A Day in the Life of our Friends

This is written by my friends who are overseas right now. It is an account of what their days are like while they are away visiting the orphans.

We have to be at the orphanage at 10:00 am! We hurry down the garbage covered walkway to the parking lot of a mall where our taxi man, Nickoli, is waiting to take us the five-minute drive to the orphanage. There is garbage everywhere and it smells like garbage all the time. We hop in the car with a quick, "Priviet" or "Doh Bree Dayn" and then our driver speeds away at 200

miles per hour (or so it seems).

Soon we pull down the back street and see the green railing that leads up to the door of the orphanage. At this orphanage there are many scattered, run down buildings with children in them. We have only been allowed into the one where our children are. We hop out of the car and climb the steps.

This harmless looking building hides harmful secrets behind it's closed wooden doors. No passerby would know a starving six-year-old, who weighed only 15 pounds, laid immobile in a wooden crib, or two blind boys named Timofey and Ivan rocked back and forth, back and forth in their dark worlds--no one touching them or talking to them.

I feel frightened every time that I arrive at this door. I hope that this day will be the day I get to touch the children.

After hanging up our coats, one of the workers brings Timofey out of his room to us. When I gather him in my arms he instantly starts to squeal and laugh and talk to me. He doesn't speak English, but he doesn't speak Ukrainian, either. He's never been talked to, so he doesn't know Ukrainian. He speaks to me in "Timmyian" which mostly consists of, "Walla, walla, balla, balla, walla..."

And Pasha is brought out by the hand running to us and laughing as we swoop him up into the air. Dad zooms him through the air and plops him on the couch. For two hours we play with Pasha and Timofey before I lead Pasha back into his room. He always cries when I leave him. Anya used to run and grab my hand, but he always got yelled at by the workers so now only his eyes grab me when I walk by. Then we bring Timofey back. Timofey doesn't ever cry. Maybe it's because he is blind and by the time he realizes he has been left it is too late.

We take the taxi home to have a bit a family time and some lunch before we go to the orphanage at 4:00 and visit until 5:00. It is so hard to be holding Timofey and looking through the door at hopeful Rasla, confined behind bars. Please, he seems to say. Come touch me, and we can't.