Trip Report- Part 3

Trip to Skola InternatSo we get to XXX detsky dom early in the morning - like 7am - and the kids are all ready to go! The teachers told us that SW was up and dressed for hours since she got to leave the orphanage with her Mama and Papa. The orphanage workers also try to hype up the kids about starting school - to lessen the kids fears of moving I guess. Sad thing is, the internats are far worse than the detsky doms - often no hot water, poorly maintained buildings, dirty ripped clothing....After this morning, all three of our girls would be in Skola Internats - most Americans want to adopt "babies"- ie under the age of 5 - so they never see these internats and therefore the internats never get donations or sponsors let alone money from their own government. The older kids are seen as worthless and undesirable - and if the government can't exploit them (through adoption, hosting programs, and sadly prostitution) they don't bother to fund them or their boarding schools. The younger kids a valuable and desirable - so they are well funded and maintained. Anyways, back to the trip. We go to the nurse's office/medical cabinet as she has questions about the medical supplies we donated - specifically the digital thermometers. They use Celcius and we use Farenheight, so she needed to know what temperature reading would be considered "sick" on these American thermometers. We also used this time to find out about SW's health and orphanage healthcare in general. She said SW was NOT part gypsy, but was actually of Moldavian descent, which is far better in Ukrainian eyes - gypsies are treated as lesser humans, much like African Americans were treated here in the states. Then,into the room comes none other than little Miss Z! This is the little girl who my friend C wanted me to check in on as she is good friends with the little boy C is adopting. I didn't think I'd get the chance to see her since she was in a different groupa than SW and from what C had told me, Z was most likely not going to be "graduating" to the internats that year despite her age. But I guess the regional authorities overruled the director's recommendations since Z was one of the 5 kids we were going to be transporting to the internats! I was so glad I was going to have a chance to take photos of her and give her a hug on behalf of my friend. We get all the kiddos together and out to the yard we go, suitcases in tow. The representative from SW's new internat had not shown up, so the staff scurried about to make arrangements for one of their own caretakers to accompany us on the trip - which was awsome of them since they weren't required to do so - but I guess it was there way of saying thank you to us for renting this private bus for the day to transport all these kids (we paid out of our pocket). We get all the kids settled and their luggage packed in and off we went. It was going to be a long trip - 5 hours or so - so I had bought coloring books, toys, and snacks for the kids. The director had said she was going to send "bread and water" for the kids, so taking her on her word, I assumed they wouldn't have more than that which is why I bought this stuff...well the caretaker gets on the bus with a huge box of goodies! I felt like I was insulting her a bit by bringing my own stuff, but G explained my misunderstanding. Not only had she brought water, but she had butter cheese sandwiches, cookies, juice, candy and coloring books. The three kids going to Cherry internat were sweet - Z was one, and the other two were sisters. The younger sister was only 5 years old, but they wanted to keep her with her older sister so they sent her even though she wasn't the traditional age for an internat. The kids made a mess with the pens I bought for them - they were stamp, bubble, light-up pen combo things. The kids were stamping everything, so the ink was everywhere and I had to keep doing the mom spit-on-the-napkin thing to clean them up. We asked directions a few times, and stopped for bathroom breaks a few times. A few times the van stalled out and G , Andrew and the driver had to get behind the van and push to get it jump-started! LOL I wish I could have gotten a photo of that. We also stopped along side a forest for a pee break - no way was I pulling up a pine tree to pee haha. They all did their thing and then decided to go mushroom picking...which I guess is a pretty common Ukrainian pasttime. We finally get on our way, ask more directions and then stop to drop off the Cherry internat kids at a cross roads. The representatives from Cherry transfered their luggage, signed the papers and off they went. Z was crying the whole time. It was also at this point that SW's mood plummeted. She became grouchy, distant and sad. After fighting with herds of sheep for access to the road, we finally get to SW's new internat - her and one other little girl from XXX detsky dom will now be living in this place. Its in the middle of NOWHERE - and I mean nowhere. Like BFE, cows-outnumber-the-people, nowhere. There were 4 or 5 houses and the internat. That's it. No stores, no gas stations, not even a beer tent! The staff were nice though - very willing to help us adopt SW and not at all shy talking about helping us. They even gave us a banquet to thank us for transporting the kids. We were served "sour grass" soup, sausage, smoked pork fat, fresh raw tomatoes, apple juice, bread, and buckwheat porridge. yum yum LOL Through all this SW is being very cold and distant - refusing any type of reassurance from us. I keep breaking down in tears at the thought of leaving her in this rural farm town- she is such a prissy girl, totally not suited to raising pigs or bees (which they do there - the smoked fat was from pigs they raised, the woman beamed!). I insisted on seeing where she would be sleeping - it was a small dirty room with thin stained mattresses and a hard bare floor. Half the mattresses were torn and falling off the beds. Lovely. So it was time to say goodbye and I just lost it. I told SW that I loved her and we would be back soon to get her and then I darted into the van and broke down. Even Andrew started crying, and as we started to pull away, SW started crying. Eventually we were dropped off at the train station in Nizhn (just Andrew, G and I - the driver and caretaker were returning to XXX) and we waited in the rain for our train to arrive. A stray dog started folowing us, so I gave him some cookies....then some sausage...so he started following us more. This is a dead give-away that you are American BTW - feeding stray animals. Ukrainians just don't do it. I don't think they even see these animals - they totally ignore them. The train ride to Kyiv is only 2 hours long, and we went directly back to the Kyiv flat, changed out of our wet clothes and went to bed. The next day we were going to catch up on rest and laundry and do some shopping in Kyiv.