Trip 2 Day 14 Saturday May 29

We spent both visits today in the large room playing with a lot of kids. School is over now so there’s a lot less kids here. For the last couple of days the kids have been scattered around the room working on puzzles or lego type kits. We’ve been happy to see some type of organized activity for them. The lady who watches over them seems to treat them well. Sometimes they don’t treat each other too well. One thing I’ve noticed is they can really take a punch, or slap, or kick, … It doesn’t seem to phase them at all.



We usually spend the time in there playing Uno. We hand out the notebook computer and my Ipod touch so other groups of kids can play games on those. The fishing game on my Ipod seems to be very popular. The older girls try to run off the younger boys because they think they smell (they do) so we usually have to enforce a little niceness so everybody can be involved.



Alona walked from her apartment to the hotel and joined us during the second visit. I think the village kids hear a lot of bad things about the orphanage kids so if nothing else I think we’ve opened her eyes a little bit. She thought it was sad all these kids have no parents or anybody who cares for them. Alona’s guardians have told us tactfully how all the kids here use bad language and steal . That hasn’t been our experience at all as they’ve been very respectful of our stuff. I’m sure it’s just a good excuse to forget about them.

Alona left us at 6:30 PM to do her daily chore of walking the cows home and we walked to the foster home for some computer time. Little Nastya and a boy her age entertained Diane and Jillian while I got caught up and then we changed places and they checked Facebook. Cheered by this touch with home we headed back to the hotel to down a little food and get some rest.