On the Eve

[Phil]
Tomorrow we have our hearing at noon. That will be 5 AM in the US. I hope it won’t take longer than an hour, so hopefully we’ll have some good news for you by the time you wake up tomorrow. We remain optimistic.
Today we tried to just relax. It was the first real blustery, Autumnal day here, and I think everyone wanted to be indoors. We had a leisurely breakfast in the hotel and then got to the orphanage around 11:15. We started playing with Ana and Dasha, but within about half an hour they called them back to the building for lunch. This was probably a good thing, since babysitting the both of them can be very tiring.

[Robin]
We walked to a nearby outdoor market before lunch. We spent some time looking around the various stalls. Only about half of the kiosks were open, mostly selling canned foods and fresh vegetables. We were thinking about buying Ana a little purse since she was so enamored with mine. Instead, we spotted a Winnie the Pooh backpack and decided that this would be better and could hold her various toys to boot. We bought it along with another toy (a rewritable pad--you can write on this pad with this fake pen and then erase it with a sweep of a button. We don’t know what this is called.)
We had lunch at the pizza place and added to our food repertoire by adding peppers to the pizza toppings order. These little changes keep things exciting—ha, ha.
We spent the rest of the afternoon buying groceries, getting pictures developed and adding more battery power to our digital camera. Phil had to go back to the electronics section of the mall to find the same staff person that had helped us before. His under the table maneuvers consisted of a head nod, the passing of the camera and later a slyly folded and passed 20 hrivnya note. Phil said he felt like a spy. It was a hilariously top-secret exchange.

[Phil]
Yeah, they have numerous people just standing around watching everything, so I felt extremely awkward. In any case, he did recharge it, so now we can take even more pictures of Ana, signs, statues, and food.
One thing Robin wanted me to mention on this slow news night: When we were at the Big Market the other day, we found a great toy kiosk. They had a ton of balloons, including the long, skinny ones you use to make balloon sculptures. These are always a hit at the orphanage, so I asked the shopkeeper for 20 of them. She said that she only had two left at the moment and that in any case you have to have a special pump for them. I said, "Oh, we have a pump. I’ll take the two that you have left." I mean, doesn’t everyone have a balloon animal pump?!

[Robin]
Yeah, we giggled about answer all the way home. Who just happens to be carrying around a balloon pump in their small messenger bag?
I spoke to my sister, Tina, on the phone this afternoon, and it was so great to hear about what has been going on and to talk about some of the stuff we can’t get into detail on in the postings. A special "yay" goes out to my HBC group—glad everyone finished the race successfully. I wish I could have been there (not necessarily for the running part, but for the camaraderie. I miss our Saturday runs and gossip!).
When we went to the orphanage this evening, we picked Ana up in the upstairs playroom. She had to get dressed in her "outdoor" clothes to go the playground with us. She was wearing some of the tights that we bought her and then specifically requested to wear the sweater we also bought her. Made me smile.
We tried to keep away from the other kids and play with Dasha and Ana in a separate area. It is really hard to not feel guilty when we are showering these new toys and clothes on Ana in front of the other little kids. They watch everyone’s movement like a hawk and get really agitated when they are missing out on anything. There have already been enough spilled tears over the balloons.
This evening we met our Kramatorsk facilitator for dinner at a Ukrainian restaurant across from the orphanage. The service took so long that we started to question and then laugh about whose meal was requiring the slaughtering of an animal or the hunting for mushrooms in the nearby park, etc. I ordered chicken in nut sauce, so maybe they were out gathering nuts. Fortunately, it was quite tasty (Bill, I know you love that word!) when it finally arrived.

[Phil]
That’s all for tonight. We’ll post again tomorrow as soon as possible after our hearing.