Day 41 ~ Arts and Crafts and Galavants at the Dacha

12. August ~ Dacha!

Today was considerably cooler than the past two days. It went from 25 Celsius and hotter the past two days, to 19 Celsius today. The past two days seemed the hottest in all the time I’ve been here. Apparently in Fahrenheit that’s quite a drop.

Today at work a new girl named Masha arrived. She’s so sweet and mellow! I spent the morning doing arts and crafts. Today a bunch of the children made crowns. I helped Masha and some of the others by cutting out hearts and other shapes to put on the crowns. It was a lot of fun! I can never really think of creative things to do, so the kids’ crowns looked a lot better than mine.

My nose wasn’t as runny today, but my throat was scratchy today! After work I decided to walk around to some of the places I went last week during work and take pictures. That included two churches that are right down the street from the orphanage, and then this big church near the folk center, that area is also where the army has some buildings too. I really have enjoyed walking around with my camera and my iPod just taking in the beautiful sights of the city. I am going to miss being able to walk around Novgorod as much as I do. I spend a lot of time walking to and from lunch to work just because I can.

I arrived at lunch and Steve and Adrian were there. We played some question games and spent time making commentary of some of the music and videos that were on TV. It was fun. Some of the videos are just ridiculous.

In the afternoon I played kickball, spent time in the sandbox, colored and pushed Allosha, Anna and of course Daniel on the swings. I would go back and forth between the three of them pushing. They would constantly be like push me, push me! It was cute. Daniel begged to see my phone so he sat on my lap for a while and had fun pushing the buttons.

I came home and Olga was getting dinner ready quickly because she said she wanted to go for a walk with Beesha. I told her I wanted to go too, and she was like no, eat! Haha, I asked why and she said she was going to the Dacha! I told her I wanted to go, she was like no it’s dirty you wouldn’t like it. I had to beg her and I was like please and finally she agreed.

We went on our way, it’s only like 10 minutes away, but the street we turned onto that had all the dachas was about as bad as the country roads. It’s on the outskirts of the city. It took more time getting to her Dacha from here than to drive to where they all were. There was this long road with roads coming off of it with Dacha’s everywhere. I didn’t realize that Dacha’s are all together like this, I wasn’t expecting it. Well, Dacha’s are basically a small hut, or house that is on a piece of land, fenced in. I took many pictures so be sure to check it out.

We got to Olga’s dacha eventually. She had to pick some onions. There were rows and rows of different plants, a small covered area for tomatoes. It reminded me of her mother’s land in the village with all of her plants and vegetables. Olga’s little house was big enough to have two rooms. The one room was bigger and had a small bed, a small couch and a table. The other room was her banya! Yay, Olga has a banya at her Dacha!

So, Olga was picking onions and told me to go for a walk, haha. So, that’s what I did, I walked down the road in a few different directions and took pictures. It was really neat to see the different types of set up and layouts, but overall the idea of all of them is the same.

I was just really glad that Olga allowed me to come. When I got done walking I spent time sitting around, I did get a little bored, I wish I brought my book, but overall it was a nice night. It was cool, although the mosquitoes were coming out. We were there for about 2 and a half hours. On the way home we noticed a lady who was waiting at a bus stop. Olga picked her up and drove her into the city a little ways a bit more and dropped her off in front of a bunch of housing buildings. Olga said she didn’t know the woman, but it was late and knew that the buses don’t come out here very often, it was getting colder and she didn’t want her to be waiting, I thought it was so sweet of her to do that! Olga had to get gas as well so we did that.

When we got home we were really tired, quickly had tea and here I am now in bed! I really liked the Dacha. Just the fact that people are being sustainable and growing their own crops is really cool to me. I really want to have something like a Dacha and a banya!

Another fun day tomorrow hopefully!
Love, Sasha

Picture Links:

Russia ~ Day 39, 40, 41 ~ Galavanting!

Russia ~ Day 41 ~ A night at the Dacha!