Day 8

We were told today that we could take the boys for the day as long as we had them back by 7pm. We thought we were being picked up at 11:15 am so we headed out at 10:00 for a walk and our driver pulled up. When we got to the orphanage some of the younger children were going to the circus. Our younger boy was supposed to go and I saw him right away with his coat on. He was so happy to see us and I asked if he was going to the circus. He said no he was going with us. I was relieved. He is so adorable! We sat down with him for a while and waited for the other families to show up. We watched all the little kids bundle up and head out to the circus. I would say a dozen or so kids went. One of our families was able to go with them and they had a great time. They said it was like going on a school field trip.

We headed out to McDonald’s to meet everyone. Well, McDonald’s is the place to be on Saturday. It was so crowded and you had to wait for a seat. They have a Ukrainian Hamburger on a wheat bun. Hubby had it and it was really good. They also had potato wedge seasoned fries. The boys had burgers and fries and I had a chicken, lettuce & tomato wrap. They have bottled water here. The most popular kind is water with gas, not just plain water. Water with gas is water with carbonation. When you go out to eat and ask for water, if you want regular water, you have to order water without gas. Hubby really likes it. I like to mix it with juice. All the families ate in the same restaurant, just not sitting near each other.

After lunch we headed to the “market”. It is basically a flea market with items like purses, clothes, shoes, etc. Many have American name brands although they are probably all fakes. The quality of the stuff is not that good and our translator said that many of these items are cheaper in regular shops. We walked around for a while and then we headed to a nearby park with one other family. We shared a van with them. The sun may have been out but it was really cold. Our younger boy rode a horse in the park and then we saw some carnival style rides in the back of the park. When I looked back toward the horses I saw a camel being led around…weird! One of the women in our group said the carnival rides looked like they were purchased from Lagoon in 1930. They were rusted and old, but the kids didn’t care. They rode the bumper cars twice and the Ferris wheel once. We had cotton candy and popcorn and the boys and men played soccer for a while in the very muddy grass. We stayed as long as I could handle it but the cold got the best of us.

We decided that in our last couple hours we would take the boys to our apartment and let the translator go home. We wanted to have some time with just them. At our apartment we talked with the internet translator and started a movie. We decided to go to pizza at a restaurant they also had in Kiev. We went to this one because it is a chain restaurant and their menu was in Russian and English. Well, when we got there we figured out that this one wasn’t. We ended up calling our facilitator and she talked to the clerk and translated for us. We had pizza and strawberry pancakes, which are really crepes drizzled with a strawberry syrup/jam. The food was wonderful! After dinner we stopped by the market for, of course, chocolate.

We met our driver and drove back to the orphanage. The director was there when we got there and she asked the kids if they had a good day and if they were hungry or not. Then she asked us how the kids were for us. Did they behave? Are we happy with them? Of course, we all were. She was very kind to all of us and told us we could come back tomorrow and pick the kids up for the day at 10:30 am.

We are looking forward to seeing them again tomorrow. We did miss visiting with all the other children at the orphanage today. Tomorrow the older kids go to the circus and some others are going to the cinema. Because we had the kids out on our own today it made me want so badly to get through with everything so we could take them home. It was nice to see how well our two boys interacted together today, much better than they did when we hosted them. The older boy is much kinder to the younger one now. Good thing.

I cannot believe we have been here a week. I hope time keeps going by quickly. It was another good day!