2-17-13 Valentine Program

Friday morning Brian headed out on his search for a cotter pin. He took the tablet with a photo on it so he could show people what he needed. Eventually, he found my hardware store from Friday. No luck there (though they did keep showing him zip ties- apparently they remembered me). They sent him on to an auto parts store. It was the size of 2 cubicles from Brian’s office. Apparently, that’s all you need for an adequate supply of auto parts! Hey, I’m not complaining - they had the cotter pin! He picked up some duct tape to finalize my project and headed back. I strengthened the stroller handles and he fixed the wheel. Later, we headed to the orphanage to visit V*ktor. We got there at 2:45 and were surrounded by kids for the 20 minutes until V*ktor came out. They were such cuties wanting to show off any English words they had picked up and giving us big grins. They LOVED the attention. I’m not always the greatest with names, especially if I only see someone for a few minutes. However, I’ve quickly realized how MUCH it means to these kids if you see them again and remember their names. So, I stored away Natalia, Snizhana, and Vitaly in my memory for when I see them again. For whatever reason, the teacher (or whoever) decided that we couldn’t leave the orphanage Friday and had to visit there. So, we didn’t get to skype with anyone as we thought we might. We just played cards and hung out for the afternoon. That night, I went to Kantin@ with C while Brian worked.

Saturday, we all got our baths before the water was unexplainably shut off for awhile - lol! Oh the joys of Hotel Ber*zka. After a lot of cribbage games and some sandwiches, Brian headed off to the orphanage. The last 2 Saturdays, V*ktor has been allowed to come into town with us, so we had assumed/hoped that had not changed and Brian could just bring him back. A little while later, one of the girls from the hotel came up to tell me a taxi was coming. Alllllllrighty, guess they said no leaving today. C and I got to the orphanage and we went to hang out in V*ktor’s room. He and another kid were cleaning everything - sweeping, mopping, dusting. These kids know how to clean! They are effective and fast, too. We played cards and called Grandma, A, and B on the phone since we couldn’t skype them. C crawled all over the room for awhile. V*ktor had asked a teacher if we could bring pizza for supper, and she said yes. So, I headed out to get the pizza. I forgot how long of a walk it was, though, and it was COLD! I got 2 “large” pizzas. They were definitely smaller than what you would normally get as a large at home. Then, I took a taxi back so it would still be hot. As I was heading up to V*ktor’s room, I passed a teacher and a teenage girl. The teacher was not happy to see me. Knowing I couldn’t understand a word she said, she just directed her displeasure to the girl. I had already passed them at this time, the girl asked me “K****?” (V*ktor’s last name) and I said yes. She took off ahead of me and beat me to his room to tell V*ktor something. Oh! Time to go! Apparently this wing was being “closed.” (While I was gone, Brian said a teacher and 2 kids came in for an “inspection” of the room to make sure they had cleaned.) Guess the kids are only allowed in their rooms at certain times of the day. V*ktor stashed the pizza in a bag for the walk through the orphanage. You can imagine what might have happened as we walked passed 50 kids seeing 2 small boxes of pizza. I wish I could buy pizza for all of them! We got to the playroom with the pizza. S & R came in (as they usually do to hang out with us when they are around). Brian and I had quickly decided that if other kids were able to have it that we would just eat later. C had 2 pieces and they wolfed down the rest! You have never seen 3 kids eat pizza so fast. Hmmm - actually, they’re teenagers, so I suppose that’s pretty normal J We played spoons for a little while. I think the inventor of the game wisely intended for it to be played with metal spoons… The plastic ones just don’t hold up to that sort of abuse - lol! If you don’t know how to play the game, I’ll explain at the end to give you an idea. After a good visit, we started the walk back - it was frigid!!! Though I had just eaten there Friday, Brian wanted to eat Kantin@. That was definitely fine with me. I’ll be here a looooooong time and he is leaving soon, so I’ll have lots more opportunities to eat elsewhere. We sat in the room with a burning fire which was nice and toasty. I ordered the exact same thing I had on the previous evening… and got a completely different meat!!!! It just struck me as funny that my Ukrainian is so bad that even if I think I’m saying the same thing… apparently, I’m not. After supper, we headed back to the room, played a few rounds of cribbage, and watched a movie. It was typical Valentines date- with C tagging along. On at least 3 (possibly more) occasions, we have actually eaten dinner at Chuck E Cheese with our kids on Valentines Day. That’s pretty normal for us!

Sunday, Aleksey was arriving on the train to Uz. We had decided that we REALLY wanted to send souvenirs back with Brian for the kids so I didn’t have to lug it with me. So, since he was going to be catching a cab back anyways, we headed out early to Uz. We hit the open air market. Imagine Walmart (including grocery), Home Depot, Toys R Us, and the mall all in one place. Yep! That about describes it. I am not kidding you - we saw clothing (like brand new suits and things like you’d see at a mall all the way to Tshirts, shoes, and everything else), bicycles, hardware, food (including tons of the worlds best candy), toys, paper supplies, perfume, jewelry, even a wedding gown store! I really started laughing when I actually saw a sink. They really do have everything and the kitchen sink!!! We only scratched the surface of that place! We could have spent a whole day there, and I am NOT a shopper. Loved it, though! My Mom and her friends (who love outlet mall shopping) would really enjoy that place, but I think they’d probably have to go in the summer. Those Southern Belles wouldn’t be able to handle the cold J

We located souvenirs, and grabbed a taxi to the train station where we met Aleksey. Brian had seen something he wanted to get at the castle last week, but we didn’t get it that day. Since he hadn’t found anything comparable, we stopped at the castle so he could get it. Unfortunately, the souvenir shop wasn’t open. When asked what time they would open, the response was maybe 5 minutes maybe a half hour. Too funny! So, Aleksey said he knew of good souvenir stores. Away we went in the taxi to a place where I sat with C while they disappeared for about 20 minutes. Once they returned, victorious, we had the taxi take us back to that mall with the AWESOME restaurant. I ordered 2 lavoshes and some Mexican vegetables. Yes, it was a lot of food. Brian thought I couldn’t eat it all - he was wrong. It was the BEST food I’ve had since I got here, and I wasn’t about to pass up and opportunity to eat a lot of it! Besides, I didn’t have breakfast. So, after I finished breakfast (the first lavosh), I ate lunch (the second lavosh and some veggies)- haha. We grabbed another bag of the awesome chocolate. Several people back home have said they want to buy some if we bring it back, so for his extra suitcase room we’re sending chocolate.

Last week, we didn’t have a clue where we were at any moment. This week, we had Aleksey with us, so he was able to ask how to get to City Center. We walked the 20 or so minutes to the center and I am sooooooo glad we did. It was really beautiful. There were monuments, a river with tons of park benches, a big courtyard, and some wonderful architecture. After walking around there for awhile with our awesome tour guide, we decided to catch a taxi back to the hotel before we could go to the orphanage. So, we hopped in a taxi. It drove all through town out to the middle of nowhere and stopped on the side of the road. Aleksey said we needed to get out. I looked at him like he was crazy, and he said the car needed to get gas. We piled out of the car into a grassy patch on the side of the road, and the car drove away down towards what looked like empty carwash bays and disappeared. I could not stop laughing! It sounded absurd enough. Could you imagine if Aleksey wasn’t with us and the driver was trying to kick us out on the side of the road? He said the cars run on propane and it “isn’t safe” for people to be in the car while fueling. Greaaaaat. A little while later the taxi returned to pick us up and away we went on Mr. Toad‘s Wild Ride back to good ol‘ Ber*zka.

We walked to the orphanage four our 2:45 visit time and we went to the playroom. On my way, a little boy ran up to me and gave me a big hug. Oh these sweet, sweet children. Aleksey and V*ktor played a game of Battleship and then we introduced Aleksey to the wonderful world of spoons. V*ktor had told us there would be a “concert” at J’s school in town later and we could go. We thought it was at 5pm, but at 3:55 somebody said it was at 4. So, we packed up and raced out the door on the walk all the way back down to the school near our hotel. We were obviously quite early, but went in and got seats in the back (because of sleeping C) anyway. It’s a REALLY good thing we did. By the time the show started, there were at least 120 people standing in the aisles to watch. The auditorium must have held over 400 to begin with, and many seats were occupied by 2 kids. It was a Valentine show with kids from all the area schools. Sa, one of V’s roommates, was in the show. He seemed nervous (who wouldn’t be with all those people), but he did a great job! They had wonderful costumes, singing, dancing, and lots of apparently funny dialogue. At one point, 10 year olds were dancing to a song in English. It had… shall we say highly inappropriate words in it. Aleksey explained that they had no idea what it said, they just liked the beat. I’ll interject here - because there are not many (if any) copyright laws here to protect musicians, it’s not a booming industry. If you can spend all the time and money to record a song and not get any payment for it, then where’s the motivation? So, they listen to a lot of English music even if they don‘t understand it. TWO HOURS and 15 minutes later, the show came to a conclusion. By that time I was seeing a bit of humor in the situation. We had just sat there for over 2 hours watching a show we didn’t understand. Nice. Actually, we really had a good time and C was great! After the show, we walked V*ktor back to the orphanage and waited at the gate for a taxi. It was so cold that I just couldn’t see more walking. While we were waiting, a little boy was begging Aleksey to find him a family. Talk about heartbreaking. How do you explain to a child how the entire process works and how difficult it is for them to have a family. Their chances are less than 1%. If they’re hosted, the chance increases to about 60%… They have to get the opportunity to be hosted first, though. If you’re reading this, pray about where God can use you to help orphans. It may be a calling to host, it may be a call to adopt, or it may be a call to help other families who are in the process.

Our taxi dropped us at a restaurant near our hotel where we had a late supper. I have been wondering how the restaurants stay open because they’re always dead when I’m there. I realized that people just eat much later here and I have been joining the practically nonexistent “senior” crowd. After supper, we headed back to the hotel and called it an early night. It was a loooooong day!