Today was slated to be a long day with Social Services deliveries in the morning and then 3 more containers in the afternoon. However our team, which was going to take the long run of delivering to 4 orphanages all over the province, ended up waiting for hours in Mogelev for Customs to finish up the paperwork. Unfortunately it didn’t happen before their 6 PM closing time and we ended up coming home without a container. It will have to wait for tomorrow!

Here is few lines and pictures from our morning deliveries.

They have been doing a lot of burning here this spring in the feilds as well as when they clean up the ditches. Here is a shot of some piles in a ditch being burned off:

Here are the tools that are used in cleaning up outside.

As you may be aware, the heating in Belarus is central for all apartment, government buildings and institutions. Only individual homes would have a heating system which is usually a wood burning “petchka”. As a result there are steam pipes everywhere carrying the heat to all of the buildings. Here is one going right over the main highway:

Here is a cow in one of the buildings at a rural home:

Of course everyone is preparing for the planting season:

Here are some shots from some of the many deliveries we made. This woman and her daugher lived together:

This was another of our 96 year old Baboushka’s (it means Grandmother and every older woman is called Baboushka here). You can see the petchka beside her used to heat the home. When it is really cold they sleep right on top of it. The fire box is open and the chimney makes a serpentine trail up through the cement to heat the slab so it will radiate heat for a long time. they can be dangerous and there is a fairly high instance of home fires. This woman told us that she had built 4 homes in her life. The first 2 were burned down by the Germans during WW2, she didn’t say what happened to the 3rd!

This woman had a severe headache but would not stay sitting down. She kept jumping up and thanking us again and again. She was so wobbly on her feet that I was constantly afraid she would fall over. She was crying and thanking us when I took this picture. In case you are wondering, I always ask permission when we first come in, to take pictures.

This woman kissed us and hugged us and followed us all the way out to the van:

The woman in the foreground is a neighbour who stopped in when she saw us there.

Eric