OMG!!! We woke up bright and early to go get Inna and the orphanage doctor to go into town to get the paperwork needed for court on her health. We drove in and the same few kids come out from God only knows where to greet us before we even get out of our car. Ken went in to meet with the director again and to let the doctor know we were here and ready to drive into town. Roc saw one older boy smoking and pointed it out to me and I thought out loud, I hope that wasn't Kens cigarette that he just threw. I hoped Ken would have put it out in the ashtray! So we see Ken coming out holding Inna and I asked him what he did with his cigarette. He said he stepped on it, why? I said good, I thought that the boys picked it up to smoke it. He started laughing and asked me where did I think the boys got their cigarettes from. I said I didn't know and he then told me that the doctor gave them his when he was done with them!!!!
There is one boy here around 12 or 13 and he had a green type lizard thingy?! He kept trying to stick a leaf in its mouth to eat. Then he started flicking his head to get him to open his mouth. He kept showing it to me and one time put it down on the sidewalk by me to see and hear me scream when the stupid thing would try running away. He thought that was the funniest thing. I wanted him to be more gentle with the poor thing but that was like trying to tell my kids to stop leaving socks outside by the trampoline, it just wasn't going to happen!!! Finally one of the boys who thinks he is "in charge" came and took it from him. This boy walks around like he is so rough and tough and cool.. The kids here have a pecking order with each other. It is a orphanage of about 70 special needs. Some more severe than the others but kids none the less that have no where to fit into society so this is just one place where they are placed. I see them talking to themselves, hitting each other for something to do, throwing rocks or branches at each other. It's sad because they have NOTHING else to do! Some boys and a few, I think 2, girls play soccer. I think they only have 1 ball. Roc has been playing with them on our visits, of course she has!!! The older, cooler, boys ignore her but the younger boys are very talkative with her. Finally when the "cool" boys see how much fun the others are having with her the chime in and give her the thumbs down when she blocks their shot. The dogs here are Unbelievable!!!! I cannot believe none of the kids have gotten bit the way they are handled. The kids are so rough with them! One dog started barking at us so a boy threw a rock at him and he cried. I got angry and said nyet! Inna was going to hit one of the dogs and I grabbed her hand and yelled at her. Showing her and the others that they have to be gentle with them! Inna has listened to me along with the others so far. At least when they see me around they know they better be nice to the dogs! I brought kid sunglasses along for whoever wanted them and they were putting them on the dog! Inna is infatuated with animals! The first day she wanted to show us the puppies. She brought us to a hole with a wood cover on it for shade. She counted three puppies and asked where the others were. She then brought us way out to the field to another hole with wood cover on top. No puppies there. The boy who was afraid to take candy from us the other day was there and explaining to our facilitator that the puppies were moved to where we had just come from. But Inna was demanding to know where the other two puppies where! It shows me a few things about Inna. 1. She knows her math. 2. She is resilient and determined to get what she wants. 3. She cares about animals......the girl is going to LOVE her new home!!!! Lots of four legged kids running around! I had a rough first week here, I am not going to lie. I knew Inna was transferred and I figured it would be to a special needs orphanage but it has been hard!! What happens to these kids?? How can I NOT remember these faces that are imbedded in my mind and heart? I know a lot of parents going through this say the EXACT same thing!! It weighs heavy on my heart. I wasn't prepared for the location we are at either. We are in the middle of nowhere it seems! We wanted something to do after our visit today so we drove to Moldova! Yup, leave it to us to come up with that one! We drove on these horrible, pot holed, down to crushed rock roads. Sometimes when the road would turn into just dirt it seemed to be smoother and wasn't bad, but then parts of the road would appear and we would be back to pot hole city! The roads would sometimes get really narrow too. We came up on the border crossing and asked it we could drive through. She didn't understand us so she called her supervisor. He spoke very little English but wanted to help us. He said he didn't think we could cross the border here but he kept calling on his phone to someone or someones. We kept telling him that it was okay and we could just turn around but he said wait, wait, wait, I'll find out. He saw Roc taking a photo and yelled and shook his finger at her! He repeated himself several times to Roc and we finally told her to put the camera away! He asked us to park until he could find the answer for us and as we were waiting a guy came pulling up with camouflage on. He spoke better English and asked why we wanted to go to Moldova? We/Ken said we just thought it would be kind of fun to step foot in another country as long as we are here. He looked at us funny and said you can visit Moldova, just not at this border. He was very nice to us as all the people here have been. Ken then asked if we could at least take a photo of the "welcome to Ukraine" sign!?! They said sure! haha! To funny! They must think we are nuts! Maybe we are, I don't know? Then about 15 miles outside of Balta a stranded car along with a cop and a few older women were in the street. We stopped and rolled down are window because the cop was kind of motioning us to pull over. He started speaking really fast in Russian and we said nyet, English. He said ENGLISH???? Then he kind of laughed to himself. He said Balta??? We said yes so he just got in our car?!?!?! Ken figured that he wanted a ride to work because his car broke down but Roc and I were like, what the heck is going on here???? After he got out he said "thank you very much" in perfect English!! I bet he practiced that all the way to Balta! The poor guy, what day he was having. His car breaks down on his way to work in the middle of nowhere and the only car for miles is full of Americans who don't speak Ukrainian or Russian!!!! And we thought we were having a rough day!!! hehehehehehe! Roc and I were doing scenes from dumb and dumber all day. Hey, here is a guy that looks like he needs a lift.......pick him up.......Mock Ing, Bird Ing. Okay, you have to watch the movie! Seriously, Roc and I were funny today! Hoping for court next week we shall see how it goes. God only knows!!!
The photos are from today in no particular order. I just downloaded them and they came out this way and at the top of the post. They are from the beautiful countryside and things we saw, the cop leaving are car and the few photos Roc did happen to get at the border!
I just love your adventures! :)
ReplyDelete