Today we woke up fully revived from our crazy non-stop day yesterday. But of course it was all worth it. We had arranged to spend the day with Karina on our turf. I went to pick her up at 9:30 (the kids were just waking up, not normal for them). I walk into the orphanage and even though I had a tour yesterday I was instantly lost. I managed to find an adorable little girl who tried to help me but with the language barrier she was no help but still cute as a button. I wondered around on my own until, amazing enough, I found Karina. The orphanage is like a maze of stairs and buildings all connected by hallways. It’s quite old and in need of many repairs and items for the children.
As soon as I found Karina she was beaming and ready to go. She is so happy to spend the day with us. I could tell that most of her friends were happy for her though some maybe were not. We called another taxi to come get us and off we went back to the apartment we rented for our time in Kirovograd.
Karina speaks very little English. So, we started out the day just pointing at things and I would tell her what it was called and had her repeat. We did this most of the day. When we got to the apartment, two fully rested children were now ready to greet and pounce on her in a good way. Happily, she was not too scared of all the attention. We were told by the interpreter yesterday that Karina is basically a very shy girl. Amazingly enough, she is fitting in quite well with our family. We are constantly told how much she resembles us in a physical way as if she truly was our birth daughter.
We picked up this hand carved chess board in Kiev and Aydan has not wanted to do anything else. So, the kids and Karina played chess for a good part of the day. Try explaining the rules of chess to someone who can’t speak English. Karina is very smart. Through hand motions and eye contact she was able to understand all the rules of the game.
Around 12:00 we decided to stroll around the town. It was a beautiful 70 degree day. Our apartment is right in the center of town so this is very convenient for us. We wanted to go to a bookstore to find some translation books and some batteries for our camera. While walking through town Angel saw the big Energizer bunny sign so off we went into the electronic store, Before our walk I was using Google translator to talk with Karina. It was great fun but I quickly realized that she could not communicate back to us because the Russian language has 33 letters in their alphabet. Well, thanks to that Energizer bunny, Angel and God we found a solution. I started to look around the store and became aware of the computer keyboards. Quickly I pulled Mark over to the keyboards and said, “Look at these keyboards. They have both English and Russian letters. We need to get this.” We purchased it for $12 US dollars. What a blessing.
Then we continued down the road to the book store. Once in the purely Ukrainian store we quickly realized we needed help. God heard. In the store was a wonderful sales person who spoke fluent English. She happily helped us find the Russian-English dictionaries we wanted and a simple phrase book.
Here’s a funny observation. For about 5 days now I have been looking for a normal size school notebook. Can’t find it anywhere. All the notebooks I have found have graph paper in them. Funny!
After the book store we went to lunch….yes you guessed it….PIZZA again. We saw a sign for a Pizza restaurant like the one we went to in Kiev. We assumed it was a chain but we quickly found out it was not. The restaurant in Kiev had an English and Russian menu but this one did not. We were able, with Karina’s help to muddle through the order. We got 2 pizza (small by American standards), 2 Calzones (single serving), 3 waters and 2 large beers for $15 US. Not a bad price for 5 people to eat. There was some confusion in our order but the kids were able to deal with the mistakes and go with the flow. This has been a great eye opening experience for them. They understand we are not in the USA and when mistakes happen there is no sending it back because we cannot communicate the problem.
After lunch we went back to the apartment for our schedule Skype with Evan. This was the first time Karina has seen her brother in a year. Julie worked through the night setting up Skype so we could surprise Evan with the phone call. They were so happy. Smiling ear to ear they talked for 30 minutes at least. It was great to see them connect. We ended up buying a keyboard for Evan too so he could continue writing Ukrainian and not lose his heritage.
Afterwards we hooked up our new keyboard and then the fun began. We used Google translator for about 2 hours and just talked and talked. Karina and I talked for an hour and then Angel and Karina talked about girl stuff for a hour. Then they logged on to you tube and pulled up videos of musicians that Karina likes. The girls had fun connecting.
During our conversation it was clear that Karina wants to spend every minute with us. It really warmed my heart when she said this.
Sadly, Mark is heading back to the USA tonight. It was really sad and scary to see him leave. Knowing that our time here is shorter than I expected will pull me through. It was a sad good-bye. After he took off for the long journey home (5 hour train ride and 16 hour flight with about 10 hours of waiting in between) we took Karina back to the Orphanage. Aydan informed me that was his first hug from Karina since he was so grumpy yesterday.
Then back to the apartment for some rest and relaxation.
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