It's Saturday afternoon here, and the weather the past few days has been pretty decent. I actually went out for a run on Thursday, which must be quite unusual because I got lots of stares. It was sunny and around 50 degrees, which felt really good after the last week of things being so cold.
The kids are both still recovering from colds, so we decided to give them a break today and not visit them. Their care giver, Victor, is also sick, so we haven't even had him around the past couple of days. Victor speaks very broken English, a few words here and there, but is sometimes able to translate a few things for us that the kids say.
That's been the only frustrating thing really, that we can't even ask the kids how their day was or how school was that day. The kids say lots of stuff to us, especially A (she's very talkative), and all we can do is nod our heads at them. We hope they don't think we're total morons :) If everyone is feeling better tomorrow, Victor said we could take them for most of the day, and take them off the orphanage property. We bought a soccer ball and there is a park nearby, so that would be fun to do with them, especially now that the weather is a little nicer.
Last night we just had to laugh, we have gotten SO bored! I mean, it's great to be here, but there is literally nothing to do here. I say that but there actually appear to be at least 3 "casinos" or places where we could gamble. Except that we don't. There are only 3 local stations on tv, we don't even get sports or the fun music video station we had in Kyiv. Last night we went grocery shopping and played cards. Whoohoo! Rocking Friday night in Balta :) We have a 500 piece puzzle that we bought for the kids that we might do tonight. Do we sound desperate for entertainment????? I feel bad for Scott though, because when I leave he won't have anyone to speak to for those 10 days. All in all though, we're just focused on getting the kids out of here and back to Colorado, so this kind of feels like a big camping trip.
We were going to try to go down to Odessa today for the day, but none of the taxi drivers speak English, and the buses look miserable and claustrophobic. No train station here. Scott will get down there after court to get the kids passports, but I won't get to see it.
I have taken a lot of pictures of the town, but for some reason, the blogger isn't letting me attach photos anymore. I don't know if we only had a certain file size limit or if the functionality just hasn't been working the past few days. We'll try to figure it out. I have some good shots that I think you'll be interested in seeing from our little town here.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
6 comments:
Hi Scott and Miche! I have so enjoyed catching up and reading about your journey! We are so so so happy for you and for your children - Meant To Be!! Your story is so inspiring - we admire you so much for all that you have gone and are going through. I can't believe the orphanage director put D through that kind of questioning - I hope it was just some sort of psychological thing to make sure of what he wanted. Regardless, I know they must be so thrilled and happy. A day at the park sounds great - perhaps a little picnic or something, too, if the weather is nice enough. I'm looking forward to hearing how it goes! Your pictures are beautiful! Shaun suggested that you can use Flickr.com or Photobucket.com to post pics for free, you just have to register (for free). You could then post a link to them in the blog posts. We are thinking of you and praying that everything goes well! Talk to you again soon! Dawn and Shaun
Hi again guys - I just wanted to mention this while I'm thinking of it. I don't know if you've already got something set up to work the language barrier, but I wanted to pass along this language program that I've heard amazing things about. It's a BBC program called Muzzy, and it includes dvds, books, etc. that center around a fuzzy green "monster" named Muzzy (great for kids). They offer the program in many different languages, including one specifically for kids learning English as a second language (ESL). They also offer it tailored to age groups, one of which is 9-12 years old. It's a little pricey, but I have heard such amazing things about it, and it's gotten amazing reviews from big corporations (i.e. Newsweek) as well as individual users. There is a website that has all the information and also sells the program - www.early-advantage.com. Just wanted to pass this along in case you are considering different language options - this sounds like a great one to start with, especially at home. Anyway, hope A&D are feeling better and you get to the park! Talk to you later! dawn
Hi Scott and Miche,
I've been following your journey and I am thrilled for you all. We were in Ukraine in July/Aug adopting our 6 year old daughter Emma. It sounds like you are doing great...though the boredom can sometimes be stifling.
The communication with the kids, though difficult now, will improve drastically once you get home. Their comprehension will be so fast, you won't believe it.
We had difficulty posting photos as well. We have a high MP camera and our connection just wouldn't support the time it took to download. We finally decreased the MP's on the camera to "e-mail" size and had not problem after that.
I will be sending you good thoughts and prayers that the remainder of your journey is swift and without too many difficulties.
Lisa
It's hard to imagine looking back and enjoying being bored! Perhaps you will...that's when we posted our craziest blogs that only we found ammusing..sigh. Too bad a local babuska hasn't adopted you! We will continue to pray for your "home stretch".
Hey there -
We are very excited to hear about your trip - keeping fingers crossed for you.
William / Hilary
Hi Scott and Miche. Great to see you have made it to Balta Ukraine. Good luck with your adoption. If you have time send me a email at uacell@yahoo.com we would like you to say hi to Misha who is about 12 years old and was from the same Belgorod orphanage we adopted our daughter Ksenia from. They were good friends.
Post a Comment