Home Alone

Well, technically I am neither home, nor am I totally lone, but you get the point.

The last two weeks have been very busy! So busy I don't even know where to begin. Well, perhaps I can start by mentioning how, after Jen and Jessica left, I just ended up studying like crazy for my exams, which were supposed to be on the next day. My exams went pretty well, actually, and I am just hoping that they make it safely to Canada. We had them scanned, just in case, but Gayla, who is my proctor, was not able to send the electronic copies because the files ended up being too large to send over email, even though they were on PDF format... So here I am, crossing my fingers that they make it safely to Canada...

That week I went to the internat by myself for the first time, and it went pretty well, surprisingly. We have spent a lot of time outside playing, as well as dancing, colouring, and just plain being silly! The other day the girls let me ride a bike with them! I had not done that in YEARS!! It was so exciting! Hehehe :P On another day we decided to practice our little choreography that we prepared for the concert, and one of the girls taped it for me (I shall upload it soon, maybe even within this message). Later I taught the girls to salsa! Hahahaha! It was a lot of fun. We also videotaped that, but I am too embarrassed to show you lol.

I have also spent a lot of time with the Malenkas (the little girls). I was so delighted to see little Olia laugh, which is something that I had not seen before! I took a video about the room of the malenkas, and I will also post that soon!

On another day, I sat with some of the girls to do a small drawing workshop. They tend to like it when I draw them pictures of animals, so I decided to teach them how to do it. I would draw each part, one by one, like a circle, and then a a line, and so forth, and have them repeat it after me, until we all ended up with a picture of an animal. Here, once again, I could become more acutely aware of their disabilities, which often I end up forgetting all about! It is hard to believe, but to me, these little orphans have become like normal girls, and I am so used to being around them and feel so comfortable with them, that I don't even notice their disabilities or deformities anymore. For example, a lot of them are cross-eyed, and that used to really throw me off, but now I don't even notice it. Anyhow, the drawing workshop went really well and it was a lot of fun!

And so, that is how I have spent the last few days. In addition to that, however, I have been finalizing some of the charity set ups at the churches. I was frustrated because I had not been able to talk to the other two parish priests I had in mind, mainly because of how busy I had been with school, and then because Orest went away on vacation and I didn't have a translator anymore :S Krystinca was going to do me the favour of coming with me, but then she got really sick, and so I had to wait around another full week. I do not remember if I mentioned this before, but the first church made a collection already, and we got a total of 500 hryvnia, plus another person just donated another 100 to add to that. It is not a HUGE amount of money, but it is a pretty good start!! I am just waiting for Irena to get some free time so we can go to get the necessary medications and vitamins for which the money was raised.

Another thing I did this past week was that I went with Irena to the bazaar and I just bought a TON of school supplies for the girls. They used to get funding for that sort of stuff, but now they do not, and so the girls had nothing to start the school year with. Generally, Irena asks her students (I presume she teaches at an elementary school) to bring school supplies for the girls, but even with that there was simply not enough to fulfill the needs of the girls. And so, I bought new copy books, calligraphy books, ABC books, pens, play-dough, and other items of that sort, according to what Irena told me was needed. She came with me, of course, and Orest did as well, which made it infinitely easier. In addition to the things she asked for, I bought a bunch of other books that contain very interesting information about all kinds of topics, from animals, to the human body, to cultures around the world, to volcanoes and other geographical phenomena, to the stars, etc. I used to have books like that when I was a kid, and they were some of my most precious possessions. I used to spend HOURS reading them. Irena told me that most girls cannot read at that level (by far!), but that she would ensure to read them to the girls and to show them the pictures, as well as to have the older girls read to the younger ones.

In addition to all the school supplies, I also bought a great number of toys for the younger girls, all of which were the kind of toys that help develop the motor, visual and logic skills of children. Among the things I bought were puzzles, mosaics, building blocks and cubes as well as and giant legos, as well as other toys that I am not sure how to describe but are meant to develop hand-eye coordination. You know what I mean, these are toys like the kind that Playschool makes, which are very colourful and serve as stepping stones for further development. The girls have very few toys, and the ones they do have are mostly stuffed animals that are stashed away in high, hard-to-reach shelves, and which obviously do not help them at all. The room of the Malenkas is completely empty, and so I hope that these new toys help. So long as the staff even let them play with them!! (*fuming again*) Sigh...

I guess the last thing I can add is that this week I was finally able to talk to the priest at my church about the charity. Unfortunately his parish is in a lot of debt because they have just built their church, and so he does not think that they will be able to allocate much money at all to the internat. However, he was very kind to say that he will do what he can, and he asked me to get him in contact with Irena so that in the future, when thy are more financially able to, the parish can do more to support the girls. What he did do was to take a copy of the letter that the dean of my school, Myroslaw Tataryn, sent me to hand in to the priests as a template, in order to have them modify it, sign it, and send it with me to Canada to appeal to the Ukrainian Catholic community there to help us out. These girls need so much help, and I am glad to be able to do something for them like this.

I am running out of time and with Orest being so busy it is hard to set up appointments with the priests, but I am still hoping to talk to one more priest and try my luck there before I leave. There is more I want to say, but I think I will leave it at that for this post and start a new one in a few minutes. I also have to post all of those pictures and videos, so it will be a while! Until then, love you all, miss you all. God bless!