ANOTHER HAPPY DAY

We're sorry our last post was so quick.

We arrived in Artemosk about 8am on Thursday. Our 12-hour train ride from Kiev actually ended in Kramators'k, about 70 kilometers away. One of our facilitators met us there and drove us the rest of the way.




As soon as we arrived, we checked into the hotel, unpacked our bags, and took just a few minutes to clean up. Then it was off to the orphanage to meet Katrina.

Artemosk is a town of about 80,00 people and its primary industry is mining. This is definitely a blue-collar town, which deserves another blog post just devoted to it. Anyway, Internet access is very limited. There is none in the hotel and no way to get a wireless connection here. After being told by any number of people that there were no Internet cafes in Artemosk, we finally came across a small business with about 6 computers that kids use all day for online gaming. So, this is our new home for a couple of hours each day.




Our days with Katrina are great. We get to visit her from 10am to 11:30am and 4pm to 6pm each day. The orphanage is only a 15-minute walk from the hotel. But it was very cold today, and raining. It's pretty much a miserable walk.

Katrina is a very strong willed young lady. When she takes things from other kids, we make her return the toys. And she is none too happy about that. She screams and cries (really loudly) and falls down on the floor for a temper tantrum. The first couple of times, we would pick her up and soothe her. (We are extremely pleased that she responds to this in a very positive way, calming down almost instantly.) Today, however, we let her lay on the floor and scream away. And, as you might guess, she quit when she determined that no one was paying any attention to her.




We are very fortunate with the orphanage situation. It's actually quite clean and well taken care of. We get to take Katrina to the music room. We are joined only by Justin and Sherry and their new son Kyle. (We'll do a blog post devoted just to Justin, Sherry, and Kyle in a day or so.)
So, we're indoors, it's warm and clean, and we can focus solely on Katrina. But having Kyle around is really great because we get to watch how Katrina interacts with other children.

You'll notice in some of the photos that Katrina has a huge blue bow in her hair. Here, the larger the bow the more they are loved, so Katrina is definitely loved. After the frist day, she no longer wears the bow but she is loved even more. The orphanage also gave her a hair cut between day one and day two.



Darian, Trevor, and Alexis - we love you and miss you dearly.

Nana and Popeye (Stephen's parents) - we'll never be able to express how at peace we are over here knowing that you are over there taking care of our children.