November 8 -15 (3 mn 26 days - 4mn 2 days) The hospital
Among the top worst places that youТd never want to visit will certainly be the Ukrainian childrenТs hospital.
The medical care here is free Ц we have no insurance or such stuff, just a paper signed by the doctor. And with that paper we went to the Kiev Clinical ChildrenТs Hospital number 2 (thatТs how it sounds if translated from Ukrainian). We had an option of calling an ambulance or going by our car and we chose the latter option Ц and were sorry. Firstly, we could not find the place, secondly, it took us ages to get admitted Ц and while we were sitting in the car in the yard and waiting we were really close to leaving back home and looking for a УprivateФ doctor. But at last we got in. The women-doctor examined Katie and said that it looks like pneumonia is nearly there. I was too scared and upset to ask for more details and what means УnearlyФ, then I had to undergo some tests myself and we were taken through hospital mases to our ward. I am too tired now to talk about the conditions and comfort Ц you can see them on the pictures.
There was practically no help from the nurses Ц just injections of antibiotic thre times per day Ц the rest, even washing the floors in the ward we had to do ourselves.
There was one terrible incident when Katie choked herself on milk when nursing and could not stop coughing. When she started puking and turned purple I rushed to find the nurses, thanks God they were there and acted very professionally. With the vacuum extractor they sucked out whatever she had in her throat and even came to see us later in the evening to check if we are allright.
Well, in general it was bad. It was so bad that I do not want to write anything about it.
Now were are at home, the kiddos seem to be OK and are asleep and I will have my bubble bathЕ to good to be trueЕ
You can see more pictures here ....................................................... November 21 - December 8 The orange revolution I wasnТt updating for quite a while now. Too many things are happening Ц the political events, the new virus in the computer, the kiddos, the new novel I am writing, the biology exam I have to face pretty soon.
So, the revolution. I do feel proud that for some people, perhaps, I can be the only source of complete information about the events in Kiev. So this is the prehistory: life in the country is bad, the average salary in the city is about 100 USD per month, doctors and teachers get even less. However, we have all resources to make ourselves one of the wealthiest countries in Europe. Why then we arenТt? Because the mafia and the government are bind together, because the huge plants and factories are illegally privatized, because the money is stolen from the budged, because everything is based on bribery. Well, weТd been living like this for the past 13 years and sort of got used to it. It does enjoy sometimes Ц e.g. the prices for the car park went up two times in order to provide the election campaign for the candidate Уfrom the governmentФ. And he IS mean. This man, Yanukovith, was jailed twice Ц for violence and robbery. Shortly before the elections he was made the prime minister and the election campaign was only about him Ц is his opponent from the opposition was ever mentioned Ц then only in the negative key. However this did not stop more than the half of Ukrainians voting for the opposition candidate in the first tour. Perhaps the clan did not expect such activity and could not cheat in the extent to make the picture look differently. The second tour was a great shame for everybody Ц there were numerous violations, such as not letting the representatives of the opposition candidate to the voting units, people getting bunches of voting cheats and touring in buses all over Ukraine, not letting the press and foreign observers to be present at the voting units and one policeman was MURDERD, trying to save the ballets from misuse. Hundreds of thousands of people were forced to vote for the prime minister and threatened that they will be fired otherwise. Some were paid 20-30 US dollars and taken in buses on Уvoting toursФ.
The chair of the election committee was paid about 21 million dollars as a bribe. And, naturally, November 21-st Yanukovitch was proclaimed the winner. They were so sure that it will work this time too. But millions of people did not think so any more and we all went to the central square in Kiev, to show that we object. At first they tried to stop people coming from other regions but there were too many of us. To show that we support the other candidate, Yushenko, we are wearing orange stripes, we attach them to our cars and hang out of the windows in our houses. Very soon we got the support from the city Mayor and those on the streets now have the governmental buildings on Kreshatyk serving as shelter for cold nights and finally the TV channels started saying the truth.
The atmosphere in the city center is amazing Ц people are very friendly and full of hope. Every evening there is concert and most Ukrainian pop stars come to support the protestors.
Because of the kids I managed to go there only once with our grandma. It was amazing Ц at 11 p.m. there were at least 500 thousand people there and all were sober, completely unagressive, I did not get a single push. We stood there and sang Ukrainian songs and for the first time in my life I felt such great warmth towards our people and the country.
Thanks to the protestors the court proclaimed these elections invalid and we will have the new ones December 26-th.
We all pray that the truth will win this time.
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