Doug Day

The Wednesday after our great Tuesday night, Douglass Treschner, the PC Country Director, and Iryna Krupska, the PST Training Manager, showed up with the security team and our link group (a group of trainees from the next town over) to partake of all the food and teach us how to safely travel around Ukraine.

True to Ukrainian form, a regular Wednesday sprouted into something grand and hilarious and surprising.

Hope you enjoy the images!

Iryna  Krupska (this lovely lady has been a constant encouragement to me since I arrived in Ukraine), Douglass, Treschner (he is constantly sharing quotations that I am constantly scribbling down to add to my collection), and Mama Olea 

Myself, Douglass Treschner and Mama Olea
Sorry these two images are so strange - I do not know why! 

The group took a quick tour of Burty before starting in on all the food. 

Everyone with lovely, little Burty behind. 

Everyone walked back to my place when I realized Doug wasn't with us.
He told me later, he got distracted by Burty and taking photos of our farmland and lake. 

Practicing our 'brick face' with Sasha and Doug. 

After our guests left, we decided to take advantage of golden hour and stroll of the edge of town.
This is the road that leads in and out of Burty.
This is what I first saw when we first arrived in Burty on September 21.
That day this road freaked me out because I thought we were driving to edge of nowhere and I had no idea how to get back to civilization. Now, this image looks like home. 

Anna being a Banana. 

Caitlin being her real cute self. 

Drew being strange. Nothing new about that. 

I know Sam will hate this image. (Sorry!) But for a real serious dude - who used to work at the White House - he let something loose in this frame. A version of Sam we hadn't seem before this frame.
Also, I can seem to stop giggling. 

The Dude. 

Anna interrupted Sasha photo session in her usual style. 

Sometimes we would take Ukrainian brick face photos.
Sometimes we would take American grinning photos.
Sometimes we could pay respect to Canada - Drew has citizenship in Canada and America - and take our group photo with moose antlers. 

Every group must have a jumping photo. 

Walking home from the field, Sam's house was first to stop at.
Upon arrival, we were flagged down by his host mother and grandmother telling us to come meet the chicks.
One of their hens had, just 2 days before, had 10 fuzzy little birds.

The look of distress on my face is not from my dislike of baby chickens - I happen to adore them - but the realization that this little guy was climbing out of my grasp. I didn't know how to stop him and was terrified to move my hands in fear of dropping him. 

So I got a little help from my friend.
That's really all I ever needed. 

Caitlin took to holding baby birds like she does to most things in her life.
She was real good at it.
She and her chick had a few intimate minutes together. 

Leaving Sam's place to get home for dinner, we herded the chicks behind the barn towards a warmer corner.
This little one didn't seem so fond of that idea.
We discovered how many Americans it takes to catch a baby chicken.