Sunday, Day 9

Sunday, that was yesterday right, was a good day. On the weekends NOTHING happens on the adoption front, so in that way it’s good cause you’re not hoping to get a call with an update on progress.

We hung around the apartment in the morning and our internet went out, our washing machine broke and we lost all hot water. So we decided to get out (before we lost anything else) and walked up to Mario’s for lunch. Mario’s is about 5 blocks from us and is a nice little Italian restaurant. After lunch we got a cab (all on our own) and went to the orphanage. We saw a guard from when Anastasia was there. He was the nicest guard then – and still is. He was shocked at how tall she is.

Sasha was in the computer room downloading music on her phone. We had brought some games with us, so Mark set up jenga. Nobody was interested, so Mark and I started and Sasha joined us. Don’t know if it was out of pity or what – but she actually laughed and acted like she enjoyed it.

The kids LOVE gum and some friends had sent us over here with tons of it. Anastasia passes gum out each time we are here. So when you watch the videos and they’re all chomping – that’s why. The sweetest thing, Igor came in after we had been there for awhile and sat down by Luda. Without saying a word, Luda reached over and handed him a piece of gum. When Anastasia got there, Luda gave up her computer and started showing Anastasia how to play the game. After a while I went over and told Anastasia to let Luda play. Luda waved me away and said, “okay keem okay!” Mark and I watched her patiently teach Anastasia and nod her head when Anastasia did something right and just imagined what a great teacher Luda would be. I hope Luda gets the chance to do exactly what God has created her to be. She’s an amazing little thing.

One of the unbelievable things is that with only 5 computers and with 15 or so kids in the room– no fights! It’s amazing how well they share with one another. They offer up their computer to their friend who doesn’t have one.

We of course had pipe cleaners in our bag again today. (you don’t need a common language with pipe cleaners!) Viktor pulled some out and made a few flowers. Then he yelled “nastya” and threw them at her. Okay so he needs to work on his presentation, but it was still really sweet. But as I watched him I wondered if he’ll ever have a dad to teach him how you talk to girls or how you give them flowers (as opposed to throwing them at them) Anastasia is praying for a family for Viktor. Specifically she’s praying for a family for him on our street! ☺

Sasha was downloading music from the computer to her phone. She wanted me to come over and listen – so I did. She was singing along with the songs. She told me what the names of the groups/artists were. I actually liked most of what she shared with me. Of course most of it was in Russian – so I might have been appalled at what they were singing – but it sounded good.

At one point Sasha was playing a game and I was sitting by her. She could pick her “player” which she did, and then you could pick your country. She went through a ton of flags and finally found one that was red, white and blue, but it wasn’t the American flag. She looked over at me and gave the “so-so” sign, looked at the flag for another minute or two, then kept on searching through the flags. Finally a US flag popped up – Sasha sighed and said “yes” and picked that country for her player.

When it was time for us to leave, Sasha called a cab for us and negotiated a rate. It cost us about $3.20US. We negotiated the ride to the orphanage and that cost us $6.00US so guess we should leave the cab fares to Sasha in the future!

Today we’re hanging out at the apartment. The kids are back to school and we have some repairman coming this afternoon. Tomorrow we’re going to Grandmothers. She is supposed to go home from the hospital today.

Once we get internet back in our apartment I’ll put some pics up here. I was able to download some on facebook from yesterday. I think I’m getting an internet signal from a nearby coffee shop.