So anyway, continuing my story from what happened that Tuesday after the concert... Jen brought some pretty crafts with feathers and all kinds of stickers for the girls to play with. It was fun. Then, Wednesday came, and it was time to say goodbye... :(
The day actually went pretty much as normal, and Jen and Jessica handed out glowing-bracelets, which were a total hit! After spending a lot of time with the Malenkas (the little girls), all the girls got called to eat their lunch. At that point, with all of the girls gather together, Jen and Jessica took the opportunity to say their goodbyes.
Lots of tears were shed by all of us, and Jessica was hoping it would end there... but it certainly didn't. A great number of the older girls came and walked with us all the way to the gate, only prolonging the goodbyes. That made it hard for Jessica. However, something great happened! Hanna, one of the older girls who had been given heck to Jessica all summer long, and on whom Jessica had work a lot to gain her trust and friendship, unexpectedly came along and even gave Jessica a hug goodbye! (after some prying by Orest, hehehe) It was such a beautiful moment, and I was so mad I did not get my camera out on time to take a picture! What is more is that Hanna, along with a bunch of the other girls, walked us all all the way to the bus stop, where we waited for a few more minutes until the bus came. It was all very emotional, but I tried to be as cheery as I could and not think about the fact that the girls were leaving. I did not like the thought that I would be alone for almost another whole month once they left... I would miss them so much! :S
So, after all that emotional charge, the necessary thing to do was to get ice cream. And so that is what we did! We went to a place called Gelato Maffia, and LET ME TELL YOU!! It was SMACHNO!! (DELICIOUS!!) I got myself a giant croissant filled with three scoops of gelato: chocolate, vanilla and strawberry: Napolitano Extraordinaire!
We talked for a while, and after that we headed to my place, where we talked for a long time, listed to some of Orest's weird music (lol) and just passed the time together one last time before their departure. I must say that I was in a really weird mood. I was really mellow. Perhaps it was my lack of sleep after taking so long to prepare those bags as well as studying for my exams. Perhaps it was just emotional exhaustion and the feeling of uncertainty that ensued from knowing that Jen and Jessica were leaving... Most likely it was both. It was nice to hang out together like that!
We had done something similar, but without Orest, a couple of times before. Once at my place, and once at Jessica's place, and both times were awesome! I had so much fun with them on the few occasions we hung out after the internat (mostly due to the fact that I always had to run to do homework), and I knew I was going to miss them.
So Thursday came, and Jen and Jessica did not come to the internat, in order to pack their bags and prepare for their next day's early departure. I did go to the internat myself, but thankfully I did not go by myself, as Krystina wanted to come with me. That was nice. I didn't feel the shock of going by myself right away. That day I taught some of he girls how to make frogs, planes and boats out of paper, you know, like origami. Doing that activity let me see the degree of mental disability of some of these girls at a level I had not yet seen before, mainly because many of these girls look perfectly normal, and without the language to show me their level of verbal skills, it is hard to tell sometimes whether some of these girls have disabilities at all. Doing origami was clearly very challenging for many of the girls. Their motor and coordination skills are not very well developed, and a few of them had trouble even just folding the paper in half! However, with patience and care, Krystina and I helped each of the girls do all of the folds of a semi complicated piece of origami, until ALL of them ended up with a nice little jumping frog! :D I was so surprised at their patience with themselves, despite the obvious difficulty of the task. I gently pushed them to get it done, not doing any of the folds for them, and just letting them help each other out, WITHOUT having the more able girls do all the work for the less-abled ones. It was quite a goal to accomplish, but in the end, it was awesome because they all got a lot of joy and delight from seeing they had been able to do it by themselves! :) It gave me great satisfaction!
The next day, I accompanied Jen and Jessica to the train station, and after a few hugs and a couple of tears between us and their respective families, we saw them off to Lviv. And that was it. I was alone.
I walked back with Orest and we stopped at a store to buy some CDs for him and a new set of headphones for me, as mine gave out their last breath two weeks before.
And so it began... four more weeks in Ukraine without Jen and Jessica.
Jen and Jessica, if you are reading this, please know that I miss you both so much and that I hope you are having a great time back at home. I will be home soon, and we will have to get together to catch up and share stories again :) Thanks for all your support and your friendship :)
That's it for that. I will continue to tell you what happened in the almost two weeks that have gone by since Jen and Jessica left, and I will soon post a few videos and tons of pictures. Until then, Love you all, miss you all. God bless!
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