Transportation, Turkeys, and "Moo" Says the Cow

We have enjoyed all the various forms of transportation in Gorondya from horse drawn wagons (wagons made out of metal beds with car axles – sometimes of various sized tires from the front of the wagon to the back) to Mercedes Benz SUVs. Most of the population either rides a bike or walks. The people who ride bikes often times pull a little handmade trailer, an old wagon or wheel barrow, or they stack 50 lbs. of potatos or onions (or both) across the bike frame where the peddles are and use the bike to transport the vegetables home (often times the handle bars are used to hold bags of other groceries). There are a few motorcyles, some with side-cars, and scooters. We even saw a scooter with two back wheels spaced a few inches apart.

The ambulance in town is a large dark green VW van looking thing from the 1950s? with a red stripe painted down the side. If this is the ambulance, I would prefer not visiting the hospital at any point during the trip! Tractors are also common and huge trucks rumbling through town laden with large logs. I would pray that the two-by-fours being used as vertical supports would not break and the logs scatter (possibly killing a pedestrian, cyclist, or one of my goats tied roadside for grazing)! A large number of semi-trucks are coming from Russia (27 km to the north) with goods destined for Ukraine. Our motel has rates from 3 hours for a room, to 12 hours, to 24 hours. We had to raise our eyebrows at the 3 hour rate until we realized, after seeing the a large truck parked across the road, with no extended cab for sleeping, that the driver may have pulled over for a 3 hour rest before proceeding south. There are no speed limit signs and the vehicles move too quickly, past pedestrians, bicyclists, stray dogs, and chickens around town.

After we moved to the one room at our motel with the double bed that overlooked the new construction behind the motel, I really missed getting up in the morning and checking the activity at the gas station to see the conglomeration of vehicles that were filling up. It was always interesting! John on the other hand loved the “Rotortiller Car”. A man had built a car, open to the elements and with a small bed in the back for hauling, out of an old garden rotor-tiller. It was slow moving, 5-10 mph, but he putted-putted through town holding his handle bars and making a racket. We were only able to get a few pictures, distant or blurry, of him out of the taxi window. John thinks he is ingeneous as it gets the job done and transports what he needs to transport!

This is a hard life for most of the people. Men have an average lifespan of 63 and we see few older men. We do see older women, babuskas, often sitting by the road near a few pails of apples sitting on a wooden chair, or other vegetables that they have produced in their garden. They sit behind their fence and watch the traffic go by, one had a cat on her lap that she quietly petted every so often. One had brought her goat herd to the town park to mow the grass! The babuskas look at us curiously and sometimes smile. I think they may not have the best eyesite and may not realize we are “Americans”. Possibly they smile because I great each and every one that we pass and don’t ignore them like the other pedestrians passing by. The changes that these women have seen over their lifespans must have been tremendous – far beyond machines and cars and wars and famine. With Ukraine moving from Capitalism to Communism to Capitalism and from being part of the Soviet Union to being a free, independent country!

Every single family home has at least one fruit tree, a small vegetable garden, and often times a grape arbor with the small purple grapes. Turkeys congregate on the fenceline outside of the Baby House. The males stay on the ground – possibly they are too heavy to fly up and roost on the metal fence railing – and spread their beautiful tails and strut their stuff for each other and for any female who happens to be watching. The girls watch me instead as I like to throw the food scraps from snacktime out into the grass for the turkeys and chickens to clean up. I would save the food, but the children have all fingered and nibbled what was on their plates and they are all little germ factories with their runny noses. Better to be safe and give the turkeys the leftovers!

Two babuskas wearing black rubber galoshes, herd the milk cows from pasture (where they were tied – I have yet to see a fenced pasture) past the Orphanage, home to be milked every night at 6 pm. You could set your watch by them. The cows are Holstein and Holstein crosses. The taxi driver whisks us past them at a speed that John and I just flinch at as we are afraid the cows will move from the middle of the road to a little closer to our side. Many are just walking on their own and not being led by a rope on their horn – only the cow knows which way the cow will go – and we worry about hitting one with the car. The driver is unfazed as he treats chickens as traffic cones, and stray dogs and cows as minor obstacles to zig and zag around. The taxi has no seatbelts and the back seat is as soft as a marshmallow – you sink into it. The taxi drivers, 3 men who share one cab and alternate days, are always punctual and friendly. We appreciate their professionalism and the service that they offer!