Monday August 27, 2007

Goodmorning everyone:
We will probably post twice today. We spent six or seven hours at the Internet Cafe yesterday keeping Sergey and us occupied. We really wish for a pool, soccer field, etc, but have not been able to find that yet. Outside the internet cafe is some playground equipment but that only holds the interest for about an hour and then computer games outweigh the playground. Yesterday Sergey was sitting among many other Russian boys at the computer doing male bonding!! They were all playing the same game and competing or at least that is what we think was going on. You think American boys are noisy - you should hear Ukrainian boys with all that gutteral sound in the Russian language - quite loud. Rex spent time inside the cafe reading yesterday after he was done checking e-mail. It is air conditioned and that felt great as it must have been 37C or 38C here again yesterday. I spent time with three young girls we met the evening before. We noticed these girls because they had a cat they were playing with. The cat is the most relaxed cat we had ever seen. They were swinging with it and then they put it on the teeter totter. It did not move. We had to take a picture of the cat and from there we struck up a conversation - albeit limited. The girls are Karina (14), Sabina (13), and Helena (13). Karina and Sabina ae sisters and Helena is their friend. The cat is Acrobat - 7 month old male. They wanted to meet us Sunday afternoon, (adeen chess) - 1:00 PM to talk English. So I took the challenge because I wanted to talk Russian. We talked all afternoon. Thank goodness for the translator. It worked for most words we could not underastand. They go back to school September 1st. Helena's mom is a doctor. Helena speaks German and Russian very well. Sabina, Karina & Helena all study English in school, but have less English than Sergey. They will be in 8th grade (8th form in Ukraine). Here they go to school through age 16 and graduate from high school and then onto college if they can. On the way to the Internet cafe we passed street vendors who have school supplies on their table. Sergey looked over the tables of supplies and wanted to buy a book - an English book - 5th Form. When we arrived back at the hotel I looked at the book and if he understands all the English in the book I am impressed.

It is noon here as I post and we are waiting for Angelina to call us this afternoon with court date news. We really are hoping for smooth sailing throught the rest of the process.

To all those who have posted comments, thank-you. We have read them. It is nice to hear from all of you. Logan Stuckey, happy 17th birthday. How is that flying going? To the Wurth's - we will be happy to share more details when we get home. Rex even said we would share Sergey, and by the way he loves dogs. To Carolyn - thanks for keepin up with the blogsite. To our family members - thanks for all you are doing for us at home.

More observations about the Ukraine. Everyone here has a cell phone. While I stated that the inside of everything is clean - outside is full of coal dust. The air quality is better than we thought but each night when we get back to the hotel we have a thin coating of dust on us. The people here are very educated - 96 % literacy rate, there just are no good paying jobs. We noticed in Donetsk that all the windows are being replaced in all the buildings. The windows at the orphanage had been replaced on two floors and one floor was left to do. The most interesting thing about the hotel is how the doors lock. You lock them with a key on the inside and outside. This would never pass fire code in the US. We found a small local grocery store about two blocks from the hotel and it has all the necessary supplies - sausage & cheese for Sergey, vodka for Randy, wine for Debbie.
Poka for now,
Liz, Rex, Sergey