Orphanage Day ~ Day 8

Today was a good day.

Last night I had the hardest time sleeping due to the smoke in the pillows and the bed mattress. It woke me up several times and I really could smell it a lot stronger than I ever had before. When I ate breakfast I couldn’t really taste my food. Spen woke up with an enormous headache. Too much smoke. We definitely have to move. It was annoying because of the hassle, but worth it. We know how much work and time it takes from the facilitators and we really feel badly about that.

We thought we would hear from someone to come and spend the day with us – like a translator, but we never did. They are so busy here. The rest of the families arrived by train last night. That makes 5 families here from Utah at the same time in the same spot of the process. I think that our timeframes will start to spread out a little more as time goes on, but all that really means is someone has to stay longer than the others. Which doesn’t really make it a huge positive.  This is our first apartment area.  Not a place I wanted to linger and take a ton of photos.

We were lazy today. Mostly due to the fact that we have no idea where we are and what is around us to go and see or do. Wandering in the neighborhood we are staying in feels like a bad idea…


We packed our bag and after talking with one of the families who has been here before decided to try to find a larger grocery store and mall to find the items that Vica had requested yesterday, Nutella and a game she can play outside with her friends.

We walked down the road and managed to find a very large grocery store. Perfect! We will have to go back there. After a lot of walking we came to the main center and the mall area. We will ask to stay closer this way when we move. It was a much safer, nicer area. We met the Cooks and waited for our drivers to come and take us to the orphanage.

The driving is the most expensive part of the trip. It is outrageous. We know that the bus can get us there, but I’m not sure they will allow us to take the bus. We can’t spend this much money every day on a driver though. We’ll have to figure something out. On our drive over there we received a phone call from Luba (our facilitator) letting us know that Vica’s brother was at the orphanage waiting to meet us. I was actually thrilled to have him come. That means that he really does care. Yesterday she told us that he would be happy for her decision and I guess today we will find out!

They haven’t found enough translators for all of us yet so today we were to ‘split’ Yana with the Cooks. We requested that we use her services first for our meeting with Artoym. He was such a nice person. He is in his twenties and was very interested to know about our home and our family. I did remember to take my photo albums today. It was very worth it to have. I’m also glad that I printed a few copies of some pictures of Vica at home so I had some to give him. He was very happy to get them. They were all very interested in the pictures of Lake Powell. Said it was beautiful, it is.

We visited with him for nearly 2 hours. He was great. We are hoping to spend as much time with him as he has available to spend. He gave us all of the contact information he has for himself and took ours down. He told us about what it was like taking care of Vica before he himself was placed in an orphanage. The age difference and the ages we were told don’t seem to match up. We’ll have to ask those questions again I think. The most amazing part of the story is that after he was placed in the orphanage he didn’t see his family again because of the lack of concern their mother had for them. Once he graduated he was in the metro and ran into them (Vica and his mom). He knew immediately it was them and that’s how he regained contact with Vica. He was very clear that their mother does not care about them or what is good for them. He keeps in contact with her and when the adoption is final he will write her a letter in prison to let her know Vica is in America. He was so nice and so sweet. He loves her very much. He is so sad to have her leave. He doesn’t have a home and cannot provide for her or he would. It really was nice to have that family contact. He hopes to come back while we are here and bring along their other brother as well.

Once he left Vica and I did our nails. That girl loves her purple. She told us it is her favorite and wants everything purple! Yesterday was funny because we were matching in our purple shirts and white coats. Of course, she is wearing the same thing and probably will up until we leave. She was much better at finger nail painting than I was. She is so shy. She thought it was funny that I had to ask Spencer for help. She kind of opens up around the other kids which is a definite positive of having the other families around. We’ll have to work on the shyness. I think she is embarrassed to try to speak English or to help us with our Russian. She just laughs shyly! She really is more like a 12 year old.

The kids were so funny.  They gathered around us and really wanted to learn how to shuffle and do the bridge like we were with our Uno cards.  We were going to play Uno, but then all of the kids were doing magic tricks and playing around with us.  It was fun.  A lot of fun to have Vica light up and giggle.

Eventually we had to leave and that was sad. It was a great day overall. Now we were off to find an apartment. The first place we went to took at least an hour to find. I swear nobody can find addresses here. We drive around and around. That is one benefit of having the same driver every day is that he knows where you are! Same smoke problem at that apartment. They were out of apartments and as we were driving home they had one open up. O great.. the address hunt again. It was so weird! The apartment they showed us was by far the nicest we have seen here in Zaparozhia. Of course we would take it. It is much smaller but doesn’t smell like smoke and is very close to the center of Zaparozhia. That meant we would have to move. Not fun. Especially when they don’t really understand why we would have so much luggage! I suppose I don’t understand it either, but I can’t really change it at this point!

We got all settled in and made some dinner. We are finding a few things out about this place that will have to be fixed, but it’s so worth it. We are so happy here. I’ll post pictures. Now to think of something to do tomorrow!