A Ball on a Boy

Saturday, 19 May

Not quite as time-adjusted as I had thought, I was awake and ready to meet the world at 6:30 AM. I got up, made a cup of tea, and went through a couple of sections of Russian using the Rosetta Stone program. I now know how to say “The horse jumps” and “A ball on a boy.” Really useful stuff.

At about 8:30, Mark got up, and we got ourselves around and ready to go by the time that our driver Sasha arrived at 10:45 to take us to the orphanage. We had brought gifts for several kids on behalf of their families, and we were able to see a couple of them to give them their gifts and take some photos/video of the kids, and to share lots of hugs and kisses. We’re finding that after school and on the weekends, these kids are petty busy…it’s hard to get them all in the same place at the same time!

Sveta had made arrangements to spend the morning with Fred and Lisa, so we were on our own. We thought it would be a good idea to take Masha to the beach before we got together with them for lunch. We thought wrong.

Lesson #1 of parenting was forgotten in our haste to see Masha…”Always be prepared.” We showed up at the beach with nothing. No towels, no beach ball, no Frisbee, no nothing. We walked up the beach, sat and stared at the sea a little bit. Masha was bored stiff. She took some pictures, but we were really ready for Sasha to return to take us to lunch.

We met back up with Fred and Lisa at a cafeteria restaurant in the center of town. These Ukrainians really like their cafeterias. They are a very popular and very inexpensive way to eat out…and pretty easy for those of us who don’t speak Russian…You can just kind of point at something, and they put it on a plate for you. Sveta has been very helpful in explaining what’s what so there are no major surprises!

Masha picked out some appropriate lunch foods, and then picked this giant tower of pink fluff on top of a cookie for dessert. She called it “Pieroshnoye.” It was the most vile pile of pink sugar….perfect choice for a kid. Fortunately, she had eaten enough for lunch (the biggest meal of the day for Ukrainians) that she got full about halfway through this monstrosity, and she abandoned it. At $0.26, we were OK with her not eating it all!

After lunch, we brought Masha back to our apartment to hang out for the afternoon. She learned how to play Blokus much quicker than I did, and after a couple of games, she asked to look at all the photos we had taken since we’d arrived. We showed her the photos of Kiev, and of her and her friends from our visit to the orphanage on Friday.

Since we had the laptop there, Mark skillfully sneaked a transition to Rosetta Stone for a quick English lesson. She did great at it until it got a little long and she got bored. She now knows how to say “The horse jumps” and “A ball on a boy.” Really useful stuff. Again.

We went outside to play on the playground outside our apartment, and Masha and I spent some time on the teeter-totter. Getting off, though, she slipped and broke the crystal on her watch. She wasn’t terribly upset, but she really wanted to go back inside, so we went back up, and watched about 20 minutes of Toy Story before it was time to take her back to the orphanage.

As we dropped her off, we were able to find one more of the kids for whom we had a gift. He was thrilled to open the package from his American family, and to hear Sveta read him the letter that they included. More hugs and photos, and he bolted back in to show his new stuff to his friends.

After saying our goodbyes, we went with Fred, Lisa and Sveta to the internet café for a quick check email check and then to Amstor. We were amazed that this place existed….Amstor is a grocery store on steroids, or a mini-Meijer. It’s a very very large grocery store with a little less than half the store dedicated to non-grocery items. You can get books, clothes, kitchen items, and CDs as well as fresh fruit, meat and fish, and of course, lots of sweets and liquor. Advice: Don’t worry about wasting any space in your luggage for any food items! We found pretty much anything we could want at Amstor.

Following Amstor, we went back to Papa Karlos’ cafeteria across from the university for a light dinner. I think we’ll be seeing a lot of that place!! Back at the apartment, we settled in and watched The Queen on the laptop and then went to bed.