village school

My driver used to work at a village school near our town. It is difficult for the villages to find teachers so the government has made a rule that if a man will go to a village and teach he can skip military service. So Alexei Moroso worked there until he was over the age of military service. I thought it would be interesting for Julia to see so we made arrangements and when we arrived the teachers had made a traditional loaf of welcome bread and the students were standing in the doorway singing and holding out the loaf of bread for us to taste. They were so excited to meet the Americans it was really cute. They took us on a tour of their little log cabin school house. It has two classrooms, a main hall, a kitchen dining area and a room for bringing in water and heating. The school is heated with coal and the teachers have to start the stove every morning and keep it going. There is no indoor plumbing so the students use an outhouse. The water is hauled from the local well. The village has one phone, a store that is open twice a week and a log cabin post office/ city hall. There is a bell in the center of the town to warn villagers in an emergency.
The students invited us to come back in August and go mushroom picking with them. They say their forest has the best mushroom picking of all. They offered to share their lunches with us and showed us their art work. I think Julia enjoyed seeing their lifestyle, but did make the comment she would like to go dunk them all in a bathtub for the afternoon. It is difficult to stay clean I am sure when you have to haul your own water and heat it!