A day with the Orphans

Today I visited several childrens homes in our area. First we went to my favorite children's home in Vagonka and I was very happy to see that my friend Roman has been adopted. Also Edik who is another of my favorites who you can see here all smiling and happy is in process of being adopted. Yeah! They are both beautiful well behaved little boys and I am so glad they now will both have a Mom and Dad.  We played games and sang songs and told stories and put together some puzzles. It was great fun to be there with them. I haven't gone for awhile because the have been under quarentine for something called itching disease. 

Afterwards I met up with Elena and we went to the shelter for runaways that

 Desanagiving sponsers. Those kids are all just lost souls with no direction. They feed them a few meals a week and try to give them counseling. Alexei was with me and he gave the boys a very good lecture about setting goals and not being so self absorbed. Ya gotta luv im! He is always pleasant to take to these places. He says all the stuff I would say if I could speak the language better. 

The biggest of the boys started asking me questions about America. He wanted to know if I knew any black gang members, If it was legal to put graffiti on public places and if I was into hip hop. He was very disapointed with my answers. 

I don't think I am cool enough for him.  They offered to share their lunch with them so I tried a little beet and potato salad. It looked ok, but did not settle well. 

Next we went to the store to buy some groceries with Desanagiving funds and went to visit a graduate of the children's orphanages who has been sent to the village her Mother was from and given the family apartment. She has a small baby. 

It was basically comparable to living in a barn. She had a tiny 2 room place that hasn't been renovated since 1920. No running water, No bathroom. An outhouse. A mattress on the floor. The stove was blocked so she couldn't heat the place because all the smoke came back into the room. The tiny refrigerater wasn't working. She had a hot plate to cook on but has to haul her water from the local pump. I insisted we needed

 to get the stove cleaned so she could build a fire and warm the place. When the people downstairs from her start their fire in their stove all the smoke comes into her little apartment. It has got to be a fire hazard. The whole place is one big tinderblock waiting to go up in smoke. Her babies hands were very cold! I volunteered to pay for the cleaning of the stove. So Elena went to the city hall to see if they could refer us to anyone. They told us they were aware of this girl and her situation. She had been sent to them with about 700 dollars from the state to help her get started. She was young and inexperienced so the woman from city hall tried to help her figure things out. She set her up with a bank account and tried to help. but the girl used the money to buy a small tv and a cell phone and DVD player instead of

 getting the basics for the winter set up. She recieves about 60 dollars a month from the state until her baby is 18 months old. After that she will be completely on her own. She was working as a cook before the baby was born, but now has no one to watch the baby so she can go back to work.  We told her we would like to help get some heat in her house. She said she would see what she could arrange for us. It was a reality check as to what poverty really is.

 Another interesting thing in that little village was the whole look of the place. It had the appearance of being at one time a nice village that fell into disrepair and now is starting to come back to life. Alexi saw a monument and went to look at it. It was a monument to the soldiers from that village that had died in World War II.  1400 Soldiers had died from that village. The village only has about 5 thousand people in it. So it had to have been all the male population of that time. It was a city of widows and orphans. Very sobering to think about.

We then went to the family that has taken in 11 foster children and the woman came to the door completely frazzled. One of the children had fallen and cut his head and her husband was on the way to the hospital with him. She had blood on her arms and was really shaken up. All the children were sitting in the livingroom, very quiet! I was asked to sing some American songs with them. So we did that and I told the story of the boy and his goats with the help of a translator. I had made some snickerdoodles to take to all the places we went to so we shared the cookies and tried to cheer up the kids. 

It was a long day. We tried to spread a little cheer where we went, but it is a bit overwhelming when you see so many people struggling in such a short amount of time. 

Today I am picking up my coat. I took it in to have some real fur added to the collar. The stuff that was on the collar was getting all matted and ugly, but the down coat is still in great condition. Now I am starting to understand why they use real fur here. The weather wears down everything else. They pulled out a big fox pelt for me to look at. The pelt cost 45 dollars and they would only sell me the entire pelt. Not just a piece of it. It was a bit of a shock to see the feet and tail and all attached but I did it anyway. I don't know what I will do with the rest of the pelt. Gary will probably just use it as a means to tease the kitten.

Saturday Drive

We went for a drive on Saturday and walked for awhile up in the forest. It was nice. Gary found our summer home. What do you think?
On the way home we spotted some old antique Russian window frames that were just sitting outside in front of a house, so we stopped and had our driver go to the door and ask him if he would sell them to us. He had four big old window frames and sold them all to us for about 30 dollars. He had put up new siding and windows on his old dacha and had no use for the old window frames. Gary was delighted. We put them on top of the car and then went to a car wash and had them washed and then he took them to work and laid them out to dry. He wants to hang them in his office and put work assignments in them. The Russians who work for him think he is nuts! But you know they really are beautiful old hand made artistic things. The russians don't appreciate that stuff yet, but I think someday they will because all the new things that are going up are just plain without the decorative work. In fifty years all the old windows will disappear. After picking up the windows we spotted smoke coming from the street up the road and went to see what it was and it was an abandoned kindergarten school that had started on fire. All the locals were starting to gather around. No one was doing anything about it though. I guess there is not much you can do when you have to pump the water up from the local well. As we left, the fire trucks all started to come so we were glad to get out of the way. Then we passed a store that makes gravestones and Gary decided to stop by. They etch the dead man's face on the granite and put it on the stone. Gary wants to buy one and take it home. Kind of morbid, but they are nice. He particularly liked the sales lady. He thought she belonged in that job. What you think?

New Baby

We have had an interesting week with lots of things going on. I did not get to go up to the children's home on Monday because Alexi's wife went into labor Sunday night and I did not feel I could ask him to take off for the day on Monday just to drive us up there. He called at 7 pm Sunday night. He had taken her to the hospital and then taken his kids to his Mom's house and then called an hour later and she had already had the baby. Men are not invited into the hospital at all and if they want to see the baby they have to stand outside of the hospital during visiting hours and wait for their wives to hold the baby up to the window. The women mark their windows with a sign so the men know which window to look into. We tell them about the way we do it in the states and they just shake their heads and look confused. The baby was born on Women's day. It is like mother's day in the states. So that was a nice present for Elena.
They stopped by on their way home from the hospital on Thursday and their daughter is beautiful. She was all bundled up with a big ribbon around her. So cute! I offered to take dinner to them and I think they were really nervous. I don't think they understand the American tradition of bringing a meal in. I think they thought I wanted to come for dinner.

Goodbye to winter?

So this weekend was the first day of Lent. Traditionally the Russians eat Pancakes on the first day of Lent. Their pancakes are more like French Crepes. They fill them with all manner of fillings and they are really delicious! They also have a public festival with performers. Lady winter appears on a tall stick and conducts contests with people at the festival. At the end of the festival she gets burned as a way of celebrating the end of winter. It really isn't the end of winter here, I wish. My feet were freezing. I was wishing I was wearing one of the fur coats that everyone else had on. The Russians erect a tall pole and rub it down with soap. The soap freezes making it difficult to climb. Anyone who successfully climbs it wins a boot for a prize. They also had pillow fighting contests, jugglers, fire eaters, a Balalika performance, sleigh rides for the children, and a pancake eating contest.
In between the contests the Russians drink, then they eat Shashlika. (Lovely Russian Barbecue) Then they drink some more, then they eat more Shashlika, then they drink more, and more and more. We left before it got too crazy. I prefer the Russians when they are atleast slightly sober.




It was a fun festival and lifted my spirits a bit after our return from London. The Russians really know how to throw a good party. Ya gotta luv 'em.

Aaron Clark-Wills Ordination

I find it interesting that we never really permantly leave London and always feel like we have commitments there. Our lovely friend Aaron grew up and asked Gary to come back for the weekend and ordain him an Elder. We were delighted to come, but surprisingly over a short three day weekend Gary was asked to give two Priesthood blessings as well and we spent quite a bit of time at the hospital unexpectedly with a friend and ward member David Lawrence who died two days after we left of a Brain Tumor. It was an emotionally draining weekend. We were glad to be there for Aaron who we love like family, but it was hard to see other friends struggling with health and other issues. I don't know if we will ever be able to truly let go of London and our church family there. Leaving is always a huge let down and more and more we begin to wonder if we shouldn't just plan on a London retirement.