Dr. Brueck in Russia - 5th Diary Entry

This is day five of Dr. Brueck's medical mission to Siberia

July 1^st 2008

Our flight took off about 11pm, we were up all night on the plane and I was in the middle of the sardine seat with my knees comfortably tucked under my chin. I thought the Moscow airport was bad; we had to actually show our luggage receipts in order to claim our bags. Big brother was ever present.

As we arrived in Abacon, Wolfgang the Russian missionary from Germany met us. We will be staying with he and his wife Judit and his sons, the older of the two is Mitah and Phil who is 11. We arrived in Abacon and the women on our team were going to stay in the main house with Wolfgang and his wife.

Grisha and I were banned to grulog #14 which was a 1 bedroom apartment in a tiny apartment building 2 blocks from where they lived. It was a very Spartan 1 room apartment with a little kitchenette area and a bathroom. I was lucky I got to sleep on the sofa and Grisha got 2 mattresses to sleep on the floor. I think in the end he got the better of the deal.

I certainly did not win a prize because the sofa was beveled in so it was like sleeping in a tube or a rut and if I was to sleep on my left side my left arm would fall asleep and if I switched over then the right side would fall asleep and I would be facing the back of the sofa.

The room was complete in that it had cold water and no hot running water. The lighting was less than ideal in that there were 2 wires coming from the center of the ceiling with a light bulb attached to it. In any event we were so tired from staying up all night on the flight from Moscow that we all decided to clean up, take a cold shower and try and sleep a little.

We were fortunate in that we were able to get a good nap and we slept for about 5 hours. The only problem with taking a 5 hour nap is that you’ll be up all night. We got up and walked down the road to Wolfgang’s house. We had some Russian dumplings which were homemade honey from daffodils in the field and the first salad from Judit’s garden.

The food was quite tasty and daffodil honey is very acceptable. Most of the people here have a tiny house and in the back yard they grow vegetables through the summer growing season and store them for the long winters. I was talking to Judit who was telling me that their electric bill is about $35.00 for 2 months, I wish we could be so fortunate to have a $35.00 electric bill for 2 months but I still wouldn’t trade what we have for what they have, but it still is a bargain to say the least.

During our dinner talk Wolfgang told us about a small child who was severely bitten on the face by a dog and I told him that when I got back to the states that I would send him some samples of Mederma which is a scar cream and they can pass it on to the little girl.

After dinner we sang some songs and Wolfgang gave us some insight on kakass people and the area to which we would be traveling in. The majority of the kakassian people are shamans and members of cults. Certainly this is fertile ground to spread Christianity.

We all watched out the window to see an approaching storm come from the valley. Wow it was big; the power went out for quite a while, so out came the candles and it was just like hurricane season in Florida.

We finally finished our meeting around 11pm and Grisha and I began walking home carefully in the dark. We got back to our room and shared some thoughts about the evening. My main concern was trying to sleep and I knew I wouldn’t be able to sleep.

In fact I ended up staying up the entire night.

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More tomorrow...