Miscellany

It’s really, really hot. I’m not complaining, definitely not complaining after the awful, awful, awful winter we had this past year. But it’s really, really hot.

It was 30C (86F) IN the Azor Sea on Friday. IN THE SEA WATER. The fish are literally being cooked, and there was a report of a dolphin jumping out of the Black Sea and onto the beach in Crimea in an attempt to save itself from the scorching water. 

We’d been planning to go visit a friend in the Carpathian mountains this month, and were super happy when she said it would be better to visit her sooner rather than later. Let’s hope the temperatures are more comfortable at higher altitudes!

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One day this week, we saw a passanger in a car spray some kind of smoke into the driver’s window of a van stopped next to it at a traffic light. We didn’t close our own windows fast enough, and we soon discovered it was tear gas. What the hell was that about? The car sped off, and the van drove a few meters and then pulled over. As we drove past (windows tightly closed), I saw the driver getting out. I hope he was OK.

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Igor was called in to some inspection office in Korosten to review the documents for the NGO he is president of. He and the executive director were grilled by a low-level bureaucrat who had reviewed the NGO’s by-laws, election protocol and meeting minutes from the past 5 years in scrupulous detail. She noted several “discrepancies” and “mistakes”, which were mainly just grammatical errors and typos, and said the NGO’s registration was invalid and they would need to reapply for registration. Igor pointed out that her office had approved all the documents, grammatical errors, typos and all, so he didn’t really see why they needed to re-register.

Of course, our suspicion is that this just part of the developing crack-down on civil society in Ukraine, under the Yanukovych administration. Ukrainian and international NGOs are being harassed, and their leaders even detained. I was scared when Igor was called in for this meeting, but thankfully he walked away – this time.

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Apartment renovations continue. We thought the demolition phase was done, and all the rubble was trucked away on Friday. But after meeting with the designer again this weekend, she/we decided a wall should be moved. So, a bit more demolition and then the actual renovation can begin. The design is looking pretty awesome! Once we have the final blueprints, which will hopefully be after she incorporates the changes we made this weekend, we’ll scan and post here.

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Did I mention it’s hot? There’s not much to do but lay still and let the fan blow the sweat off your body. Time to turn off the computer, which is only generating more heat, and hit the hay. Tomorrow we take off for a week-long car trip, and we want to start early (before it gets too hot).