Valentine's Day Eve

We had a bit of warm weather today! This afternoon it was about 30 degrees F, quite a big difference from the past couple of weeks. Wow, how nice to walk to the bus stop without wearing 2 layers of gloves. We did still keep on our coats, hats, scarves, boots, etc...
The bus stop- or marshrutka* stop- is only about a 7 minute walk from our apartment. It costs 2r to ride (about 25 cents) and is quite an experience.

This is what the marshrutkas look like (The big ones, at least. The No. 3, or "troika", that we often ride is about half the length and 2/3 the width of this one).

We take the marshrutka into the center of town where we have our language lessons. Mike also frequently takes it to attend various events at church and the Life English classes. It is quite a production to take Solomiya on, because we have her diaper bag and chair (so she can sit in something while we have our lessons) to carry along with her. The marshrutkas get PACKED with people and it is hard to get on/off when you see your stop. Solomiya and I (annie) had a misadventure on one of the marshrutkas because there were SO many people packed into it.  We now know to get off at the stop before our road because the marshrutka does not loop around and go back to it. If you do not get off there, you will find that the marshrutka goes back to the marshrutka garage and the marshrutka driver will ask you why you are still on his marshrutka. But, hey- that's how you learn, right!
We had our lessons with Marina today. She is having Mike focus a lot on translating passages from English to Ukrainian and vice versa, both orally and written. With me, she is focusing on vocabulary and dialogue that I will need and/or encounter with my patients. She is a very smart tutor to think of this. Today, I learned the names of various body parts and illnesses.
Last Friday, we were able to visit with Andriana and I had a short occupational therapy session with her. I have seen her for therapy before when we visited on short-term trips in 2009 and 2010, but now that we are living here, I can actually follow through on some long-term goals for her. For this session, I assessed how much independent movement she had in each extremity, what her passive and active range of motion was, and how her joints were doing (looking for hyper/hypo flexion/extension and contractures). Praying that God will give me wisdom and show me what I can do for her. Right now, I am thinking of switches/ECU's (environmental control units) to assist her in independently accessing her environment (turning the TV/radio on and off, communicating with her caregivers, etc...). Any therapists with assistive technology experience- send me some ideas of how to make stuff from scratch! I'm pretty sure I could make something with the materials available here, but not sure how to yet!

Tomorrow is Valentine's Day and my birthday (Mike gets 2 for the price of 1 ;) ) and we are going to take the marshrutka into the center of town where Mike will take his girls out for pizza at "Mrs. Greenwich" (yes, that is what it is called). There is nothing like corn-topped pizza with spicy ketchup to dip it in.

...

to annie

*Mike can fix my spelling if needed, but pronounced: mar- SHRUT- ka