It was very comforting to come back to this luxury apartment with its super air conditioning (95 Fahrenheit today, the highest recorded temperature in Kiev since 1957), large screen TV with multiple channels (a few in English) in the large modern living room, smaller TVs in each bedroom; sleek Italian kitchen, two bathrooms and washing machine. It’s worth every penny, hrivna or dollar we’re paying for it.
This is a far cry from our experience when we adopted Olya about four years ago. At that time we lived way, way out of the city in a drab, rundown, Soviet-style apartment complex. There was nothing to do; nothing was near us. The apartment was very small, one lousy bathroom with a broken door handle and from time to time we had to share the apartment with other American families who were in Kiev to adopt children.
Kiev itself has changed in the past few years. The restaurants are excellent; delicious food and courteous service. We’re near at least four very good restaurants. And Ukrainian toilets have changed big time. Some in Kiev now outdo the ones in the states. We don’t even bother to take along Kleenex packets with us when we go out because most now come equiped with paper. Admittedly, when you drive out of the city, it’s a different story. There are still the one-hole-in-the-ground monstrosities attached to a modern service station. On the other hand on the road to Liviv we stopped at a little cafe bar on the side of the road with a spotless, air-conditioned, western-style toilet, you would be hard-pressed to find on a similar highway in the states.
Ukraine, as Pippa describes it, is “slamming into modern civilization.” Kiev has everything any modern European or American city has to offer. There are more Hummers here than in Miami Beach but 30 kilometers out of the capital and the cows are still being led along the highway.
Today, as yesterday, we will go into Kiev to the cinema and internet café; the kids are hooked on the internet café and Pippa and I are hooked on the “kafe s molokom” at the cinema lobby.
We needn’t go to the giant supermarket today; we did that yesterday. We’re loaded up now with groceries because the children love eating at the apartment. They are also much happier with our routine in Kiev than long drives in a hot car in the mountains.
We bought Andry a Sony PSP yesterday. Olya has one in Miami; they will share this one while we are here. Olya brought her computer and Andry had to share it or wait to use Pippa’s when Pippa or I weren’t using it. This PSP will solve that problem. Except that we have not been able to get the PSP to work and they sold us one with the instructions in Japanese. We’ll have to go back to “Gigabyte”, the tech store we seem to be in every other day to exchange it.
We have worked out a compromise today. Pippa wants to go back souvenir shopping again. The children and I would rather have our fingernails pulled out with a red-hot pair of pliers. So, I’ll go with them to the internet café; Yelana and Pippa will go shopping on Andriyivskyi Uzviz. Hooray!
Tomorrow I’ll have Vasilly take me to the dental hospital to make the final payment on Maria’s and Nikolai’s teeth restoration. Tomorrow night we plan to have Maria and Nikolai come to dinner at our apartment. We’ll get some things from “Dva Gusya” (Two Geese) a popular Ukrainian take-out. We’ve got a couple of presents for the children to give them: another shirt for Nikolai; a blouse and bag for Maria.
Maria called yesterday and told us she had eggs decorated for us. She asked if we could pay for her to get her hair done. Wow, things get more unusual every day. Why would this woman want to have her hair styled? The same as any other woman I suppose. And it appears our scheme of having Maria actually work by decorating eggs to earn money is working. We’ll happily pay for her eggs.
Olya has discovered her early childhood and that’s worth whatever we’re paying. She has very big gaps filled in now for the rest of her life. Small memories have returned, some prompted by Andry, others by the exposure to the Ukrainian village. Yesterday she loved Andry’s story of Olya walking on the village road when she was very little, wearing a kerchief on her head. She wanted to know what color and what pattern was on the kerchief. I told her she must have been so very cute. She gave me a very big, very wide smile and said, “Yes, I was.”
She has always loved cherries. Now we know why. There were cherry trees all around the house where she lived her first three years. Andry says she was always in the trees, sometimes climbing higher than her brothers.
And while she liked “pink soup” as she called borsch in the USA, she is now addicted to it and has a bowl of borsch at every meal. When the restaurant has ““kvas”, a non-alcoholic brewed drink, Olya calls vino, she orders the biggest size. Of course, vereneky with cherries finish off every meal, whether we eat out or eat in.
ANDRY’S SENSE OF HUMMOR IS SHOWING
The most frequent word out of Andry’s mouth is “tomorrow”. Whenever Andry doesn’t understand what we say or ask him he says “tomorrow”. It’s actually a funny and really helpful way he invented to let us know he isn’t following what we are saying. He has also found many other uses for the word. Here are a few.
When he doesn’t want to do something:
Pippa: Andry, it’s time to go to bed.
Andry: Tomorrow.
When he wants to show excitement about doing something:
Andry: We go to Miami, tomorrow, yes?
(Of course we have already explained at least 27 times that we won’t be able to fly home for many, many more days.)
When he doesn’t know a word he wants to use:
Andry: (getting ready to shower) Pippa, where is “tomorrow”.
Pippa: Do you mean “towel”?
Andry: Yes.
WITH A RECORD BREAKING HEAT WAVE I GIVE UP HOPE OF GETTING FLUFFY-FACE BACK TO MIAMI
When we were in the Carpathian Mountains last week an adorable puppy adopted Olya. Watching them together was like watching a Disney movie, if you listened carefully you could even hear the score playing in your head.
Fluffy Face waits next to our suitcases as if she wants to be caried to the care with them.
There were several obstacles to getting the puppy but I figured them all out except the plane trip. When we got back to Kiev and internet connectivity I asked Cheryl to do some investigating for me. Here's the email thread:
Pippa: Hi Cheryl. Can you check with the travel adgent to see how to fly a dog home from Ukraine. Is it easy?
Cheryl: That's a joke right! We are full at the Inn. Noah only allowed two of each animal and you have reach it. (She, Erik and Patrick, her husband and son, are dog, cat and bird sitting for us while we are away. It's already been 5 weeks!)
Pippa: But we have two BOY dogs. This one is a female so I think Noah would make an exception. We are PROBABLY joking but check just in case. We are all so in love with this homeless puppy that adopted Olya. She is totally amazing and adorable. She followed Olya everywhere and waited all night for her outside our hotel room door. But she is in the Carpathian Mountains which is very far from Kiev. We would have a hard time getting her. Olya cried and cried when we had to leave her. I even cried. So check just in case.
Cheryl: Delta says since dogs have to fly cargo. It can't be hotter than 85 degrees.
I knew it probably wouldn't work but it breaks my heart to think of this personality-packed, little girl outside in the freezing Carpathian Mountain winters.
Thankfully, all is going smoothly with the adoption of the other Ukrainian orphan!
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