Sunday at the Orphanage

We arrived at the orphanage a bit after 10am this morning.  Dasha's group was already outside playing.  We walked towards the playground where there were lots of kids playing.  I was hoping to see Dasha before she saw us, so I could see her reaction.  However, word spread through the playground quickly as we heard "Dasha" a few times coming from other kids.  Before I knew it, I saw Dasha running towards us.  She was as happy to see us as she had been the other times.  She ran right up to me and got a big hug.  We then followed her to the playground where she did her normal things.  One of her favorite things to do in the playground is to climb up on something and jump into our arms.  She will tell us "mama" or "papa" for who she wants to catch her.  It really is cute.  I took a video of her today doing this:  http://files.blog-city.com/files/N04/78305/b/jumper.MPG

Other children started to come around us.  Previously, Dasha would start to get jealous and either take us by the hand and go further away, or shoo the other kids away.  Today was a bit different.  Dasha would play with the other kids around us for the first time.  She would also let us play with the other kids a bit too.  A little later, another little girl came by with a hula-hoop.  I was amazed at how well she kept this thing going.  Then Dasha gave it a try.  Again, amazed.  She's an old pro at this.  See here:  http://files.blog-city.com/files/N04/78305/b/hoop.MPG

Dasha kept asking for cookies, with a very somber, sad look on her face, she would say "pachanya" the Russian word for cookie.  We were able to coax her into saying "cookie" a few times so she got the cookies.  A bit later, she gave me the sign for candy.  I had been giving her M&Ms one or two at a time for the past few days.  She knows what pocket I keep them in now.  She would hold her hand out to me and then pop it over her mouth and make some chewing movements with her mouth.  It still amazes me to see how well she can communicate without knowing a common language.  So, I would get the M&Ms out and tell her "odim" and as usual, she would hold up two fingers and say "dva".  This would go back and forth a few times until I would finally give in and give her two.  If I only give her one, she will not eat it, but hold on to it.  If I give her two, she will eat them both, but only one at a time. 

We left a bit after noon, when it's thier lunch time.  Her group was going inside, so we headed to the car.  We both got a big hug and kiss, then a nice little "das vadanya" as usual.  Then she followed her group inside.

We came back to the apartment.  Today was our translator's last day here until Friday.  She has to go back to Kyiv to deal with some of the legal paperwork for us.  We will stay here and visit Dasha every morning.  Our driver, Vitaly will continue to stay in Kharkiv at a relative's house.  He will take us to see Dasha every day, and also take us if we need to go anywhere else.

We walked to the market when we got home.  We bought another outfit for Dasha.  It was a pink shorts and tee shirt set that matched.  Prices in these markets are very good.  This was 16 UAH, or a bit more than $3 USD.  We then walked over to the grocery store to pick up a few things.  Luckily we didn't pick up one more thing... our bill was 69.70 UAH and all we had with us was 70!  That left us with the equivalent of about 6 cents US.  Dumb luck because we didn't even keep track of what we were spending.  I thought I had more grivna than I did.  We will have to get some money exchanged tomorrow. 

Here's some pictures for today: 

First is Dasha smiling over a wall at me:  http://files.blog-city.com/files/N04/78305/p/f/86_smile_over_wall.jpg

Second, she wanted my sunglasses in the worst way:  http://files.blog-city.com/files/N04/78305/p/f/87_cool_with_friend.jpg

Last but not least, what seems to be her favorite playground game:  http://files.blog-city.com/files/N04/78305/p/f/88_jumper.jpg

That's it for today