Let's Go to Detskidom!!!

Friday, May 19

We spent the morning in eager anticipation of Rada and Andre coming over to visit. The kids were constantly asking what time are we going to get them. We told them it would be after lunch but they could hardly wait. About 3:00 we got a phone call from Andrew telling us he was coming to get us. Sasha and Stella already had their shoes on and were ready to go. Andrew gave us a free ride to the orphanage in exchange for us talking English to him. He wants to go to Canada and is a Electrical Engineer here in Karaganda. He is about 33 years old and has a wife and two sons ages 7 and 9. He wants to go but does not have training for electricity in Canada so it is unsure as to when he would be able to go.

We arrived at the orphanage at 4:00 thanks to Sasha’s excellent navigation. Everyone was glad to see us. We had many gifts for them and they love gifts. What kid doesn’t? The mothers were excited to have the water heating elements. We bought one for each group and we found out the whole orphanage will be going to camp on June 8th. That will be our last chance to see the kids before we leave. That is very sad to us. They will be gone until August 26th.

We talked to Sasha and Stella’s momma for a while. It was great to have another translator with us there at the orphanage. We had not met these mommas before so it was great to see them. Sasha’s momma had wonderful things to say about him and asked how they were behaving. We told her there was some arguing occasionally but things were good over all. She seemed surprised because he gets along so well with the other kids in his group. I guess it is just a sister thing!

Stella’s momma spoke English! What a treat! She used to teach German and English about 10-15 years ago so her English was rusty but got better the longer we talked. We were just about to leave when they told us they wanted to serve us tea or Chai as they call it. They serve tea that has little balls of tea that sit on the bottom of the mug and we had cookies, apples and lots of candy. They explained to us they were embarrassed to serve us such an unacceptable snack and we told them we had snacks like that in America. That seemed to go over well.

We left around 6:15 crammed into a hatchback 7 people! Garrett said we looked like clowns at the circus. We got back at 7:00 and they brought dinner to us which was wonderful. They played gameboy and leapster and lots of drawing and coloring. We also watched Mighty Joe Young. We had snacks and tried to get an acceptable game plan for sleeping arrangements. That was the worst part of the day!!! I thought we would never work it out. Apparently flexibility does not work with children. We kept expecting S&S to be good host but forgot these are their brother and sister in their eyes. Stella refused to let Rada sleep on the sofa bed with her which made Rada uncomfortable so Mom and Dad to the rescue. I scooped that girl up and she got to sleep in the bunk bed in Mama and Papa’s room. What a day! We need some good night sleepin’!