A Very Happy Birthday Already (in Kyrgyzstan)

What a birthday morning!  After waking I was instantly surrounded by five little girls hugging me saying, "S dnyom rozhdyenia Neekola!!"  ("Happy Birthday Nicola!!") and Masha sang Happy Birthday to me in English. We had breakfast in the dining room - macaroni noodles, mashed potatoes and onions, coleslaw fresh homemade bread and tea.  After breakfast, they gave me birthday cards they made last night.

Some cards were three dimensional, some had bows, one had "words" written all over it (lots of "M's" - or "W's" depending on which way you hold the card).  One was decorated with beautiful Christmas decorations.  Last night one artist asked me how old I was.  She looked a little perplexed at my answer, and on her card this morning was a cake with fifteen candles (as many as would fit on the cake).  After breakfast the pastor's wife called me wishing me long happy life and a deeper relationship with God.  It's been a wonderful morning so far.  Soon I will be making lasagna for 30 for dinner tonight.  It's going to be a great day!

Eva's Whispers

EvaIt's really fun to be able to understand Russian enough to know when kids say cute things.

My friend's daughter, Eva, is 2 mos shy of 2.

In Russian "I love you" is "Ya lyublyu tebya"

This little girl is made for hugs and kisses.  She comes up to you with arms outstretched to be picked up, then gives you a hug and a kiss and puts her mouth to your ear and whispers "blue blue blue blue blue blue".  It's so cute!!!

The Surprise (to me) Birthday Cake Which I Made...

Yesterday (September 25th) I had an overwhelming urge to try out a new kind of cake I’ve been wanting to try. I even got up early in the morning to do it. (Those of you who know me well know that is unusual behaviour for me.)

It turned out quite well (see photo), but when it was done, I didn’t know what to do with it! In the evening I went to a babushka’s house to deliver a vacuum cleaner I’d bought. I cut her a piece of cake. She was thrilled and said I should open a bakery. When I returned home, there was all this cake I didn’t know what to do with.

This morning I heard my neighbour, Luba, preparing to leave for church. I quickly cut a wedge for her. When I opened the door, there were three lovely little children bundled up for winter (no, it’s not winter, it’s just turned fall, but every good Russian bundles up with hats and scarves and coats when the weather is changing). Luba looks after her grandchildren on weekends and they were on their way to church, “to celebrate Seryozha’s birthday!” Luba was referring to the littlest who will be four on Tuesday.

“Oh! Wonderful!! I have something for you!” I said as I ran to cut a bigger piece of cake. Getting down on Seryozha’s level I showed him the cake. His face lit up.

“Do you know, Seryozha?” I said, “I didn’t know it was your birthday, but God knew, and He had me bake a cake . . . for YOUR birthday!” He liked that.

“I know what one of his presents is going to be!” his big brother announced.

“Shhhhh! Don’t tell!” I smiled, backing into my apartment as they tottled off down the stairs bundled in their warm clothes with cake for birthday tea.

For Cat Lovers Only

Smudge on the ledge, not eating the babushka's offeringI am writing this in the second week of April. It is finally spring. No flowers or leaves on the trees yet, but last week’s warm temperatures quickly melted most of the snow. The man who takes care of the parking lot below me is chopping the snow into manageable blocks and spreading them through the parking lot so they will melt faster. Even though it is spring, I want to post this particularly snowy story which I wrote on February 25, shortly after I returned to Russia.

There is a little wild cat who lives under a building in my courtyard. She’s beautiful and unusually friendly for a wild cat. I’m sure she has lots of Russian names, but I call her Smudge because it looks like she dragged her tail along the underbelly of a car.

There was lots of snow when I returned in February, and I first saw her on the ledge where people feed her to keep her safe from a pack of wild dogs living in the next courtyard. She ran to me. Of course I was thrilled to see her and was crooning away, “How’s my little girl? I haven’t seen you in so long! How’s my sweetie?”

It was then that I noticed a babushka at the beginning of a snowy path near the police station. “What?” she asked sharply.

I looked up, startled. “Oh sorry!” trying to choose my next words in a way that wouldn’t make me sound absolutely crazy, “I was talking to the cat.”

“The cat.” she stated matter of factly. “Do you feed the cat?”

“No. But I love her.”

“If you loved her, you would feed her. I feed her.”

“It’s because I love her that I don’t feed her. I’m gone a lot, and I don’t want her to depend on me for food. Anyway, dozens of people feed her. I keep her company and pat her.”

“Oh. Yes, I see you love animals. People who love animals are good people. I’m watching her to make sure she eats safely. She’s very hungry.” she said. I cannot imagine that cat could ever be hungry with the number of people who feed her all day long.

“I will watch her for you.” I said. She nodded and went her way. Smudge jumped to the ground.

“No! You get back up there! Eat!” I said. She wound her way around my feet. “Get up here! Eat!” I scolded her. I had visions of the babushka coming back and yelling at me because Smudge didn’t eat all her food. Babushkas can be fierce and have no qualms about telling you exactly what they think! I called her with kissy noises (British cat-calling noises, which is the way I call her), then kss kss noises (Russian cat calling noises) – she jumped on the ledge, but just wanted my attention. “Kooshai! Kooshai!” I commanded her. (“Eat! Eat!” in Russian.) I am sure Smudge understood (she’s bilingual). Nope. She would have nothing to do with it. Everyone who visits Smudge has their own agenda. Mine isn’t food, mine is patting and playing. When she’s with me, she wants pats, not food.

She jumped back down and walked away from the wall. I knew where she was going. She always leads me to “our fountain”. I sit in a certain spot on the fountain, I give her a fuss and we play. The problem was the fountain was under about four feet of snow, and we couldn’t even get into the courtyard.

Smudge trying to take me to the fountainThis is what the fountain looked like that day (the fountain is the round “hat” thing sticking out of the snow) – the banks of snow were about seven feet high.That was indeed what she was doing – she walked right to what was the footpath leading to the fountain. She looked up at the mountain of snow. For a moment I thought she was going to jump onto it. I caught a picture of her a split second after she decided the snow was too deep, then she led me back to her little wall and I made a fuss of her there.

I am always so happy to see her. One of my favourite things about her is she still loves to play as much as she did when she was a kitten. She attacked the string on my camera, stuck her nose in my bag of groceries, sharpened her claws on my pants and tried to climb my leg. We had a lovely time!

These are some of my favourite pictures of Smudge:

A Nice Thing About God

As I was in the garden one day, weed-proofing pathways through the plants, one of the girls came to help me for awhile. We had a nice little conversation and I thanked God for it when we prayed after our talk.

The sun was low, and the light was beautiful. She said, “Neekola, you don’t have a Mama, do you?”

“No, I don’t.”

“You don’t have a Papa either, do you?”

“No.”

She was silent for a minute, then said, “I don’t either ... not a Mama nor a Papa. Do you have a babushka?”

“No.”

“Neither do I,” she said, “but I have an Aunt and an Uncle.”

“Oh, that’s good!” I said, hoping her Aunt and Uncle were good people. “It’s a blessing to have at least some family.” She smiled.

“Do you ever get sad when you think about your Mama?” I asked. She nodded, and I said, “I do too. Today when we drove back from shopping I cried a little bit because I missed my Mama.” She smiled again. I could see she liked that.

“That’s a special thing about God,” I told her. “People can’t always be with us, but He is always there for us and we can tell him how we feel about things.” She smiled. That night when we prayed there was a new level of closeness between us.

We were covering this tarp with soil to weed-proof the garden paths