Mr

We go to the NAC at 2PM today to ask for another appointment. While it's possible we could get one today, we may not get one until tomorrow or even a couple of days from now. It all depends on how busy they are. And they are busy.

We can stay in our apartment for anohter day. It's a great apartment in downtown Keiv. It's quite roomy and modern. We did loose hot water today. The city of Kiev stopped supplying it. Same thing happened in Odessa when we arrived there. We were so happy to get hot showers last night. Great water pressure by the way. Our landlady has promised to install a boiler today at 3PM so we'll have hot water again.

In Odessa, they also had a water heater installed but had never used it as Odessa had supplied hot water until our arrival (are they trying to tell us something? :-). Unfortunatly something wasn't working right so we never had hot water. Larisa, our former interpreter and dear friend who rented the apartment to us was very sad that we didn't have hot water. We were grateful for a place to sleep.

Can't remember if I mentioned this before but when we found out we had to return to Kiev, the lady who rented our apartment insisted we pay for a weeks rent whether we stayed there or not. If we didn't say there, she decided she would keep the $50 deposit and refuse to let us stay there even one night. We were stuck without a place to say. The best we could do was two rooms in a not-very-nice-hotel for $100 (US).

Ira, our translater, was kind enough to offer to let us stay with her in Larisa's apartment. MOST of the people we've come to know here are as kind and generous as Ira and Larisa.

Today we are resting and preparing to go to the NAC at 2. It's raining today and we expect rain for the next few days. I don't mind it so much. Like I tell Ira, I simply walk between the raindrops.

God bless,

Andy