Wednesday, April 4, 2007

4/4/07 (1) - Met Irina (Ira) today!!!




Had to wait all day yesterday to get our paperwork back from the SDA (5 - 6 PM) so we could head out to Kharkiv. We spent the day going through the was museum (fabulous site) and the Monastery and went though the catacombs where monks have been being buried for hundreds of years (quite an adventure). Moved out of our apartment and took a 10:30 PM train to Kharkiv that arrived at 6:30 AM today. We all got very little sleep if any and then were met by Sergey and we checked into our apartment (arranged by Sergey). Unpacked, took showers and then off to Lyubotin (10 miles or so out of the city). We had to stop in the village central office for permission from the Inspector to go on to the orphanage to see Ira. We arrived at the orphanage about 10:30 - 11:00 AM. The place looked deserted at that particular time. We parked in front of what looked like the main office and a woman came out of nowhere across the courtyard and greeted us. She was the director of the orphanage. She was most enthusiastic and over viewed the grounds and buildings and told us that at one time there were over 1000 orphans residing there (according to the Web approx. 250 orphans reside there now). The orphanage is 45 years old.
Pic. 1: Front of SDA; Pic. 2: Sovereign hunting with the "Wild One"; Pic. 3: One of the buildings at the orphanage --- See 4/4/07 (2) for the rest of today's news.........

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