times flies............

this past week has flown by.....each day we have been busy working and/or playing. actually i consider most of the work we do, great fun! i think this means that I LOVE MY WORK! i think erin and demetra and kaleigh are becoming africanized a bit...this, in general, means they are used to the electricity going out, hot water being a real luxury and eating cold leftover beans and rice for dinner. kaleigh has been a trooper and never complains about not having tv or having to spend hours in the van or my puppies aka demon dogs, tearing her clothes to shreds or coffee pot showers. now there have been a few complaints about slowwwww internet, room temp cokes and mucho mosquitos, but all in all everyone had adjusted well. demetra even likes matooke and erin loves samosas and george has been a great camera man....kaleigh, well, she keeps everyone laughing. we have all worked to develop british accents, well not george. i don't really know why....but sometimes we have laughed so much that kaleigh has fallen off the sofa!

GOING POSTAL....AGAIN!

we (george, demetra, kaleigh, erin and i) arrived in kampala early tuesday morning after a really long journey through chicago, istanbul and kigali). every piece of our luggage arrived yesterday! yay! never have 5 people been so happy to see clean underwear and tubes of deodorant! the house looks great....the yard and flowers are gorgeous, the pups have received a new name..."demon dogs"! they are so so bad....huge, and capable of destroying just about anything in the blink of an eye. we are seriously considering an exorcism....haha.

Yuzhakova

our trip is rapidly drawing to an end. we have stayed on the go the entire time....renewing our passion and love for the russian orphans. elena is, as always, an inspiration. zhenya is awesome...can't even fathom how many orphans he knows in this area, it must be thousands! yet he always has time to share a hug and a chat with each and every one, and lets them all know they are loved and important!
yesterday we journeyed to petrokamensk hospital...sort of a transition home for children recently removed from their families due to living conditions, abuse, hunger, etc. it is a sad, sad place. children do not really understand why they have been taken away from their families and put into this institution. there are a few old beds, rickety cribs, a few toys, and meals of porridge and bread, or watery soup and noodles and an occasional piece of fish. elena and zhenya always bring the children fruit and juice and treats..sometimes clothes and toys. anya is there now..she is the daughter or valya...a young woman who has been in the desana orphanage program for several years. last year valya and anya were attacked (by one of valya's friend's boyfriend) with an axe. both survived though anya carries emotional and physical scars....she was in the hospital for a month. she was recently discovered to be living in horrible conditions....dity, hungry, etc so was taken from valya and put in the russian orphanage system. now valya is no where to be found and the fate of this adorable child is uncertain. i had to hold back tears looking at her sweet, sweet face and all thinking about all she has been through in 4 short years. this "job" of mine has it's highs and lows...laughter and tears....keeping me humble and emptying my heart.

my weekend!

what a weekend! i don’t know how many miles we traveled through the russian countryside, but it was many hours with our wonderful friends; elena, zhenya and natasha! saturday morning we headed to the children’s village orphanage in zaimka (a small village about 100 miles north of nizhni tagil) for our annual summer bbq. the local customs folks provided transportation and a driver in their wonderful passenger van.....FREE of charge. we were stuffed to the gills with boxes and bags and crates of fruit, vegetables, hot dogs and bread, cokes, pastries, candy, ball caps, shoes, toys, etc. when we arrived at the orphanage we were welcomed enthusiastically by the staff and the children. the best thing was that ALEXEY ran to greet us and gave me HUGE hugs! how wonderful to see him again after 4 years! he is grown and handsome and will soon be graduating and learning how to be a house painter. due to some learning disabilities, he will not be eligible to attend a university.

orphanage #1

george and i left our condo in nashville, tennessee about 9am on wednesday the 6th outward bound for nizhny tagil, russia and some long overdo visits to orphanages, a shelter and several hospitals scattered across the russian countryside in the ural mountains. we finally reached nizhny tagil on friday morning at 8am....both exhausted and ready to start visiting the children we hadn’t seen in 4 years! elena antropyanskaya hibbler, our good friend and russian project director, arranged for us to say in her friend’s apartment so we have all the comforts of home in this far away land. it’s going to take some time to adjust to the fact that although the sun goes down somewhere around 11pm, but it never really gets dark. tuesday is the russian independence day....last time we were here, it snowed on independence day...surely hope that doesn’t happen this year!!!!