Friday, June 1, 2007

Today is the big celebration at the orphanage. On Wednesday, we asked Svetlana what we should wear and she suggested that we just wear what we have on. She told us it would be very casual. I was wearing very casual shorts and a tank top when she said that. As we thought about the celebration, I wondered if we shouldn’t dress up a little…just to be safe. I’d rather be overdressed than underdressed. I wore a black skirt and turquoise top and Fred wore jeans with a button down dress shirt and black dress shoes. When we pulled up to the orphanage, we were so glad we had dressed up. Amina was waiting for us in a pink ball gown. She looked like a beautiful little princess. Khrystyna came skipping out a few minutes later in her cat costume with her face all painted! They were both so adorable! Our friends Mark and Christine showed up a few minutes after us and Kseniya (the secretary at the orphanage and our translator while Svetlana is gone) came over and told us that we would be going to the performance and that afterward, we would have a chance to purchase some handmade crafts. We followed Kseniya up to the hall where the performance was being held and she motioned us into the corner of the back row. The front row was reserved for orphanage sponsors and the second row was reserved for other important people. The performance started with ballroom dancing! There were 10 children (or I guess I should say pre-teens and teenagers in formal wear) who danced beautifully. When they were finished their dance, the teens who were graduating from high school, college, or the military stayed up front and the others went and sat down. Next, we sat through many, many speeches by orphanage sponsors. Although we couldn’t understand a lot of what was being said, we were able to understand what they were trying to convey. It seems that these orphanage sponsors care a lot about the wellbeing of these children. The sponsors also gave out awards to some of the children for their active role in orphanage life….i.e. singing, dancing, etc. Amina was one of about 8 children to receive this award. When the speeches and awards were finished, they began the main program. It took us a while to figure it out, but they were putting on a performance of The Wizard of Oz. The Wizard of Oz was not exactly like our Wizard of Oz. There was a scene in which there were dancing cats. Khrystyna was one of the three dancing cats. She was really cute! Amina played various roles in the performance. She started out the performance in her pink ball gown. She then was in one of the wizard of oz scenes as a dancing tree. During this time she also dances with the tin man while wearing her tree costume. She came out in a later scene wearing a purple dance costume and danced the cha-cha with the tin man. She is quite the dancer. After she finished dancing, she also sang a song which some of the other children danced to. She has a really nice voice! Both of our girls and all of the other children as well did a phenomenal job! We were very proud of all of them. When the Wizard of Oz was over, there were a few more speeches and a few more gifts were given out and then we were dismissed. When we came downstairs to where the handmade craft items were, Amina and Khrystyna had already changed out of their costumes. They were each wearing new outfits. Khrystyna’s was turquoise and Amina’s was lime green. Each of the front of their outfits had a Barbie-like doll on it. Underneath the doll it said “Barby”. It totally made me laugh. They immediately started pointing out everything they had made. There was quite a lot! We tried not to buy too much, but at the same time, we don’t have a whole lot of their handmade projects from their childhood, so we wanted a few. We, along with our friends Mark and Christine, also purchased a cake and some cupcake/cookie things for the girls to share with their friend. The cake and cookies cost us $20…which we thought was a little high, but it was all for a good cause! While we were all shopping for hand made crafts, I noticed that Masha had on the same outfit as Amina. We got a picture of the 3 of them in their matching “Barby” outfits! While we were taking pictures, Kseniya came over and told us that it was time to say goodbye. She also said, “Tomorrow, we will go to the sea.” That wasn’t how we had originally planned to spend the day, but the thought of being in cold water was quite appealing. We told her we would be ready at 9:45, said goodbye to the girls, and headed home. We knew we wouldn’t have a driver or translator the rest of the day, so we planned to spend the rest of the day back at our apartment. After laying around our apartment for a while (it was over 90 degrees…too hot to do anything else), we decided to venture into town for some ice cream. We stopped at our favorite ice cream place, got some ice cream with fruit on it, and headed back to our apartment. Since we had plenty of time on our hands, we watched Madagascar. We bought a few movies while we were out that are in Russian and English. Madagascar was one of them, however, we watched it in English…not Russian. We also watched the news on 3 different channels. All of the news was in Russian, however, 2 of the 3 channels had coverage of the program at the orphanage. On one of the newscasts you could see the back of Khrystyna’s cute little cat costumer as she talks to a newscaster and on the other channel, they had a portion where they show Amina singing. It was very cool to watch! Other than our time at the orphanage, we pretty much just laid around the apartment trying to stay cool. Hopefully the weather will cool off soon!