One Day and Counting

First off, thanks to those of you to the west of us, some closer than others, who sent little tidbits my way in the form of encouragement, updates on my girls at home and even a gentle little kick in the pants.  Today I woke up in the best place I have been in about a week.  I even heard birds chirping out side the window, actually they weren't really chirping, it is to cold for that.  In fact it wasn't even the most pleasant of sounds but it was a sound from Gods creation none the less.

I find it so hard to get motivated, our whole day is dictated by our visit time and there is really not much to do.  One, because there isn't much to do and two, because even what little there is to do is outside and it is just plain cold.  We did have to leave the hotel so that they could get in our room and tidy it up so we left at 11:30 and headed to the open market.

An interesting place the market.  A couple of things that struck me as peculiar.  First, man these are tough people.  They stand out there, selling their wares, anything from shaving cream and tooth paste, random kitchen gadgets (Jamie bought one), socks, dry fish, live fish out of a tank truck, really!  How they stand out there all day long is amazing to me.  And what can they possibly make in a day.  Add to it the effort of getting everything there and set up.  Wow!  Second, it is kinda like the beaches in New York again where the cars drive, the people walk, some pulling carts, some sleds.  The ruts in the road are deep and solid ice.  Certainly people must get hit from time to time.

I am forcing myself to embrace this process, this town and this experience.  So when we left today I decided it was a good day for pictures.  I took some of daily life in Romny, the market, a church and some building.  The building are still so interesting to me, some old, beautiful and stately, others not so much.  But each with its own true personality.  I got some pictures of beautiful doors and windows, discovered that the town sits on a hill with lovely views.  We also got some pictures with the golden pig.  Look up Romny if your are curious, lots of history here.  The town is over 1000 years old.

We were to be at the orphanage at 1pm today and were being given 3 hours this time.  And the big bonus was that we were going to be able to take her off the property.  We were looking forward to this.  We had some time to kill and no were to go, so we walked.  Poor Lily was sure her little toes were gonna fall right off.

We got there a few minutes early, enough to thaw out for a couple minutes.  We were taken to the private little play room again.  It is warm and comfortable in there.  She was all smiles when she came in, this is normal.  The director told us that we had one hour that we could be away from the property, enough time to get a little food.  Before we even got our coats on she went straight into telling our translator that another translator had come to see her at school today.  He was the translator who had had something to do with her hosting trip to the US.  He took her to get tea and told her the family she visited wanted to send her some money for her birthday.  This caught me off guard, the mind starts racing again.  What are their intentions, what does this mean for us...same drill different day.  Apparently the director knew nothing about this and didn't feel it was a concern.  Our facilitator who is back in Kiev got on the phone right away to the inspector (area social worker) and the director and she doesn't feel it is a concern either.  Amazingly, I had a moment of light panic but it didn't linger more that a brief moment.

Out the door we go, right into town for a little lunch.  She had meat and mashed potatoes.  Interesting, they just say meat therefore you don't really know what your gonna get.  Hence the reason I don't order meat, chicken yes, meat NO!  Us other girls got chicken soup, Jamie was the man though he got a salad of tomato, bell pepper, chives and cucumber and FRENCH FRIES!  Good french fried, homemade french fries, fresh french fries, delicious french fries.  I think I found my restaurant for the rest of the stay.

During lunch she mentioned that on her outing today with the other translator she saw her grandma but that the grandma didn't see her.  She then freely said that grandma rarely visits her.  I love getting these little bits of information especially when she offers without prompt.  We also figured out that her studies have been suffering a bit, she had to be back at a certain time today because she needed to work on a poem that she has to recite to the class on Tuesday.  We asked her if she could tell us and she giggled and said, "I forgot it."

After a quick lunch we had to hustle back to not be late.  We still had an hour and a half with her,  The girls went right into drawing, then checkers, then the iPad.  She left us with sweet little hugs and a shy smile.  She left kinda slowly.

So we go back tomorrow morning, it is our last visit before we can ask her to be part of our family.  We only have 2 hours but it is nice to mix up the time of day we get to see her.

By the way, it is confirmed...I stink at language.  Jamie is great, trying to learn words and phrases to ask and say.  But I got the mommy language, right????

Oh and our hotel costs $32 a night!  And a cup of espresso is $.50.  Lunch for 5 of us was $7.75.

Love to all!  To God be the glory, we are just the tool.