Transportation…hmmm. To have someone drive us back and forth once to the orphanage is about twenty dollars and as one of the drivers grunted to Wendy when she tried to put her seat belt on, “your life is in my hands.” {I hope I got this right, Wendy.} On the other hand, the bus is cheap ringing in at only 1.25 in gryvnas, which is less than twenty cents. But the highlight of the bus comes not in cents but in the variety of scents. I bet you didn’t know that every person has their own unique body odor, probably depending on what they eat, how often they shower or whether or not they launder their cloths on a regular basis. The smell of smoke varies from fresh to stale. I personally prefer the fresh. And the smell of alcohol, well I’m sure you can imagine that. Given the heightened state of my sense of smell I get a new treat almost everyway I turn. It’s really quite a treat. Gina, your air freshener really was a fabulous idea, if only I could figure out a way to tie it around my neck.

I thought when we drove up to our apartment building that we had driven into the projects of Dniprodzerzhynsk. Come to find out this is what all of the apartment building look like here. In fact, Dave and I live in a palace compared to where Wendy is living now. Sorry Wendy. She showed us her apartment today. When she was done and we had sufficiently expressed our horror, Natalia graciously told us these are common living standards in Ukraine. In fact, often a family of six will live in this small of apartments.

There is garbage everywhere in this town. All of the dumpsters are chuck full. I asked Natalia about it and she said in small towns they must not pick up garbage. So, they burn it. At our apartments this morning there was a pile of garbage burning, also at the orphanage today they were burning some. Wendy said they do it all the time but the worst was when they were burning a pile of plastic bottles. So you can imagine the air quality here. There are also stray dogs everywhere. They don’t seem to bother anyone. I’m not sure how they survive, probably on all the garbage.

I don’t know if there are places as dirty or run down as this in the States. Maybe there are. I haven’t seen any. We really are blessed so greatly. I wonder if our happiness matches our abundance and how it compares to the people in places like this?

Anyway… Wendy, being the wonderful person that she is, showed us the ropes today. She’s got this place figured out. We started with the buses. We take bus 11 to get to the orphanage. It’s a little tricky. You never know for sure where it is going to stop. There is one definite stop but to get closest to the orphanage takes a little bit of guesswork. Will the bus stop where you want it or a block before or after? If you manage to catch number 11a you’ll be dropped right in front of the orphanage. But you can only catch that in certain places. And the bus has two dead ends so if you miss your stop you have to get out and try to catch another number 11 going the other way.

It is taking forever to load pictures today and the internet is hit and miss, so this is all the pictures for today. Sorry!

We are allowed to go to the orphanage after school and lunch are done at 2:30 and have to leave by about 6 so the kids can do homework and eat dinner. We spent the afternoon with Liuba, the two Julia’s and Karina playing frisbie and soccer. Soccer is very popular here. According to Natalia it is part of the school curriculum. The two Julia’s are very good. All these girls are super sweet. I’m so glad they are going to be adopted. Poor Karina has no prospects yet. She is a very petite and sweet eleven year-old. It breaks my heart to leave her there. She said today she wants to go to the states, too.

Whenever children pass they stare. From what I have seen the teachers are kind and caring. You can tell the director loves these children and wants them to be happy and they love her. But these kids crave attention. They must know we are Americans. A few of the braver ones came up us today. When we asked their names and ages they beam and try to use English words. What sweethearts. One sixteen year-old boy wanted to be a chef when he grows up. But he is sixteen and will graduate soon. I wonder what will become of him. The “real” world has a cruel way of quickly killing dreams. Natalia has said many times there is no future here. I hope it changes.

On a Lighter side, there is a temple being built in Kiev planning to open next year. It was announced in nineteen ninety-eight {my number keys :[} but ground wasn’t broken until 2006, I think. There are 10,000 members here. Maybe as the church grows things will grow brighter for the youth here.

We were hoping to attend the director, Nadia’s, granddaughter’s gymnastic meet today but were unable to get permission to take the girls in time. Tomorrow we are going to sign some documents at noon, I’m not sure what. But, then I believe we are allowed to take the girls off the orphanage property for small amounts of time. We did take them to the store today.

Liuba asked us if we were coming back tomorrow after lunch. We assured her we are. This will be our life for the next several weeks. We have to make sure all our documents are in order to we can apply for a court date. That will probably be a couple weeks out. Then there is a ten-day waiting period. After that we can take custody but still have to apply for and get a passport and a few other things. According to how things have gone for Wendy we will be here a total of five and half weeks. So, that is what we are planning on but I am really hoping for some miracle that will make things happen faster.