Culbert Report

Are you tired of chewing your candy bars? Do the layers of chocolate and caramel being broken down by your bicuspids take time and energy away from your enjoyment of your treat of choice? Don't you hate how chewing your candy bar annoyingly negates the calorie intake for consuming it in the first place? Do you ever wish you could just sip on your candy bar at your leisure rather than chewing precious minutes of your day away? We have the product for you: Drinkable Mars bar! That's right, available now in your grocer's refrigerated section: Drinkable Mars bar. The perfect pick for anyone who's ready for the easiest possible way to enjoy fine Mars products. I'll drink to that!

A little on the chilly side, but still fun.

This year our Humanitarian State University English club ventured to a children's home to share our Christmas celebration. We had a wonderful time there and we're already looking forward to our next opportunity to return. Here are some of the things we did: First, we prepared what you might consider a classic Christmas pageant, complete with Shepherds and Wise Men following the Christmas star to find the Christ child. A show of hands demonstrated that of the children in the audience, very few actually knew the original Christmas story - they'd never seen this kind of pageant before. Our student actors did an amazing job! Then we played some games together. It's always a kick to see similar children's games no matter what country you're in at the time. This is a game very similar to our own hand clapping games like Miss Mary Black, Down by the Banks, Miss Suzie, etc.. As you may be able to guess, the game counts to a determined number (like 10) and if your...

Life is full of questions, some much more compelling than others. Nonetheless, moving to a big city, Dan and I have been exposed to an inexplicable phenomenon of nature unobserved in suburban areas: the pigeon, a crowning jewel in the evolutionary process. These fine, feathered friends, who are neither fine nor friends, eat anything from tin cans to cigarette butts. They bathe lavishly in refuse water. They drink, it seems exclusively, from discarded beer bottles. Last night the Moscow temperature dropped from 32 F (0 C) to -4 F (-20 C); yet, there they were at sunrise, standing on our window sill, their beady little eyes staring into our warm apartment as if to say, "you'd best give us your bread if you knew what was good for you, spoiled little aristocrats." Why won't the pigeons die? What is their secret? What biological purpose can they possibly be serving by continuing on in this manner? The pigeon: one of the 7 greatest wonders of the world. I guess not all mi...

Do you remember the first time you saw a banana? Do you remember your first sip of Coca-Cola? How about the first time you held a slinky in your hands, watching in waver back and forth? "The slinky was like a miracle. Really, it was." The girls at English club explained to me. When the slinky first came to Russia, it was an unbelievable combination of metal and miracle, moving almost of its own whim. The girls' eyes lit up as they spoke about it: "Rachel, we are children of the Soviet Union, this thing was to us a miracle." Other students have told us stories of their parents' first encounters with Coca-Cola. One family, who resided in Azerbaijan during the time of the Soviet Union, told us how one of the uncles had traveled to Moscow and while there had somehow procured a bottle of Coca-Cola. He brought it back with him, nearly 75 hours by train, to show all of his friends, neighbors, and relatives. He then proceeded to pour out a tiny taste for...

Right now we're in the process of transferring out visas over to official work permits. It's a lengthy and convoluted legal process that I have no hope of understanding. Praise God for Keith Beyar, Sergei Volkov and some of the others who are dealing with all this. However, I do have a part to play. In order to get a work permit, I need to be medically certified as healthy and able to work by the Russian government. That makes sense. They don't want me spreading crazy diseases through their work force. The fun part comes in actually acquiring said medical permissions. Here's a little run down of what we've had to do (by “we” I mean everyone on the team except the wives who don't actually get permits but “accompanying spouse visas”): Day 1: We came into the country (from Ukraine) on a pre-work permit visa and get it registered with our organization. Then go and start the medical stuff in the afternoon. We didn't realize that the part of the medi...