Thursday, April 19, 2007



A family of elderly head out of a village down the road. The next village is miles away.



Peer pressure for toasting is pretty strong. The guys are trying to figure out what to do about it???
Group picture in Poltava at the city center not far from our stay. Stalin leveled Poltava during ww2 in taking it back from Germany. The locals hoped Hitler was better than Stalin.

Wednesday, April 18, 2007

The group is in the middle of the second day of the conference. After some cultural glitches the first day, the conference is running very well. Lot's of connections have been established for future collaboration.

In Poltava, the heat is supplied through the heated water that is not very hot by the time it gets to at least some of us. A couple of the apartments have electric water heaters for showering. One does not.

Ladies cleaning the sidewalks with stick brooms begin at about 6 in the morning. Kind of hard to sleep through. A pack of dogs like tormenting sleeping Americanski's at about 3 am.

The food has been great. Our hosts have toned down the number of toasts, but still seems about seven too many.

After the conference, we will introduce students to baseball.



Monday, April 16, 2007























The cemetary pictures show Memorial Day



Team talks to kids from local orphanage
Gathering in Poltava