I am heading home tonight and wanted to post one final time.  Today we went to visit a man with down’s syndrome who lives alone in a very remote area.  His mother passed away 1-1/2 years ago and his neighbours help to take care of him.  He is non-communicative but seems very happy.  His little home is very neat and tidy.  Colin had visited him last year and noticed that he was wearing home-made shoes so he wanted to return and bring him a new pair. We also picked up a few groceries.  Here is Colin with Victor.

We met with the Director of the Chausy hospital yesterday in Mogilev at the

Children’s Hospital there.  We wanted to have a look at the furniture to see if it would be OK for the renovation of the children’s ward in Chausy.  Here are Dave and our interpreter Natasha with the director and some staff from Chausy in front of the Mogilev Hospital.

No trip to Chausy would be complete without a visit to Sasha Krasakov.  Sasha came to Canada quite a few years ago for treatment for brittle bone disease.  While we were there he told us that his laptop battery exploded and caught fire in January.  You can see the burn mark on the couch beside him and there was a burn on the ceiling as well.  Fortunately his mother was home and able to move Sasha and put the fire out or else this could have been disastrous.  Sasha looks good and we managed to get a few of his famous giggles out of him before we left.

Yesterday evening we were invited to a bbq at the home of Sasha and Marina, the couple whose roof we replaced.  Here is Sasha preparing the “Shishleek” (shish-kabobs).  His bbq is made from an old sewing machine stand with half of a tank from propane on top of it.

The food was laid out and we had a fabulous evening of food and fun.

This has been another wonderful trip.  I know I have said this before but we always leave feeling like we received more than we gave.  The people here are so warm and appreciative of everything that we do.

I’m going to leave you with a few pictures that I took over the past couple of weeks of some of the sights of the region.  This is a billboard celebrating the 750th anniversary of the city of Mogilev.  That is a lot of history!

Being an agriculture community there is a lot of spring planting activity going on.  Here a seeder is planting on a large collective farm.

Here is a man and his horse working the land behind his home.

Something I have never seen in Canada, a microwave oven with 2 gas burners on top.

Giant pencil crayons in a remote school yard.

Children setting the lunch food out in the cafeteria at School #1 in Chausy.  All children get a hot lunch at school.

Kids playing table tennis at the Chausy Orphanage.

The man who owns this contraption is now elderly and in a wheel chair, but his wife said when he was younger this was his “baby”.

An extra seat on a bike so a Dad can ride his child home from daycare.

This was parked on the side of the highway.  The right rear wheel had fallen off a trailer pulled by a tractor.

A shepherd watching his flock.

A man selling his fresh catch on the side of the highway.

World War 2 trenches near Chausy.  The Russians held off the Nazis for 9 months here.

Time for me to head home.  Thanks for following along.

Eric McKenzie