the ranch. I shouldn't call it a ranch- it isn't. It sort-of is but because they are nomadic- meaning they don't stay put in one spot you can't really say ranch. moving ranch? I don't know what to call it. They have a yurt, 1000 sheep, 90 cows, 10 horses, 4 dogs... and they live off them. Anyway, you guys know what I mean when I say ranch right!?! :)

David is going to be going away next month to Yakutia (another area in Siberia) to start training to be a language consultant. He (and our co-worker Jesse too) will be tagging along with the current language consultant (who was just here to evaluate/encourage us) and learning what she does so that they can eventually take over.

David has another little business trip coming up too in January. This trip will be a little warmer than Yakutia though!!! He is going to Thailand! We all considered going- who wouldn't want to take a trip to Thailand in the middle of the siberian winter.... but all things considered (ok basically the $$:) we think it is best if just David goes. It is a very important conference so we are glad that he has the opportunity to go on behalf of our team to gather important info and news etc.. I'll be happy if he brings back some Thai spices!!! mmmm

What else?!?! We are trying to figure out if another opportunity is going to work out- teaching English in a national Tuvan school in a village. We think it would be GREAT for us to be out of the city again where Tuvan is by far the main language and culture and we also would love to get to know a whole school/village full of people! We just are waiting for our contacts there to see if they have some kind of place for us to live etc. We told them we don't need anything fancy- we are used to having no water or electricity! :) It would probably be for 1-3 months at a time. We don't want to leave Kyzyl for longer than that each time but this opportunity really would help our full time Tuvan language study. And both of us love teaching English. maybe our kids could sit in on the Tuvan classes....hmmmm

We'll let you know how things develop.

David just went yesterday to sit in on an English class at a local school- hard to sit and listen to English being taught wrong! The teacher would say the kids were saying something wrong when really they were saying it correctly and vice versa. I'm sure David will be going back to that class to help out once in a while too.

Our English Club last Saturday was really fun- 6 college girls. They are really excited about learning how to cook and stuff like that- American style. Our co-worker (a great southern cook) is going to help out so we'll get to learn all kinds of American/Canadian culture and language.

Anyway- I'm supposed to be teaching Emma some division and I need to study too. Josiah can read a little bit now too- pretty fun! And Huddy has the neatest/fastest printing out of the three of them! Now if I can just teach Kenya to go to the bathroom outside!!!

Thanks for checking in on us- sorry it's been a while....

Around the house...

Thought it was about time I get some recent pictures on seeing as all I've been putting on are pictures of last month (though I still have so many from the yurt that I'd like to put on here:). We still have Kenya though we will be putting up an ad soon to start the search for a really good permanent home for her. We LOVE having her (except when guests come over and she goes crazy at the door etc...she doesn't bite our guests or anything but she will pee on them by accident cause she is so excited!! hopefully she'll eventually be more calm, cool and collected:) but we just know the longer we have her the harder it will be to give her up...eventually we will be coming home for another visit and we just want to be free to be able to go spend a month here or there if asked and not have to worry about finding dog sitters etc. And we want our home to be a friendly place for people to come and some people just don't like dogs- even if they are perfectly behaved. (I used to be one of those... but Kenya has definitely won me over!! :)

She is growing like a weed though- think she will be rather large. She is almost 3 months old. Sorry- I tried getting one of her with the kids to give a better perspective of her size..I'll keep working on it- she is SO hard to photograph- as soon as she sees the camera she comes running up to me to lick it. so 99% of the pictures are just her face all blurry and wet like:)

Emma's friends came to visit again- Emma was SO SO happy. Oorlana (in the blue shirt) is Emma's best friend and we are sure they will be friends for a very long time (no matter where we move:). We all miss our old apartment..so it is nice to have them over to remember all the fun times we had there. Emma really wants to go to school here still- we will try for next semester perhaps. She put in her russian school bows the other day (pic with the apple) pretending that she was going to her first day of real school here:)

We are busy with language study- David just started with his own language helper- a really nice polite college student named Bulat. And I meet everyday at the same time David does with Snegilya. We are getting into verbs lately- I'm finding it much much easier than Russian at this point- YAY!!! I actually have trouble speaking in Russian these days- Tuvan is taking over. I use a mix of the two when introducing myself even when I'm speaking to a Russian... maybe once we are all done language study I'll be able to switch from one to the other more easily.

We are going out for a visit to the yurt this weekend with Kongar-ool. David was with Kongar-ool the other day as he had set up a yurt downtown (on his property) and they shared some intestines again to celebrate. David is actually acquiring a taste for the blood sausage... good thing cause I think we will be eating a LOT of it during our time in Tuva:) We are printing pictures and gathering a few things to bring out to the yurt families that we stayed with.

Thanks for checking in on us! I'll post some more news soon...

Me herding the cows...having a great time!

I'm trying to get the last of the pictures from our time out at the ranch up. I have put way way more on Facebook as it is just so much easier to put a bunch of photos on there. So if you still want to see more pictures of our time there (with little descriptions even:) follow these links:

album one- click HERE

album two- click HERE

I'm pretty sure you don't have to be signed up with facebook or anything to view them- give it a try. If it doesn't work tell me so I can put them somewhere else for you to see them.

Cows

Milking cows is not as easy as it looks. wow. I don't have very delicate hands but even at that, I milked 3 cows while Vera milked 15 in the same amount of time. Of course, I didn't really know when to stop and she had to help me get the next one set up. She said I did well- I got a good amount of milk out of them... but nothing compared to what the ladies there can get. I am so amazed with how hard these ladies work each day. I enjoyed milking the first cow- it was a fairly easy one even though I didn't really know what I was doing. The second one was SO hard to get milk from... I tried and tried but with little success. BUt the last one was also a good one and I regained my confidence:) But by then Vera had finished up the rest! The hardest part is keeping the bucket between your legs and the stool under you when the cow starts moving. Especially hard when the cow moves sideways into your face and pushes you backwards on the stool, I almost tipped backwards a few times.... I got peed one once but thankfully my cows didn't do the other number while I was milking them- I just missed one when I finished.

It was a great experience...but I'm not too anxious to do it again:)

Above is the shower by the river- just put freezing cold stream water in the top, take off the clothes and "enjoy". We opted for the Banya below- took a LOT more work to get set up but it was SO much warmer and private:) David had a few quick, cold bathing sessions down by the river- I wasn't so brave.

Laundry- It was fun the first couple of times..with the washboard etc. Very tricky as we had to carry up the water and heat it up (at least so your hands didn't freeze outside). I learned to use a VERY little amount of water. The bar kind of laundry soap really works good- along with a scrub brush- grass stains were no problem at all. The hard thing to clean was the hairy clothes (from moving the sheep wool etc.).

Some days I did the laundry in the Banya- which was much nicer and way easier as I didn't have to worry about myself getting wet and cold so I could just go at it at full speed.

Huddy really loved helping- and Kenya was always right there licking the soap...could not stop her from eating it. very strange.

Flashback...

Thanks Dad!!!! I was telling the kids about Rammy out at the yurt and without even asking my Dad just sent me the picture of me with him!!! THis was from '87? when we lived in Western Australia. As the kids now know when you run up to a big herd of sheep they all run away... well at the Donnybrook Ranch where we went and stayed for a few days we would go into the field with the sheep and the only one left standing would be Rammy. I think the story is he was brought up by humans (even slept in the house or something!?!?) so unlike the rest of the sheep he wasn't scared of us. I LOVED him. I still remember how it felt to hug him. THe sheep here aren't so fluffy or thick or sturdy. ANd they don't have cute hair like Rammy did... His fur would sell for sure!!!

Char asked about the wool so I thought I'd put these on. We've always wondered about why they don't use them- all around town you see skins lying on the ground or in the dumpster- you'd think they'd use them for something! I guess there are just so many and they are not in demand. Out at the ranch they shear the sheep every June- by HAND!!!!!! They have 1000+ sheep out there!!!! They say it takes FOREVER to do it. No electricity out there so even if someone bought them some shearers they'd be useless. Yikes. David volunteered himself to go out there next summer and help out. Unfortunately there is no one buying the wool lately so they are just rotting away in the barn. One of David's jobs out there was to organize the wool better as they were just in messy piles.

Emma was a great help with the sheep/goats. All three kids had a few turns letting the sheep out of the pen- there is nothing like the sound of them all running away from you...I miss it. It may have looked like the sheep and goats were friendly/tame in the last post but really they are very frightened- even of the kids. The kids really had to catch them if they wanted a cuddle:) BUT the goats are much easier to catch than the sheep- they are more curious I guess. And the one goat that Emma was cuddling didn't need to be held once she caught her, she seemed to like the cuddles...

I put the apron demonstration on to clarify what the apron is for- it just gets in the way when the male sheep tries to make a baby. It is an easy way to prevent pregnancy:)

The kids loved playing with the sheep and the goats- most of the time the sheep slept up at the summer yurt so we weren't with them but there were a few nights when they slept right outside our cabin (which is in the sheep pen basically). The kids got pretty good at catching the goats but never did catch a sheep (much much harder).