Salekhard 102

I smelled something delicious when I woke up.

Deborah made pancakes for breakfast.

She doesn’t have a stove yet.

She uses a two burner element to do her stovetop cooking.

It took her two hours to make 20 pancakes.

She makes her own maple syrup. 

Like she did in Hungary and Kyrgyzstan. 

Because it isn’t available for purchase.

There is no “fast food” here.

I read the front of Deborah’s washer. 

30 is the degrees in Celsius for the water, 

not the minutes left in the wash cycle.

The time remaining is on the right-1 hour and 48 minutes. 

Almost two hours to wash one load of laundry. 

But, Deborah has two dryers!
Jealous? Wait until you see one of them.

A picture is worth a thousand words.

Enough said.

We took a short walk this afternoon.

It is unseasonably warm.

70 degrees today.

There are still mounds of snow on the ground.

I had a snowball fight with the girls.

I saw permafrost.

Reindeer dig through the snow to eat this.

Saw the berries Deborah picks and adds to her oatmeal.

I built a snowman.

I have read countless bedtime stories over the years. 

Tonight I read two more.

I have read stories earlier and later than I did tonight.

Tonight’s story was read at 10PM. 

This view is from the room after I read. 

The sun is beginning to set over the mountains.
There are only two hours of anything resembling darkness.
Darkness begins to replace light at summer solstice.

Life is very different here. Good, but different.