Ukraine Adoption - Day 12 (Sumy)

[Matt writing for first portion]
I'll add a bit of the day-to-day color that continues to make us smile, miss home, and remember what a crazy ride we're on. Knowing that I'd go stir crazy without getting in some exercise while here, we had Masha and Oleg help find a "fitness center" for us, and conveniently, one is located about a block away on the ground floor of an apt building - this gym is named "Hollywood!" I've become an every other day regular and am pleased with the facility which I mostly have to myself. On my first day, the girl working the front desk continued to hover around me as I worked out - I didn't realize my sounds of exertion and heavy breathing differ from those in Russian? I did my best to not crack up and maintain my lazerlike focus... :) This morning while going through my routine, I was joined by a stout man whose body reminds me of an anvil - we exchanged the obligatory "what's up Dude" looks and moved on. Next thing I know, Mr. Bufferunkus interrupts (in Russian) my current exercise and has me follow him into the next room to show me a machine that duplicates the exact move I purposely was doing with free weights... thanks Dude... and so it went for the duration of the morning, during virtually every routine I did, Senor Stout would volunteer pointers, have me adjust my hands here, stance there... sheesh! I did my best to nod, "da," "spasiba (thanks)", etc, but was getting rather bugged as I had zero continuity. At the end of my workout I walked over and bid him farewell and we exchanged names and language barrier goodbyes, at which point he announced he was both a former Mr. USSR and Mr. Ukraine, along the orders of Mr. Universe, etc - and I have to say I'm not surprised - he was very serious about his workout - fun stuff!

Another funny thing happened related to my haircut today - for those that know me and have seen recent photos in this blog, I'm already sporting a very short do - knowing we'd be out of the country for the most part of a month, Cher buzzed it at the end of June - nice cool summer hairdo. So yesterday, I attempted to trim my sideburns in our apt bathroom which conveniently has lights only on the left side of the bathroom mirror, making it tough to get an accurate feel for such an endeavor - and as you can imagine, I ended up shearing several apparent gouges above my right temple. I called Cher in to see if she could salvage it and was told this would require professional help. So today I went into a rather lavish hair salon and got the royal treatment. Masha interpreted via cell phone my desire to "clean up the sides and leave the top as is..." so the woman proceeded to do a great job on the first part, cleaing up sides high and tight, and then after changing clipper guards to a higher #, motioned to me non-verbally, what I thought was her plan to blend the sides, so I nodded in approval, just to have her take the clippers right down the middle of my head (think reverse mohawk)... :( A bit bummed, but it'll grow back - but don't be surprised when you see photos of me as I'm about as close as I've ever been to being "Bic'ed!"


[Cher's writing]
It was a good day, and it was good to see the Gledhill's. Today we just worked from home all morning and then went to see the "Egg Lady" at about 1pm. We have a wonderful taxi driver, Alexsei (we need a picture of him) who has this nice air conditioned Audi, and has become our little buddy. He's so appreciative of us - seriously, I give him a couple dollar (equivalent) tip and he is shocked! Anyway, the egg lady is a local artist here who paints on eggs (typical Ukrainian art) and plates, but who has come to learn of all of the LDS people who travel here, and has painted on eggs replicas of familiar LDS art. It's beautiful; she really is amazing. We had to pick up an order for the Koch's and we placed our own order, as well. Then we met the Gledhill's for lunch and it was nice to reconnect with them re: their crazy and horribly inconvenient journey so far. They still don't have their luggage - it's been 5 days! They have such a good attitude, though, and are troopers. Then we went to the orphanage for just a little while. Today was difficult at the orphanage. Some of the children who don't have families, or who have never been hosted, were pained by the two sets of parents there today (us and Gledhills) here on the trip to take our children home to America. Little Dima/Punya, our little buddy, was found walking alone and crying before we left tonight. We went up to him and he was shy and trying to hide that he was crying. But he confided that he feels alone, and I would imagine that of course he feels this way, watching us here at the orphanage to pick up other children. We can't get him off our mind tonight, and are determined to find little Dima (and the others) a home, a family, a life outside of the orphanage complete with love and opportunities. We've bonded with so many of these kids in the last 9 days... I find myself praying for them all the time. I know we can't adopt everyone, but I'm telling you I wish we could.