matchmaker, matchmaker, make me a match

Yesterday, I was at the K's church in the evening (they've opened a window and bought a fan!). When I walked in, Nina Federovivna came over to me and started talking. (For the benefit of Tif and Erin: she's the baba who was in favor of Ukrainian language in church.) She likes me very much and is sad that I don't have a home phone so she could call me easily. And then she said, "I've been praying for you, that God will send you a Ukrainian husband."

Oi. This appears to be the semester of matchmakers.

I think I made friends with the K boys last night. I've gotten along great with Natasha and Lilia from the beginning, but the four boys always seemed like they were teasing me because they couldn't understand me. Well, I was sitting in the car with them while we were waiting for their parents, and they asked me if in America, bald people wore wigs. I told them that if they wore wigs, I wouldn't be able to tell if they were bald. This made sense to them. Then Sasha (age 2) was pulling my hair (because that's what you do when you're two), so I told him to stop. David (age 4) was like, "Yeah, because she's going to cry." So I broke out into loud, copious, fake tears. Which led to giggles from everyone. I think I'm in now.

After church, all the K family plus their cousins and I piled into two cars (18 people between two cars, most of them were under 10) and went to the hospital so that Guiesella and her sister could visit a woman from the church who had just had a baby. (This church takes "be fruitful and multiply" very seriously!) This left Victor and his brother-in-law and me with all the kids. The older girls went for a walk, and the younger kids played tag, hide-and-go-seek, and push-the-car-around-the-parking-lot. After 40 minutes or so, Victor says, "Women sure like to talk." The joys of being in charge of large amounts of small people.

It was so nice to come home to Balaklia. I've heard so many PC friends say, "Oh, when I was in the airport coming home from [insert European country], part of me just wished I was headed back to the US." But I didn't wish that, and when we touched down at Boryspil Airport, I was just happy to be back in Ukraine and hearing Ukrainian and Russian spoken around me.

I didn't miss the weather, though. The heat wave continues. Apparently this, like the very cold winter, is also atypical. I am living on bread and cheese, bread and Nutella (outrageously expensive by Ukrainian standards, but I had some at Brandi's and liked it), crackers, and ice cream today.