A day in the Siberian Steppe

We left out this morning for a two hour bus ride out from the city. It was an interesting ride seeing the change from city to country and to nothing. We got lost and stopped in a villiage to ask for directions. I mean a villiage, we got some great pictures of people and buildings. We started off again and had to stop because a big wagon was in the middle of the dirt road. The men were over to the side with a big haystack and the old fashioned rakes. It was a picture from back in time. There were geese and cows in the road, but finally we got going in the right direction. I can't tell you about the conditions of the road we were on. Crazy. We finally stopped and got out and took off walking across the endless steppe. We had aour botanist with us from town and she would stop and tell us about the plants we we would see. We started hearing gun fire. We had seen in the distance some sort of military place. As we were leaving we saw the firing range and tanks driving VERY NEAR to where we had been walking. I mean RUSSIAN TANKS had been firing near us. It was a very interesting talk and we got some great pictures for use in our classes. After we returned we were told we had the night off. Lena came down to our room and we sat around and talked aobut all kind of things. She has a 10 year old daughter that is deaf and she was showing us some of her artwork on the computer. I started asking her about her religion and she was telling us about the Russian Orthodox church. She can go to church daily at either 9am or 9pm, their services last 3 hours and they stand up the whole time. The take commuion every time and they must fast before they go. She was telling us about her grandmother and how they did her funeral. At 3 days they got together and ate special food and put her in the ground. at 9 days they get together again, and at 14 days they get together to celebrate her new life with Christ. Her apartment is right next door to her church. We then left and went to a great chinese food place. You know we are less than two hours from China right now. Tomorrow we are headed to the Altai Mountains to more of a tourist place. WE figured today we may have been the first Americans to visit that villiage ever. I may not have internet for a few days, we never know when we get to a new place. Love to all