When we went to the orphanage this morning to pick up Kristina and Amina, we brought some gifts that prospective adoptive parents had sent to the children that they’d hosted. Mark and Christine had gifts as well. We brought all the kids together whose parents had sent packages and we distributed the gifts. It was really neat to watch these kids open their gifts. They were so excited!! One little boy, Oleksi, who was in Fort Wayne this summer at the same time as Kristina chose me to be the one to share his fun new books with. We were able to put a few stickers in his book and do a few of the mazes. He was absolutely thrilled! We enjoyed watching their little faces light up. Mark and Christine brought their video camera and each child got a chance to say hello to their mamas and papas in America.
After the gift giving, Amina, Kristina, Fred, and I headed out to the park while Mark, Christine, and Masha went to the sea. Not only did the park have playground equipment, but it also had rides. There was a small rollercoaster, a few children’s rides, Centrifuge (or some other kind of centrifical force ride) as well as a large inflatable crocodile slide. It is very similar to one of those inflatable bouncy things, but you can slide or bounce down the back side of it! The rides were quite inexpensive, however, most of the people in the park did not speak English and figuring out which rides took money and which rides took tickets was a little over the top. Thankfully, Amina knew enough English to help us over that hurdle! We were very pleasantly surprised at how good her English is! We went on the roller coast multiple times and then headed for the bouncy crocodile. As we were getting off of the roller coaster, Svetlana (our translator) joined us in the park. Kristina and Amina had the time of their lives on the crocodile. I’m surprised neither of them ended up with any serious injuries…they were like crazy people! They were doing somersaults down the slide and falling all over each other! They interacted so well and had a lot of fun together. After our first crocodile bounce, we got water for everyone and walked down to the sea. It’s amazing how cool it is down by the sea! The girls didn’t enjoy walking nearly as much as riding rides, so we headed back towards the rides. Fred desperately wanted to ride the centrifugal force ride and convinced Kristina and Amina to go with him. I felt sick just looking at the ride. I was worried that one of the girls would get sick and it would spoil a lovely day, however, my fears were unfounded. Both girls thoroughly enjoyed the ride! When they got off the ride, the girls were walking like drunken sailors. It was really funny to watch. We let them take another time on the crocodile and then they rode a ride that I think was designed for 3 year olds. They both looked completely bored out of their mind during the whole ride. Kristina spent half the time re-doing her ponytail and Amina looked like she was ready for a nap. After we finished our morning at the park, we headed for the market so we could meet Mark, Christine, and Masha to get sunglasses for the girls and then head to lunch. Amina and Kristina decided on matching pink sunglasses. They look really cute in them and they seemed happy to have them. We took them to a café for lunch and the girls managed to pack away an impressive amount of food. Thankfully the food isn’t too expensive and the four of us were able to eat for about $12 USD. When lunch was over we headed back to the orphanage. We were only allowed to take Amina for a few hours. We spent a little time hanging out with the kids before we headed back to our apartment with Kristina. She was so exhausted this afternoon that she could barely cope. We ended up spending out afternoon watching a children’s movie. By the end of the movie, she seemed a little more like her old self. By that time, we had to head back to the orphanage. After dropping off the girls, we headed to Amstor, a large grocery store that reminds me of Sam’s Club. We were able to pick up a few items for breakfast and dinners as well as some snack foods. They had a bakery with fresh baked loaves of bread. Our loaf of bread was still warm when they handed it to us and it cost less than 40 cents. I also got a pastry…it looked like a very large cinnamon roll, but it tasted more like a donut! The pastry cost 15 cents. Some things here are really inexpensive while other things are totally overpriced. I was looking at some Nike clothing while we were in Amstor and the shirts that would cost $35 USD in the US cost the equivalent of about $70 USD. It’s kind of crazy! After Amstor, we headed to Papa Karlos, the café we had lunch in yesterday. It’s definitely not as good at dinner time! They didn’t have much of a selection and the food was cold, but it was still quite tasty! We hoped we would be able to e-mail pictures out to all of you when we got home, but Svetlana didn’t want us out again. We feel a little stir-crazy at night! Fred is still working on trying to figure out how to get an internet connection here so he can start doing some work here. Please pray that we will be able to come up with something soon!
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