Daily journal...Days eight and nine

Days eight and nine – The sun is finally out!

It is a balmy 50 degrees here in Sak. The sun is shining ands my spirits are higher! I hate the doom and gloom that comes with clouds and rain. My psyche does much better when the sun is out and about.

Oleg was has been able to spend more time with us. John sat down and showed Oleg the calendar of events and the time line for him to come home. Oleg seemed quite happy that he and papa will be hanging out alone together…male bonding time…LOL

We taught Oleg how to play Skip Bo. Everything we teach him he picks up on quickly and wipes the board with us. He wins everything! I don’t know where he gets them from, but he will draw four or five wild cards off the deck, then turn over his pile card and there is another wild card. And I dealt them, so I know he is not cheating. He’s a card shark!

The ping pong table arrived today. After some deliberation on the best way to actually get the awkward and heavy box in the building, they then had to decide where to put it. It ended up on the boarding (sleeping) side in the common area. These are wide open areas off to the side of the building. The perfect place for a ping pong table. There were several men standing around to help, but John ad Andrew did a bulk of it. A particularly funny part was when John opened the box and threw the instructions over his shoulder. Andrew laughed and shook his head yes…It was hysterical. See gals, even in the Ukraine men don’t need instructions! LOL. Well, in the end they did need the instructions and I have to say both John and I are very impressed with the professional quality of this ping pong table. The children stood around and watched the whole time – they were SO EXCITED! John and I stood at it and played a back and forth a few times, and then the children lined up for their turns. When John returned three hours later the children were lined up ten deep waiting to play. It’s a HIT! It is located outside of the ‘Faith and Trust” room and it appears they will roll it in there for safe keeping when not in use. I plan on fund raising for two more tables - they are sorely needed as there is not a lot for these children to do.

Oleg’s P.E teachers came and visited us last night. What a HOOT! Their names are Igor and Katarina. Igor was a little sauced with Vodka, but most men around here are. Not drunk like get out of my face, just really tipsy and funny. He kept saying “I – no…WE Love America!” Except this was yelled out…REALLY loud. Over and again. He has a booming voice and I’m sure all of the neighbors could hear him. LOL. They are very happy for Oleg and we toasted to Oleg’s new Mama and Papa and taught them how to play Go fish. When they finally left they were yelling at us down the stair case “We love you our American friends!” at 11 pm at night…I’m sure the neighbors loved it…

Speaking of neighbors. There is older man that lives below us. Apparently our water valves were leaking and running down his walls. He came up twice to talk to us and kept pointing at the floor. We didn’t understand him and finally had to have Irene translate on the phone for us. After we figured out what the problem was we went to investigate and sure enough the pipes under the kitchen sink were leaking. We didn’t see it because there are carpets all over the floors and it went down instead of out. So, the landlady came and brought a guy with her to fix it. We thought all was fine until a bath Friday night. We were all dressed for bed and watching a movie when I hear this pounding sound. John gets up and checks the front door and there is no one there. About 10 minutes later there is more pounding, but louder this time. Once again John gets up and checks the door. No one there. Hmmmmm. Interesting! John figures maybe the neighbor is not happy with the noise in the bathroom as it was late at night and was banging on the ceiling to tell us so.

Right as I am falling asleep there is this awful pounding on our front door. BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! John and I both bolt straight up in bed. What the heck? This time there is someone at the front door. He is ranting and raving, pointing at the floor. We already know now what this has to be about so we have Irene call the landlady and have them get over there ASAP. Apparently it was now a waterfall of water and the poor guy was floating away. They had no choice but to shut our water off till the next day and while we were dealing with the ping pong table they fixed it. The tub and kitchen sink drain were leaking and they had to cut a hole in the side of the tub to fix it. The good news was when he finished the bathroom no longer smelled. The bad news was that as soon as we used the tub area it started to smell like sewer again. So, now we know where the mysterious bad smell is from…the drains. I will be calling again this morning to try and get this fixed. I can hardly stand to go into the bathroom the smell is so bad in there.

Today is Sunday and John and Oleg went to the outdoor market together. Along with groceries they brought me back roses. Very sweet of them! They also purchased a piggy bank for Oleg’s best friend Sasha and we are filling it with coins. Sasha is a sweet boy and if they continue the hosting program we will bring him out in the summer to spend time with Oleg. He will miss his friend.

Tuesday we leave for Kharkiv. We are going to visit Slava and Polina and their new baby Michael. John is accompanying Slava to the airport to pick up Trey. We will spend the day together and go to the market etc…then back to Sak. for court on Wednesday. I will be updating the blog from there.

Take care! We miss and love you all!
K~