Trip 2 Day 8 Sunday May 23

Alona's family showed up at 9:00 AM for the trip to Chernigiv. Granny didn't seem too happy I'm not going if I'm interpreting her disgusted head shaking correctly. I was in excruciating pain from my knees last time I was stuffed into the back of the LADA so she'll have to get over it. Hopefully Diane and Jillian will have a fun and safe trip. I used the time after they left to do a little laundry so I don’t have to compete for line space with their unmentionables. I then went in search of phone cards. I needed minutes on the phone we’re going to leave with Alona R and Julianna needed some as well. Anyway I went to a store and the guy tried to help but for some reason it didn’t work out. I was wandering around aimlessly after that trying to come up with a plan when I saw some kids from the orphanage, dancing boy and a couple girls. They seemed happy to see me so I recruited them to help me find the cards. Mission accomplished!



I went to see Julianna at 11:00 and we played games on the computer. We tried this medieval quest type game called Fate she seemed to enjoy. Her character had a companion dog that she named Ted. It’s good to see she knows where I am in the pecking order.





This approximately 12 year old girl was resting her arm around my shoulder until she got embarrassed and left. The sadness that you try to guard against kind of hit me after that. Many of the kids are gone because they are “social orphans” and spend the weekends with whatever family they have. The kids that are here on the weekend are either true orphans or their families don’t take them out. There’s a lot of really nice kids here and they deserve to be bathed, and bandaged, and above all else, loved.

The afternoon visit was pretty quiet. I asked her earlier if I could bring her anything and she said ice cream, so I went to the store and tried to figure that out. The simplest things can be difficult. It took a while to figure out how to buy the right milk and mayo was a challenge too. This time a clerk in the store smiled at me and came around the counter and tried to help me as soon as I came in. I waved my hands at the cooler and she picked something out. I must have been pretty pathetic on my previous visit because usually they just look at you like you’ve got a third eye in the middle of your forehead. I don’t know if Julianna really liked the ice cream bar but she ate it and she definitely could use the calories.

The visit mostly consisted of her playing Fate, the game she was playing earlier. I came all this way for a computer geek! She was boring me so I broke out the Ipod touch and played checkers with some young girls. Eventually I let them take it and play amongst themselves.

Back at the hotel now and looking forward to the return of Diane and Jillian. I’m sure they’ll have some stories to tell. I’ll have Jillian guest blog and add a paragraph here at the end.


Jillian writes:
We made it all the way to Chernigiv with out grandpa falling asleep at the wheel on us but I was watching the rear view mirror to be sure. I was so excited to see Alona. As we walked into the apartment the table was set with tons of food. The adults sat at one table and the kids at the other. There was about 14 people sitting at our table. We started eating at 1pm… and finished at 6pm. Longest meal of my life. They poured me a glass of sook which is juice from a birch tree. It was alright, but I didn’t care for it so I stuck to the champagne. I tried to pull the whole switch-a-roo trick that my mom did with the milk at grandma and grandpas. It pretty much back fired. My moms had about ¼ left in it and I put it in front of me but within a couple minutes they came by and refilled it for me all the way up to the very top. I could tell mom was trying to contain her laughter. Through out the long and drawn out meal a couple people would get up from the table and disappear for a while. Alona took my camera and was taking pictures and came back to show me one of grandma sleeping on the bed. They all would take breaks to lay down! There was a girl there that is going to school to be an interpreter so she was able to translate questions that they had for us. They asked us many questions about how populated our area is, our minimum wage, if people grow there own vegetables or if we get them from a store, etc. One lady that was there told us she works in a lab of some sort and she only makes $120 a month and sometimes she doesn’t have enough money to buy milk or bread. This was considered doing well in Ukraine. It makes me feel horrible knowing they work so hard and don’t have enough money for food. I get the luxury of working outside in a pool and from two jobs I make almost double that in two weeks. It really puts things into perspective when I thought about that. They all asked for us to bring them to America. It really is as bad, if not worse here than I expected.





After a long day in Chernigiv I was ready to go back to our hotel and rest. Usually to go back to the hotel you take a right after the orphanage. We drove right past that turn. I was speechless and too exhausted to make any facial expression, but I looked at my mom and I knew what she was thinking. We ended up only staying at their apartment for maybe an hour. So we finally got to get back to the hotel and went to bed early to get a good long nights rest.