Nov 11: Stormy Weather

Two posts in one day, once again - so be sure to read the post below about Kriddazark!

11/11/07: We stopped by Abzhora (the grocery store) on the way to the internat (orphanage) and bought bananas and juice for William’s groupa. Luda had called & gotten permission for us to take a snack to them at the end of our visit.

We began our visit in the art room as usual. William was warming up to us slowly. We started with snacks, and then played for awhile. We found out that he likes apples dipped in peanut butter. He played with Lego*s today and it was neat to watch him thinking and coming up with a plan. We tried on some more clothes, including the jeans and shoes that we’d bought the previous day. The shoes were too small, but Luda said she’d exchange them for us.

Towards the end of our time, William escorted us to his room. He helped us pass out the bananas and juice, and made sure everyone had theirs before he sat down to enjoy his. It was fun to see him interacting with his peers!

After our visit, we went back to the apartment and had some lunch. Leonid offered to drive us down to the internet café, and it was rainy and cold so we accepted the offer. As we were exiting our apartment, the wind blew so hard that it knocked out the window in the hallway!

We insisted that Leonid leave us and we would walk back, since we needed to get familiar with our surroundings (he & Luda would be leaving for Kyiv the next day). We paid for 2 hours of internet time, but after only an hour and 15 minutes the power went out. So we began our walk back. It wasn’t a long walk at all, but the wind was blowing fiercely, enough that we had a hard time standing up!



Back at the apartment, we did our first load of laundry and just hung out. We were getting more comfortable in our surroundings. Luda helped me label some flash cards in Russian so we’d be able to start teaching William some basic English words. Then we settled in to watch some movies, and snacked throughout the evening.