Wednesday, October 18, 2006

Daily journals...day one

Day one: Life in Sakhnovschina

We left Kharkiv at 6 am. And arrived in Sakhnovschina around 9 am. (The guys HAD to go to McDonalds WHERE by the way they DO NOT serve breakfast. Only Big Macs, French fries, soda and coffee. Can you say YUCK? John and our driver Andrew we happy!)

After arrival our first order of business was for us to see Oleg. We were gone one more day than we told him we would be and I was worried about what he was thinking. The school informed us that Oleg was at the Doctors getting his physical that is necessary per the region for the court to finish his documents. We waited in the office – boring! Where was my son? After a while Oleg finally came racing through the door ecstatic that we were back. A couple of hugs and a few quick kisses and he was off again for breakfast and class.

So, now that this issue was settled it was time to move on with the apartment. Looking at the homes and apartments around this small village - located out in the middle of nowhere - I was not thinking this was gonna be a good experience. So we waited for the teacher who had the apartment to finish school and she walked us to the apartment. It is basically straight down the road from the school. About a 15 minute walk. (There goes more of my butt again! Hooray! I have walked anywhere from 4 to 20 miles per day, I swear!)

As we follow this woman who speaks no English we see houses falling apart. Apartments that look like they should be knocked down. A children’s play area that would be condemned in the USA. A few stores (Referred to here as grocery) etc. We walk and walk and walk…all the while I’m thinking “how far is this anyhow?”

Finally, we reach and area where we cut across a yard full of chickens, geese and other deplorable items not worth mentioning. Now I’m thinking “Do I REALLY want to be this close to Oleg after all?” Of course my mind says “yes” and we continue following her. We reach our destination and climb up the stairs to the second floor. (Marie says this is the kind of building that “looks like an outline of a dead body should be seen) The door is white and new. Okay, I think, so that is a good sign? We enter the apartment and the first thing I see is a 1960’s flash back of my Grandmothers apartment in Long Beach. OLD brick buildings with walls covered in wallpaper and paint so think and shiny you wonder how long it has actually been there. There are new carpets scattered on the floors and it has homey touches here and there. The bathroom has a door but a big hole cut out of it. The kitchen is small and quaint but there is only a microwave – no oven or cook top. The bedroom is two beds shoved together with a really nice cotton quilt on top. BIG European down pillows cover the bed and that was unexpected. All in all it was nice considering what the others in town were living in. We could tell they were giving us the best they had and I tried very hard to show my appreciation for their kindness. And she was only charging us $25 per night! If we had stayed in Kharkiv it would have been $50 to $90 per night and $100 per trip for a driver. Not to mention the 2.5 hour drive we would have had to endure. At that savings and being so close to Oleg I think I can make this work!

Okay, so this is much better than we would have ever expected. The heat for the village was just turned on (Don’t know how I would have made it through that issue as it is barely 60 degrees outside during the day) and there is suppose to be hot water. The teacher tried to demonstrate this for us but low and behold, there was no water! Later, Irene came in and said the whole village was out, so we believed it was only a matter of time before they got that fixed. The biggest issue at this time is there is no refrigerator and we had bought all this food for the stay. The teacher found us one and brought it at 5 pm. The only thing we needed now was a stove or hot plate.

We went to the school at 2 pm and took Oleg for a walk into village. We bought bread and ice cream bars, (Oleg liked that part…we are gonna keep it a daily tradition) and some Coke. We didn’t find a hot plate though.

Oleg went home with us to play a game on the computer with John. Before we knew it 6:30 pm. was here and we had to walk him back to the orphanage. We gave him goodbye kisses and said “Hi!” to all the children standing around and went home. Flashlights are very necessary here as we could not see to walk across the yard or walk up our stairwell.

We reveled in the knowledge that we could sleep as late as we wanted and after a quick bath (another adventure!) we were in bed for the night. What a day!

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