13 Days to Court

No real news to report. We are settling into a daily routine of visiting Juliana from 9:30 to 11:00, and 4:00 to 5:00. (By the way, we've decided that her nickname will be "Ana" as opposed to "Julie". Again, pronounced "ahna" not "anna". ) We bring along with us a backpack of toys with legos, dolls, etc. The orphanage has a separate room set aside for meetings like that. We prefer it this way as opposed to the other way where we were in a room with people passing through constantly speaking loudly in Russian either to us or each other. It was a bit more on the stressful side that way.

The orphanage really is very clean and it seems the children are well cared for - some of the staff are actually friendly and smile at us. Of course, that may have something to do with the two new, large rugs we bought for Juliana's group (about 11 or 12 children in her group, about 150 or so in the whole orphanage). Each adoptive family is expected (actually, required) to make a donation to the orphanage. We don't mind it at all because they've been caring for her her whole life and, though the facilities are better than what we expected, there is much that is wearing out and in need of replacement. The rugs were beautiful, about 10x15, and were only $100 each at the local market. Wish we could take one home with us. An additional $500 cash donation was also part of the deal. This orphanage keeps the kids through age 4, then they move on to another facility. We've been told there are 52 orphanages in Ukraine.

Our translator, Luba, has left for Kiev leaving us to navigate through daily life alone, though she is just a cell phone call away if we need her. We won't see her again until the end of next week, so we're really on our own for a good 11 days or so. Of course, we have picked up some basic Russian (which is spoken here more than Ukrainian): yes, no, good, good morning, good day, good evening, goodbye, how much?, please, thank you, you're welcome, ummm.... that's about it. As you can see, we're totally ready for independence :-).

We have learned to utilize the bus system to get into town and will try to consolidate our trips as much as possible. Tomorrow we'll visit with Juliana and then head out for groceries and some time at the internet place. It's not very fast, but is far, far better than what we have here in the apartment; we haven't even been able to post pictures from here the last few days without losing our connection. We'll get some pictures and maybe a new video posted tomorrow, hopefully.

Keep the posts coming - they're a real lifeline to us, making us feel closer to home and all of you while we feel so out of place here. Until next time...