Sunday August 22, 2010 - 2nd visit with Vanya!

Today we get to visit Vanya one more time before we leave. He is back from Odessa and settling into his school orphanage, getting ready for the new school year. At 10am, Gregori and Katya pick us up for the 90 minute drive out to the country, but first we stop at a huge market to buy Vanya some fruit, a dried fish and a football uniform from Team Spain.
Emma and I are so excited to see Vanya again! The drive takes its toll on us, as it's about the bumpiest 100km I have ever driven on; with horrible roads, terrible suspension on his ancient taxi, and well - Gregori's basic driving skills! Once again, we pass thru miles and miles of sunflower plants and corn fields, with a beautiful blue sky as a back drop to the lush scenery! This really is a nice country - to visit and to adopt from.

 

A little after 12:00 we arrive at Vanya's school in a tiny little village and meet up with his counsellor Alexei. All of a sudden you can see Vanya running across the field with his arms raised and a huge smile on his face. Emma starts to run towards him like one of those beach movie scenes where they come together in a wonderful embrace - almost like they've known each other forever! Very sweet indeed. I run over to join them and we stand there in a three-way hug, happy to see each other, while the others stand by the taxi and watch.

He has such a cute smile on his face with those big blue eyes, and he is so happy to see us. He pulls us towards the center of campus to show us around. We sit under a shady tree and tell stories (translated by Katya of course), just talking about nothing at all. We give him the fruit and his cool Spanish football uniform, and he grabs my camera to look at all of the pictures we've taken of his brothers. He can't wait to be united with them - you can tell he loves them very much. He tells us how much he wants to live in America with us.

 

The school director drives up to say hello and meet us (unofficially of course, as Vanya isn't available for adoption yet), and she asks us if we intend to adopt all three boys and asks questions about where we are from and what we do for a living. She is a nice older Russian woman, very short and stocky, and seems very pleased that we will be adopting all three. We ask her if there is any way to communicate with Vanya over the next six weeks and she immediately calls her IT teacher to come out and take us to their computer classroom where we exchange Skype addresses and set up a regular Saturday evening call every week until October. They have about ten computers set up in the classroom and the teacher proudly shows us a video about his country (in English) and talks about how these boys are taught to be engineers and make a good salary.

I talk to Alexei about paying for extra English classes for Vanya and he tells me they have a tutor that we can hire for 20 UAH/lesson, so I give him 360 UAH (about $50), enough for 3 lessons/week for the next six weeks. We would like to make his transition to America as easy as possible for him, so Vanya agrees to work hard on his conversational English - don't worry too much about reading and writing, altho he should work on the different alphabet, etc.

 

Vanya takes control of my camera (just like his brother) and starts taking dozens of pictures of his school, his friends, his new parents and just about anything else that comes into view, including a few more of Katya (that's my boy!). He changes into his Spanish football uniform (it fits perfectly), and proudly runs around to show his friends. It's not often these kids get new clothes, as everything they wear is either shared or a hand-me-downs. He poses with his buddies and takes plenty of pictures with his girl friends Natasha, Natasha and Kristina.

 

After about three hours of hanging out, he needs to rejoin his classmates and eat lunch, so we say our goodbyes and promise to stay in touch until we come back and get him in October. Emma tears up as we hug goodbye over and over again, three or four times. Nobody wants to part ways as its just too sad...one more picture with the three of us and Vanya's face gets smashed between Emma's breast and my massive pecs - poor boy, but he seems to enjoy it. Practice your English young sire and we'll see you soon!

The drive home is a bit sad (not to mention bumpy as hell), as we come to the realization that we won't see him for six weeks! Tomorrow we get to go through it all over again as we have to say goodbye to his brothers. Why can't we just bring them all home with us now!!?? Stupid red tape...

We arrive back in Kirovograd about 5pm, starving from the absence of lunch, so we invite Gregori and Katya to join us at Camellia's but they politely decline (don't these people eat?), and drop us off at our favorite restaurant. Katya suggests that we meet up later for drinks if we want her to show us around her home town. We agree to call her later, after we've eaten and taken a power nap. We gorge ourselves at Camellia's and walk back to the flat. Emma crashes at about 6pm and doesn't wake up again until 7am the next morning. After calling Katya to tell her we're done for the day, I spend the evening watching Ukrainian TV (a Clint Eastwood movie dubbed in Russian with Ukrainian subtitles) and work on my blog.
The blog is getting very difficult to manage as it won't let me post pictures anymore. The help line is no help at all (as usual), and in fact there are hundreds of complaints from other users about the same problem I am having. You'd think Google would try to fix the problem with all of the complaints - crap system! Now I am hearing from friends that they are having trouble posting comments on my blog - but I appreciate all the comments still coming in via Facebook! My friend and fellow Chaperone, Ken suggests a few ways to get around the Picasso picture fiasco which is causing the problem, so maybe I'll try that later. Thanks Ken!
p.s. as you can see - Ken's idea worked as I was able to post pictures after all! ;^)

Tomorrow we leave Kirovograd to spend the next three nights in our original apartment in Kiev. Tuesday is Ukraine's Independence Day from the USSR in 1991. Should be an exciting time to be in Kiev! Good night all you Google employees...