Pippa had twisted every arm in sight to return to the Fine Arts museum for another egg decorating (pysanky) lesson. She promised that the lesson “would only be an hour or so” and then we would walk over to CCCP (USSR), the Soviet nostalgia restaurant I like so much. Our lesson was at 10:30 but at 4:30 we were still going strong putting wax on eggs and dunking them in colored dyes.
Photos of the entrance of the church complex where the egg decorating lessons take place.
For me the only interesting thing was the old geezer who came into the room. He was resplendent in his olive green shirt with his eight inch square of World War II battle ribbons. He’s the happiest Ukrainian we’ve met since we’ve been here. He celebrated his eight-fifth birthday two days before but he looks younger and trimmer than me.
For some reason he took a shine to me and asked me to go in the other room; Yelena followed to translate. Just around the corner from the pysanky room, He brought out a bottle of beer and handed out paper cups. Here come the toasts that Ukrainians do at every opportunity. The old warrior recited every war campaign and country he fought in.
For some reason the old soviet army vet thought I was German so he was careful to point out that he did not fight against the Germans, but against the “fascists”. To reassure him, I confided that the Americans bombed and killed my German family in Dresden. That brought on another toast and I wasn’t sure whether we were toasting the bombing of Germany or the passing of my Dresden relatives.
He also showed me this copy of the Ten Commandments and explained that the principals of Communism are based on the Commandments. Hmmm. Interesting since people were kicked out of the prestigious Communist party if they attended church!
I had no other choice but to go back to the pysanky marathon. I only made one egg and that one reluctantly. I put on my egg–– only a large mouth with missing teeth. I am preoccupied with teeth these days. I tried to dye some of the teeth yellow but my pysanky technique is lousy.
Below is the deer decorated egg that Andry made. The director gave him a book written in Ukrainian explaining how eggs were made. The deer on his egg were some of the designs in the book. Later the director explained what all the symbols mean. The deer is a symbol of wealth. Birds are for family. Sun for power. Flowers/herbs for good health. Geometric shapes with lines for good crops...
All things must come to an end and so at last did the pysanky marathon.
The children and I urged Vassily to get us to the internet café with all deliberate speed. In Kiev’s downtown traffic jam, that still is about the speed of a one-footed turtle. But we got there. We ate in the “Vault’s” café which is not really so bad. Kafe s melokolm is quite good. And they have vereneky and pancakes. Best of all for the kids, they knew the computer game room was just around the corner.
While eating our vereneky, Yelena’s phone rang with a call from Nikolai; he asked to speak to Andry. When we asked Andry he said he wanted to talk to Nikolai and so we permitted it. After a minute Andry gave the phone to Yelana. She translated that Nikolai was asking if we would buy them winter coats. We said that coats aren’t even for sale in the middle of July; this could be addressed later.
For a long time we have been expecting to be hit up with a long wish list from Nikolai and Maria. That’s the reason we set up the egg decorating business for them; so they could earn additional money and not ask us for hand-outs. We adopted two children, not the grown, able bodied birth-parents. Of course if they are freezing, hungry or sick we are going to help them and we may choose to help them at other times especially if they are doing their best at the egg decorating business.
When the call was over, Andry’s facial expression was a little odd. He asked Ron, “Why you get scary (we think he meant nervous) when Nikolai calls?” Andry also asked, “Why you no ask me anymore what Nikolai say?” It seemed the appropriate time to talk to Andry about some sensitive issues.
After each of the few phone conversations Nikolai and Andry have had since he’s been with us we have asked Andry what Nikolai has said. Ron told Andry that he stopped asking him what Nikolai had said to him because Ron did not want Andry to think we didn’t want him to talk to Nikolai. We then explained that while some adoptive parents don’t want their adopted child to have contact with their biological parents, we did not feel that way. On the contrary, we believe that if a child WANTS to have contact with their biological parents, the adoptive parents should do all we can do to make it easy for child to do so (as long as the biological parents aren’t upsetting the child, of course).
Since it was obvious that Andry wanted us to ask him about his conversation with Nikolai, we did so. Andry said that Nikolai kept asking him to tell us to give Nikolai and Maria money. (Andry had never passed Nikolai’s request on to us. If he had we would have addressed this with Nikolai sooner.) We said that Nikolai should not be asking you (Andry) about money; that is not a fair thing to do to a thirteen year old.
We explained to Andry that of course we will continue to help Maria and Nikolai. But, we explained, we would do it in a way that they would have to earn the money. The egg decoration business was our plan to send them one hundred dollars each month, but that Maria and Nikolai would have to decorate 20 eggs each month and send them to us before we would send them money. It was a job, in fact, that we were offering them. This way they would not be dependent on us and beg for money. They would have extra income to buy things they want and build self-respect at the same time, we hope. (A hundred dollars goes a long way in their little village.)
Andy then replied––but you are supposed to pay; the implication was that we must pay Nikolai and Maria for the right to adopt Andry. We said, “absolutely not”. We explained that while adoption is very expensive, it’s because of the cost of coming to Ukraine, living and traveling expenses while we are here, cost of a driver and translator, etc. The biological parents have no right to “sell their children”. (All orphanage kids think that when children are adopted the adoptive parents pay for them. Olya thought the same thing.)
Andry asked why we adopted him. Pippa told him the long story of how we finally found him after a few year’s search. We told him that we had been urged by Olya to find Andry. We said that when we finally met Andry in Spain, we fell in love with him.
Andry said that he could have been adopted before. We asked why he didn’t want to be adopted previously. He said because he wanted to stay with his natural parents.
We asked what made him change his mind. He replied that his teacher in Bucha had told him he had no future in Ukraine, that he should consider asking to be adopted so he would have a better life than he could have here. That he wanted to live with his sister and was glad we wanted him.
We decided to close the dialogue for now.
Yelena took Pippa somewhere for a few hours. I think picking up some photo prints from the photo guy who tries to pick Yelana up, and going to house of a famous Ukrainian artist to pick up the scan of a painting of a cherry tree that we felt pressured to buy and only did because a cherry tree, along with a boy and girl, was the subject of the painting.
Pippa writing now. Yelana and I also went back to the museum to take the director a birthday present. She has been so nice to us. Here she is with a egg she gave me that was done by one of the Pansky masters.
The museum director's husband is a music conductor and goes to the United States several times a year to give concerts. His impression of Americans is that we follow the law and are naive like the Ukrainians were under Communism. After his first few visits to the States he announced to her that he wanted to immigrate there. She said, "Fine, but not with me." I invited her to Miami Ad School to talk about the museum's Ukrainian folk art collection and to give Pansky lessons to the students. She was excited and said she would bring one of the country's leading artists with her.
Back to Ron. I played “Counter Strike” as long as I could possibly stand it; Andry derided me so much that my self-worth shrunk to one hrivna. I switched to Grand Theft Auto and played for about two hours. I could not maneuver the car after I high-jacked it, so I resorted to just having the black guy punch people as he ran down the sidewalk. It’s hard to maintain much interest when your capability is that low: I prayed for Pippa and Yelena to return.
They didn’t come back for ages, so I went into the café after giving the kids a handful of hrivna for them to play on an on. I was working on the computer and drinking cup after cup of kafe s molokom until Yelena and Pippa arrived shortly before nightfall. (Ron exagerates.)
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