Adventures

Krasnadon, Part I

We had sort of been on our own in Antratsit.  A few days before we left America, I decided we needed to be more adventurous so instead of staying in Lugansk and driving everywhere, we are staying where the orphanages are located.  The first 3 nights we stayed in Anratsit.  Anton came to get us on Monday morning.  We had to drive back to Schotova to pick up some hosting paperwork so we were thrilled to be able to hang with the kids a little while more.  We got on the road to Krasnadon about 11:45 am.  Anton had his trusty ole GPS to lead the way.  And lead it did; straight to an abandoned building at the end of a dirt road!  Taryn reminded me that I wanted adventure.  She, Alexandra and Jay got out for a photo shoot while Anton and I tried to decide how to get out of the fix we were in; that “fix” being “lost”.  Solution:  ask a villager walking down the dirt road.  So we finally got back on track, getting to see the Russian border from a distance, and arriving in Krasnadon around 2:00.

We are staying at an awesome old Soviet style hotel at which Colton should come and film a movie.  Wood and concrete floors.  Bare walls.  No hot water.  Sometimes no water at all.  The Krasnadon village orphanage is about half an hour from the town.  When we got there the Director gathered up all the kids and we sat in the teacher’s lounge and got acquainted.  Uno and Trouble once again did the trick.  We have 2 Nastias, 2 Kristinas, 1 Yana and 1 Sergey that we will be hosting from there.  Let me introduce them to you:

Curly haired Nastia is 11 years old and in the 5^th grade.   Her 2 brothers are adults.  Blond Nastia is 11 years old and in the 4^th grade.  She has no siblings.  Yana is 11 years old and in the 5^th grade.  She has an adult brother.  Kistina K.  is 14 and in the 8^th grade; she has no siblings.  Sergey is 14 and in the 8^th grade and has a 16 year old brother no longer in the orphanage.  Kristina S.  is 12 and in the 6^th grade.  I am not sure about her sibling situation. 

We hung out with the kids until around 7:00.  We walked to the bus stop through a park.  It was SO DARK that had Lori not had a flashlight we could not have found our way.  As Jay told Lori, she needed a flashlight to find her flashlight.  Upon arriving at the bus stop, we realized we had not idea when the next bus might come and it was COLD!  So we got a cab.  You had to be there to find the humor in this, but I am sure the cab driver thought we were drunk.  Maybe we were delirious from lack of sleep and food; maybe you just have to laugh to keep from crying; but when he accidentally turned his headlights off as we sped down a dark lonely road, and I exclaimed “Oh my gosh!!”, even the stoic Ukrainian cab driver had to laugh.  We made it safely back to our hotel room, walked next door to some sort of café that had wifi and ate what we did not order.  Ukraine.  I love it.