First Venture Out of the Orphanage ~ Day 10

It’s a very strange feeling being nervous to take your daughter out and about!  Thank heavens for Dasha, our interpreter.  Our driver picked us up around 11:00 to take us to pick Vika up from the orphanage for our first day out together.  When we got there we had one of the kids from her class go and get her for us.  She ran over to Spen and put her arms around his waist while we talked with our interpreter.  It was so confusing figuring out the protocol of what we were supposed to do.  We finally just left.  She stood by the cars with me with her arms around my waist.  Adorable. 

What in the world do you do in a city you don’t know with a girl who just says she doesn’t know what she wants and she will like anything we do? We first went to McDonald’s. Who wouldn’t like McDonald’s? This wasn’t a place I would pick, but all of the families were going there and she was pretty excited. McDonald’s is a pretty popular place around here, and it’s strange that there is only one. Really, there is only one McDonald’s in Zaparozhia. Different than we are used to being able to walk to at least 3 from our house!
This place was crowded. I am still not used to a culture that is so forceful. When it is as crowded as it was with no available place to sit, they stand over a table that looks like they are close to being finished and wait for you to stand up. They will sit down before you even take your coat from the chair. I am not that person and we never would have had a table were it not for the other families and their help! All Vika wanted was an ice cream cone. Her friend, Anastasia, sat with us and that was fun.

There were so many people trying to decide what to do together that it took a while. We had let our driver go home and so we piled in a van with the Cooks to head to a market because the girls wanted to go shopping.
Shopping is such a different experience here. The people that work in the shops are truly sales people. Even the make up or jewelry. If you show the slightest interest in anything it is opened and they are putting in on you. Yes, the lip gloss I picked up to get Vika. She dabbed a bit on my hand to be sure I liked it before I bought it. Vika picked some jewelry and stood in this shop no bigger than a powder room with the most adorable woman putting earrings on her. One thing I like about Vika is that she is not afraid to tell you if she likes something or not. She will not get something or waste her time on something she isn’t interested in. I am too worried that I will offend someone by not letting them finish their big sales pitch, but she just says “I don’t like it” and walks away! Love it.
The market wasn’t really a cheap place like we expected and only held my interest for a little while. We finally left and had no idea what to do now that we didn’t have a lot of time. We went to our apartment because I wanted to try our internet again to see if we could reach our boys. No luck on the internet, but she and I worked on a ridiculously difficult puzzle then we all played Uno. Best $6 I’ve spent so far! It is difficult when the interpreter isn’t there to help us but I have tried to be alone with her a few times today so we could start trying to communicate. She is just so shy that she doesn’t like to act out things yet. It makes sense because she is still just accommodating whatever we take her to do. It was nice when we left our apartment to go look for shoes at the mall that we asked her if she wanted us to call the Cooks so we could meet up with Anastasia again and she said, ‘no, I just want to be with you.’
We walked over and purchased tickets for the circus tomorrow. I’m a bit disappointed that we will miss church tomorrow, but we are to pick her up by about 11:00 am and church starts at 10:00. Next week. I think it will actually be a great place to take her without our interpreter. She will understand and I will have the missionaries to help me understand. She was given a CTR ring in Russian by the American family who hosted her last fall and we asked her about it. She wears it every day, but she doesn’t know what the letters mean. Dasha told her it meant her name. I tried to have Dasha explain that it just means to ‘Choose the Right.’ Dasha isn’t as fluent as some of the other translators and didn’t understand what we were talking about and chose not to try to interpret the conversation. I don’t think Vika cared what it meant, it was a ring and she liked it.

We took her to Pizza Ciliantano’s for dinner. It was funny because we asked her what she liked on her pizza and she said anything. The more we kept asking we finally got, ‘anything.. as long as there are mushrooms and no cheese, but aside from that, anything you want. O, and can we have tomatoes?’ Cute. We got 2 pizzas. Bytheway, the pizza is so delicious. I think it’s more the meat they put on it than the pizza, but it is delicious! We walked to the bookstore next door and asked her if there were any games she would like to get to play other than Uno. Immediately she picked Twister. Really, can you imagine the 3 of us with twister!? We couldn’t bring ourselves to spend $40 on twister tonight, but we told her we would definitely get it if we found it cheaper here or we can get it in America. Some things are much much cheaper here, but that wasn’t one of them! Clothes and shoes are pretty expensive, but food is very cheap. Our dinner of 4 sodas, 2 pizzas, and 2 desserts was 140 hyryvnias. The trick for conversion is to divide it by 8 and you get about the price in America. Dinner for 4 at a restaurant was just over $15! I can’t get over that.
It was sad when we had to drive her back. She insisted she wasn’t tired, but was leaning on the door asleep. Everyday things just get better and better with her. We walked her inside and met several other families who were talking with Larissa about their day. She asked if we were satisfied with our choices. Weird. She told them that they should behave and make us glad we chose them. She also threatened them that if they misbehaved for us she would give them the belt. Not sure if she was kidding or not with that one, but I’m sure hoping! She hugged us both and we left for home. It is hard to start to feel like we are leaving one of our kids in a place like that. We both think that for now this transition time is actually very good for her. She gets to go back somewhere that she is comfortable and relax and start to adjust to such a drastic change.
Hopefully tomorrow after the circus we can see her brother again. She said she wanted to call him, but when we would remind her she would always say, ‘later’. She is just so polite and doesn’t want to in front of us.