Wednesday and Thursday in Kharkiv
Sorry I didn't post anything yesterday. We are running extremely low on internet time. We are down to about 1/2 hour left. I can recharge my account when we get back to Kyiv, but can't from here.
So, Wednesday was a very full day. We did our "normal" routine for the most part. We left our apartment at about 9:30 to go see Dasha. It had rained all night and the streets here do not drain like they do in the U.S. Some of the smaller streets looked more like a stream than a street. Some of the main roads had about 6-inch deep standing water in the intersections.
We finally got to the orphanage, and Dasha was happy to see us again. We played in the same room as we had many other times. It's a small room with 3 little benches and wooden locker-like closets. This is where the children change from their outside clothes to their inside clothes. They all have to change their shoes in this room too, as their outside shoes are not allowed inside beyond this room. There was an Italian family in this room also. They are working to adopt a cute little girl named Katya. She's about Dasha's age, but a little smaller. We have seen this family on Tuesday with Katya also.
The other family was sitting there mostly quietly tossing a small ball back and forth. This gave Dasha ideas. Dasha went and got another ball from a closet in the corner of this room and started off gently tossing the ball back and forth to us. Before we knew it, Dasha was getting pretty roudy. The ball was bouncing off the ceiling, walls, and all of us too! We did what we could to keep her settled down a bit. She remembered the word "cookie" as she was asking for a pachernya and cookie. We didn't bring any gum today because she wouldn't keep it in her mouth the day before. We didn't bring any cookies either... bad papa and bad mama! But, we did bring M&Ms. They are her friends too. It rained the entire morning, so we weren't able to go outside to play. It was getting really roudy and loud in this little room with all the ball throwing between Dasha, Katya, and the Italian family's 9-ish year old boy. I decided to try something... I pulled out my laptop which had most of the Tom & Jerry tape recorded on it. The room fell silent almost immediately. It was funny because the Italian boy saw that it was Tom & Jerry and told his parents "blah..blah...blah...TOM & JERRY...blah...blah.." The rest was in Italian and I couldn't understand a bit. So I let the kids watch about 3-4 cartoons before turning it off. But it did wonders in settling the room down.
We left when the kids were getting ready for lunch, at about noon. We stopped by the Target supermarket to pick up a few things. We bought a few bags of candy bars to take back with us for the afternoon for the group. We left the supermarket to go to the medical clinic to pick up Dasha's AIDS test results. We didn't have any reason to believe that she was HIV+, but needed to have the test done because she hadn't been tested. Thankfully, the result was negative. To our surprise, the bill for the blood draw and the test was 10 UAH, or $2 USD! Amazing. I don't think you can drive by a U.S. clinic for $2 can you?
We went back to the apartment for lunch and a quick nap (these are getting addicting). Vitaly was back to pick us up at about 3:45 to go back to visit again. We brought the candy bars in the backpack so Dasha wouldn't see them. We waited in the little room until Dasha was done eating, then she came out to see us again. When one of the care takers walked through the room, I stopped her and asked if she could give them to the kids. She happily obliged. She called all the kids into the room and they went to their little desks. Dasha was given the bag of candy to give to all the other kids. The kids loved it. There was another bag of candy bars left when Dasha was done passing them out. The care taker gave Dasha the bag back and told her something. Dasha took the bag and hung it in her little locker. For the rest of the time we were in there, she ate a few more.
Soon we went outside. It had stopped raining, but was still muddy. The other kids were kept inside. Dasha put on her sweater, pants, and outside shoes then grabbed us to go outside. She took a ball with us to play outside. We threw and kicked the ball around for a while, then she was bored with that. We then went to walk around the building a few times until it was time for us to go.
We still didn't have hot water in the apartment, so our translator talked to the landlady and she asked if Vitaly could pick her up. We have a hot water tank in the apartment, but I couldn't find any circuit breaker to turn it on. So she and Vitaly arrive shortly after. They dink around with it for 15-20 minutes and still cannot figure out what valve to turn on an what to turn off. I saw where she had the circuit breaker, in a closet. So since they couldn't figure it out, they turned it back off and said that she would call a "professional" tomorrow. When they left, it took about 30 seconds for me to have it turned on and heating water properly. So last night we had hot water again.
We received a call from our translator this morning. Our driver needed to help someone move this afternoon and we wouldn't be able to visit Dasha this afternoon. We also had to cut our morning visit a bit short. So we went to visit Dasha at about 9:30 until about 11:00 this morning. We spent some time inside and outside today as we did yesterday.
Tonight we will find out if the NAC signed the paperwork for us to be able to go to court tomorrow. If all goes well, our translator will pick up the signed document tonight and take an overnight train to Kharkiv from Kyiv tonight. Tomorrow will bring many challenges. We will start at court, if all goes well there, we will have to get a "new" or "revised" birth certificate here in Kharkiv; then go to the passport office to get her Ukrainian passport. If we can get this all done tomorrow, we will head back to Kyiv tomorrow night.
I will attempt to post another photo album from Kyiv this weekend.