Tidbits from Belgorod-Dnestrovsky

As mentioned in an earlier post, Daniel has been trained to really dislike dogs and cats. Everytime he sees one of the strays in the playground, he immediately stops what he's doing and takes off after it - usually yelling and brandishing a stick. Whenever it's a bigger dog, Papa goes after him to prevent an "incident". Without failure, the strays have run away. That is - until today... There was a really cute, tiny puppy in the playground who wanted to play with the boy. When Daniel came after him, the puppy thought it was a game and ran after Daniel. Apparently this hasn't ever happened before and Daniel freaked out. He was scared to death since the puppy was right there near him. Papa tried his best to convey that the puppy was okay, but Daniel was having none of it. Mama took him inside and he watched through the glass door while Papa played with the little doggy. It was actually a bit humorous and sad at the same time. We're going to have to figure out how to break him in when we get home. Maybe we'll expose him to Louie since he's so friendly and playful.

Last night, Mama introduced Daniel to bubbles. It doesn't seem like he had ever played with them before and immediately took to them. He LOVED them and we'll need to buy some more at the "Walmart" here in town (actually "TAV-ree-ah").

We also bought him some toy pistols that shoot suction-cup darts so Papa and him could be equally matched (in the past, Daniel ALWAYS had the gun and Papa ALWAYS got shot). He also was thrilled with these new toys and we played for a long, long time with them. Mama served as Daniel's fort and protector.

Our clinic-mates, the Czeropski's, have gotten their referral for their little boy. Ironically, he's a boy we now from Daniel's "groupa". I say it's ironic since there are only 11 kids there out of the orphanage of 150+, and our orphanage is only 1 of 4 we know of in this town. Thus, the odds of him being in Daniel's group are pretty small. Anyhow, Sasha (soon to be known as "Caleb") is a sweet boy. He was so excited this morning when we saw him and wanted to tell us all about his "Mama" and "Papa"!

Since the Karlen family loves fish, I thought folks might want to see what the seafood counter looks like at the "Walmart". The golden-yellow fish are actually smoked and pretty tasty. Most of the others are actually eaten raw - the salmon and trout in particular are quite good.

While there are, in fact, manhole covers in Ukraine, our town often uses tires and huge concrete slabs to cover the holes. I would really hate to hit one of the slabs - they are about 8 inches tall. None of them are painted so night driving can be a bit tricky. Of course, you generally drive quite slow since the potholes are mammoth. Uncle Bob would have a field day driving here!

Most of the toilets we've encountered here are fairly western - except that you can't put toilet paper in them. That goes in the trash can in the stall. Anyhow, we've run across quite a few of these varieties in restaurants. Papa keeps daring Mama to use one, but she refuses!