Victory Park, lunch and new words

Today, we decided to take Svetlana to Victory Park. It is a park that was named for a battle that was fought years ago between Soviets and Afghanistan (I think). It's on the way we walk to the orphanage everyday. It's just a regular park, but has some rides in the back and places to eat - nothing fancy. Svetlana had her choice of rides. We had a train like a bull, bumper ducks on water (see picture), bumper cars, bounce house, merry-go round (if you want to call it that - she looked pretty bored - didn't move up and down), and a hanging circular swing - you know the kind you sit on and goes in a circle so it swings you out to the side - that one she chickened out of after getting in the seat. She really enjoyed the bounce house. It looked like a shark and the mouth had teeth and would open and close so it looked like it was eating the kids!










We stayed there for a while and then took her back to the apartment so we could eat and show her where we had been staying. We had told her that we would be coming back after eating, and she seemed to understand as we were using some words we knew and some new ones from the dictionary. Everything was fine, we got into the apartment we showed her around, and then all of a sudden she started crying, but we couldn't understand why. We thought she understood we were going back, I could here her say 'I want' and couldn't understand the rest. We thought - Oh my, if she is having shock set in like she finally understands more she is really going to America, it's starting sooner than we expected. We thought maybe she realized she wouldn't see her sister anymore - who knows....So we made an emergency phone call to Sergei - he was on his way back walking, but then took a taxi back instead. By the time he got back she had calmed down some, Grant was starting to get some things out of the refrigerator and Sergei asked her what had happened - why she was crying. Thank goodness! She just wanted to go back to the park! Whew! So we ate and had some fun at the apartment. Sometimes we learn new words because we need to, and sometime by accident. Today, as we were playing and she fell on her 'rear' and was laughing, Grant in his humour, pointed to his rear and said 'tooshi'. Sergei started laughing after she said something, and she had said 'So-what, I have panties too!'. Then Sergei told us she thought Grant said 'trousie' which means underwear! So we all had a good laugh from that one!

We went back to the park for more bounce house and cotton candy. We had stopped at the store on the way to the apartment and I guess she was eyeing a Snickers bar, so we told her she could have Snickers or cotton candy. So we got a real good size cotton candy before dropping her off at the orphanage. (Isn't that what all good parents do? Give there kids sugar and then drop them off to someone else? ha ha).

We all had a lot of fun today and are beginning to be able to communicate some new rules to her. We have been told there is a mentality of 'survival of the fittest' at most orphanages, and we have been observing some subtleties of this, mainly of behavior and attitudes going unchecked of all the kids. It is hard for her to realize that not everyone has this way of thinking/treating others. It is a delicate balance to know what needs to be corrected (and how) because a lot of it is rooted in wrong thinking and lack of teaching/training. I'm sure it is very hard for her because it means losing some of her freedom in making her own choices until she can learn to make better choices.

We hope to take her to church tomorrow. The Deputy Director has been letting us take her without the Director's approval since she is out until Monday, so she is a little nervous. I'm sure the director would let us take her out, she just doesn't want to overstep her authority. Whatever takes place though, it will be good.