heat wave

Home again, just in time to enjoy (humph) a massive heat wave without fans (or air-conditioning, but I only had that for less than a year and a half out of 23 years, so I don't miss it so much). I have a ceiling fan, but no one's installed it yet, so it's a nice ornament for my living room floor. Natasha K. told me yesterday that on Saturday, it was 42 degrees Celcius. I did the math, and that works out to 107 F, which seems a bit high, but it's definitely hit the nineties with humidity. Ugh.

Last night at church was the worst yet. We'd postponed services an hour in hopes of the weather cooling down, but it hadn't. So we had about 50 people in a room with windows that DIDN'T OPEN and really bad insulation. The services are in Russian there, so I wasn't understanding much, and mostly sat there fanning myself and Natasha K. with a greeting card and hoping church would hurry up and finish. Not reverent, I know!

Have had a LOT of fun with my new hymnal. Saturday, I mostly sat around the apartment watching Serenity, eating fresh cherries and strawberries (I used to dislike cherries; now, I can't figure out why), and singing out of the hymnal. It tells down at the bottom of each song if it was a translation from English, Russian, or German, and I was amazed at how many songs I know that I didn't know I knew. However, my current favorite is a translation from Russian that we sing in church a lot (it's got a rather catchy tune, which is part of why I like it so much). I looked up all the words I didn't know and have a rough mental translation of it into English, but if I write a better one, I'll post it online.

I went to school today because I was told that there was a summer camp for the primary students that I was supposed to be helping with. Showed up to find about 1/3 of the student population there for exams, make-up work, field trips, and who-knows-what. And I wasn't needed for the "camp", which consisted of various small chilren running around playing. I think it's more of a place they can stay while their parents are at work. So I visited with various teachers and students and discussed writing a grant with Nelya. My director wants us to write one (we aren't sure for what), so that's going to be a summer project. I also hope to write a manual for other PCVs on teaching primary school.

The joys of a working fridge and free time mean that I've been cooking (as much as I can stand it with the heat). Saturday was a cake that tastes much better than it looks and a batch of fried rice (chicken, mushrooms, onions, carrots, eggs, rice, and soy sauce...it makes great leftovers!), and today will be a cabbage salad that Tif made once that's really good.

Then again, I might just buy ice cream, collapse on my bed, read Barbara Kingsolver's Prodigal Summer, and wish for cooler weather. (Everyone who remembers when it was -30, please refrain from commenting. I prefer a happy medium!)