Appointment & Orphanage Visit

So it has been several days since we have been able to get the internet. Hopefully this will catch you up.

Tuesday we were ready to go at 8:00. Keep in mind we still have no idea what time our appointment is. At 10:00 Konstantin called and said to meet one of his associates Giorgi outside in about 15 minutes. At 10:30 we called Konstantin who said Giorgi was at the train station and on his way. A few minutes later he arrived and we headed to the SDA (State Department for the Protection of Children). I am just going to go ahead and say that this day and Thursday have been two of the most surreal experiences of my life. Not anywhere near my comfort zone!

We waited outside the building and Konstantin kept checking inside every so often. There were several other people milling around outside and others lined up in the stairwell. We went inside after only a few minutes and into a pretty small office. There was a couple sitting at a small table right inside the door looking at referrals. We went into a back office that was probably about the size of a decent walk-in closet in the US that had a place to sit with a small round table in front. There were two desks in the room with workers at them (although I never actually saw one of the people do anything while we were there). A young woman sat down across the table from us and started showing us referrals. Konstantin translated what she was saying and we asked some questions as well. In total we saw three sets of children. In each set at least one of the children had some sort of serious medical condition (Cerebral Palsy, chest deformity, mental retardation, etc.) The "best" referral was of two girls with one described as having Cerebral Palsy. Then pretty abruptly the woman said, "So what do you think?" and both she and Konstantin turned to look at us. Talk about your spur of the moment decisions with absolutely no time or privacy to discuss. Joe and I put our heads together and decided to go visit the girls. Then the appointment was over and out we went.

Outside we talked briefly with Konstantin about the next steps. He then took us back to our apartment. We regrouped and went out to find some food and internet. In our wandering we found a McDonald's - thank you for Big Macs. After lunch we went to a mall nearby and got onto the internet to do some serious research about CP. Nothing we read made us feel comfortable about the referral. (Apologies - but we were too shell shocked to update the blog and I am not sure what we would have even said at that point.)

By the time we saw Konstantin that evening we had almost decided not to go visit. He had talked to the Orphanage Director who had made it seem that the children were even worse off than we had been told. This actually made Konstantin believe that she was crooked and was making everything up to save the children for someone who would pay more money. Joe and I decided we could not know for sure unless we saw for ourselves.

We left the apartment at 5AM Thursday morning for a 4 1/2 to 5 hour drive to a city in the western part of Ukraine called Khmelnytsky. Konstantin had arranged for Nikolai to drive and another Coordinator, Roman, to accompany us. Once we got out of Kiev the countryside was very poor. Joe actaully said it looked like something out of pictures from the 1920's. We do not have any pictures because we were moving past pretty quickly.

We arrived at the orphanage around 11AM and had gotten permission to go there first instead of checking in with the local Inspector. We were pleased to see the orphanage was clean and decorated. There were children playing outside when we arrived. We were led down a hallway and after turning a corner there were the two girls and 4-5 other adults. This was most surreal day number two. We spent about 30-45 minutes with the girls - Bagdana and Ivanca. We gave them a coloring book and some crayons and Joe blew up several ballons with the cool ballon blower-upper we brought with us. We then went to the Head Nurses Office to go over their files in more detail. After about 30 more minutes they said the same thing, "So what do you think?" People here must be used to making big decisions in a split second. I actually asked if Joe and I could go outside and talk things over, which we did, and we decided to refuse the referrals. Both girls actually had more severe medical disabilities than the SDA had in their files that we are not prepared to care for.

This was far from the end of the day. The rest went something like this:
- go see Inspector - get letter of refusal
- take letter to Orphanage - get another letter of refusal
- take letter to be notorized and back to Inspector

This all took from about 12 to 4:30 because of the driving back and forth across town and waiting for people to get out of meetings.

We left Khmelnytsky about 4:45 headed back to Kiev.

We got to our new apartment about 10:00. (We are staying at a different apartment. This one is actually nicer even though we have not found a grocery store close to us yet.) It is on the ninth floor and the couple who owns it actually lives on the same floor. The buildings are pretty interesting - there isn't a central hallway like in American apartment buildings but several different entrances that serve about 4 apartments. The couple was Peggy and Tony - they were actually still cleaning the apartment when we arrived and they did not speak English but their daughter Sasha did (she has been taking English for 8 years and is now 16) and her parents asked us to go across the hall and sit in their apartment while we finished. So off we go with Sasha. She was very nice and we asked her lots of questions about school and her English studies.

When we did get in the apartment we just flopped into bed and slept until 8:30 the next morning. Friday morning brought a quick trip by me to a McDonald's (I know - but thank goodness for cherry pies and Coke!) just up the street to get Joe some breakfast because his sugar was a bit low - probably as a result of eating only a granola bar, 3 crackers and some mashed potatoes the day before). We did go to a cafeteria-style restaurant the day before, while we were waiting for some documents, but the selections included a lot of fish and meat we were not prepared to eat with our prety long ride back on our minds. Sometime you will have to ask me about the bathroom experience on the way there but it is not something I am going to share on the blog!

After getting Joe's sugar under control we showered and did the tourist thing for the rest of the day. Determined to have a day where we ate three meals at the appropriate times we went back to McDonald's. Konstantin met us there and we turned our dossier back over to him and the letter of refusal from the Inspector. He was going to try and turn it in yesterday at the SDA and ask for a second appointment.

We parted ways and Joe and I went to St. Sophia's Monastery - the oldest church still standing in Keiv. History teachers will appreciate that this is where Yaroslav is buried, at least it is where his sarchphagus is located. It was way cool. We also saw St. Michael's chuch.

We met Konstantin to sign our letter for a second appointment and then headed back to the apartment. Dinner was at Arizona (an American eatery) and then we went to sleep pretty early.

Today we are back at Arizona for breakfast - mainly because we saw that they have free wi-fi access. Not sure what today will bring. Looks like the soonest we will find out about our next appointment will be Monday or Tuesday. We may end up returning to the States for a few weeks before coming back to Kiev again. The Ukraine government is not exactly organized. Not sure when we will get back to the blog but hope this gets everyone caught up.

Love to all,

Tonya & Joe