Shopping with Marina

Yesterday, we went up to the orphanage and Marina had to take her medicine (for hypertension) and then she asked her teacher if she could go with us to our house . . . the teacher said that was fine as long as we had her back by 8 or 9 p.m.. So, we left and came to our house and tried to work on a puzzle I brought with us of the Capital and Washington Monument, but it was a 1000 piece puzzle and we would need a table set aside in order to keep working on it from day to day. Eventually we all gave up on it - which is not in my nature and I hated to put the pieces back into the box after just begining to make progress, but I knew there was no way to get it done before dinner and we had it all over the dinner table. After that we decided to go to the store to get some more water and other things (you can't drink the water here because of Giardia (sp??) which is a parasite that will cause a terrible case of intestinal problems . . .enough said. Thank God, we have had NO such problems so far :) So, we went to the store in a taxi and Olga told the taxi driver to wait for us and show us where the store was. In stead of having one big store they have several little stores each specializing in something different - maybe it's housewaress, food, toiletries, baked goods, deli fixings, etc. and we went and bought some more things to eat for breakfast, like cereal and yougurt and we also bought milk (it comes in a bag here), water, Pepsi, Fanta for Marina, and every time they needed to give us change back, they paid us in peices of candy, which Marina just loved!! She boughts three suckers for her and Hannah and Jordan which I thoughts was sweet of her. She told me the candy here in Ukraine is VERY good in comparison to the US and from what I tasted, I would have to agree it is superior! Then she wanted to buy a watch for a friend of hers at the orphanage - a boy named Deema (sp??) whose birthday was 4 days ago. I was not so crazy about having to buy some kid a watch because I was afraid to start something with other kids wanting this and that, but the watch wich would have cost in the states an easy . . . $50-75, was only $5 US here!! Not too bad. When we got home we realized it needed a battery and we would need to make another trip to town by taxi to get one, but then we realized that the battery in my watch was the same size, so we put it in his watch and we'll make due with James' watch and the time on our phones for now. Marina had on the little Tinker Bell watch Nina bought her and she offered me her battery, but I told her that was okay, I'd buy another one. She is so sweet and giving:) When we left the orpanage yesterday, little Olga seemed so sad that she could not go . . . I don't know if the teacher would have let her or not, but Marina told her no, and I could tell she was bummed about it. We saw her brother yesterday too, and he was all smiles and we took some pictures of them with some other boys who all hammed it up for the camera. They want pictures taken of them . . . maybe they hope someone else will see their picture and come for them??? Maybe they just like the attention - I don't know.

So, after we got back from the store we put our groceries away and went upstairs to put together some little gifts for Marina to take back to the orphanage to give to her friends. Thank God I had just the right amount of gifts for each of her friends both girls and boys. I bought things like fuzzy socks and gloves, pencil and eraser sets with Tinker Bell and Spider Man on them, sidewalk chalk, super balls, stickers, etc. and I had little gift bags and boxes that we divided all the items up and put them in. Each child got a few little things in his or her own package. I hope they liked it - I'm sure they did :) I think Marina felt grateful to have something to GIVE to her friends as well. She didn't ask for any of it for herself which surprised me! I guess she feels she will not lack for anything now in comparison - that must feel so good to her:) We as Americans have so much - we don't even realize how MUCH we have. People here have just enough to make do with, and even in their homes nothing is matching or coordinating . . . like at home we have coordinating furniture, towels, plates and glassware, etc. They do not. The other thing they don't have that I noticed are fitted sheets for their beds. They put a flat sheet down with big SQUARE feather pillows and then a blanket that is fit inside a sheet-like cover (duvet) for your top sheet and blanket. In the morning we wake up and the flat sheet under us is all bunched up somewhere. They could stand to have those elastic bands with the clips on them to hold their sheets on the corners of their beds. That would seem like a luxury item here! I woke up around 4 am again this morning and studied some more - glad I brought my booklight! It was raining again, and I had heard that today was going to be raining all day, but so far the sun is out. I would say they are about a month ahead of us as far as the "fall" is concerned. The leaves are yellow and red and falling when the wind blows. Marina told me she likes the yellow leaves the best. It's very peaceful here with only the sounds of animals in the countryside. It's no wonder Marina has told me before when she was at our house she prefers the country to the city - it's what she is used to. I guess our house will be a perfect fit for her in that respect. This morning, I was telling Olga about Hannah and Jordan and showed her a picture of them with Marina. Then she asked if we had a big house and I told her it was about the same size as this maybe a bit bigger. I realized that Marina has her photo albumn at the orphanage with pictures of home, so I told her I would have Marina bring it here this afternoon after school so she could see where we come from. She asked if we lived in the city and I told her no - the country SOMEWHAT similar to here. She seemed excited to see the pictures and when we watched the weather on CNN this morning and they showed the US map, she wanted to know where we lived. We showed her and she said "ahhh, in middle, yes?" (middle of the US) She seems very sweet and Constantine is just great too. They are very hospitable and we want to get them something nice before we leave, but what??? (a dog with 4 legs? - hahahaha!) I'm sure we'll figure it out :) They really have a pretty cool set-up here, behind their house is another 2 buildings and an in-ground pool (probably 15+ feet deep!) They just drained the pool for the season though. Anyway, in one building behind the pool they have a dry sauna and our translator told us that was very common here, and in the other building or behind it I guess is a place to have an outdoor bbq which is big enough that they hold wedding receptions here. From what we understand, weddings here run about 3 days of parties and wishing the couple well. They just held one here the weekend before we arrived. I think there is a guest house or rooms in that other building back there by the bbq area.

Well, don't know what else to tell you. More tomorrow :)