Here is our sleeping car on the train.

OCTOBER 31, 2005 HAPPY HALLOWEEN!


Happy Halloween from Kiev! We've had an exhausting an adventurous couple of days.

Thursday- Sasha picked us up around 6 pm to take us to the train station. Donetsk is around 450 miles/700 km from Kiev. But takes 12 hours by bus or train. We met Stas at the train station. He is to be our facilitator in Donetsk. He is a really nice man around Jeff's age who doesn't speak much English. The three of us shared a sleeping cabin. There are four bunks in each one. When you get sleepy you roll out a mattress, put on the sheets, and go to bed. We were able to talk to Stas for several hours using a translation book and by drawing pictures. One time we couldn't understand what he was saying so he called his son. His son is 15 and fluent in English. We went to sleep around midnight and slept for around 5 hours. There is a bathroom at each end of each sleeping car. They are interesting. When you are done you step on a pedal and a trap door opens in the bottom of the toilet. The contents fall out on the train tracks. I guess that is one way of keeping people from walking on the tracks. Even so they smell terrible and by morning the stench was creeping down to our room.

Friday- We arrived in Donetsk at 7 am. We were greeted by our translator Aleana who is around 23 and beautiful. She was dressed like a model: stylish black dress, high heeled, thigh high black boots, perfect make-up, gorgeous hair-the works. We felt like hillbillies, we had slept in our jeans and you don't want to see me without a shower. We headed for Sun City- the only place that is open 24 hours. We had some toast and caffeine while waiting for the inspectors office to open. We waited in the taxi with Aleana while Stas got permission from the inspector for us to visit the orphanage. Then we waited at the orphanage while Stas got permission from the orphanage director. The orphanage was nice. We were taken into a large music room. They brought in the little boy who was eating a cookie. He did not look anything like the picture we have of him. The shape of his face, eyes, etc. - nothing was the same. ??? The orphanage director told us his history. He has severe brain damage due to an infection his mother had when she gave birth. His file at the NAC said nothing of this. Then the doctor explained that he would never be normal, never read or write and hasn't mastered any skills. We played with him for an hour or so. He is a strong little guy, but there is definitely something wrong with him. We were hoping that the doctor had just overdiagnosed (sp?) him, which is common here. They do this to cover themselves. We spoke to three caregivers who all said he would be too much to handle when he was older. So we left and headed to the inspector's office for the refusal paperwork. She was out of the office so Stas took us to get something to eat and get train tickets. The train was sold out but we got bus tickets. We waited around for 5 hours and Stas got the paper work. The bus left at 6 pm. It was like a greyhound but was a Mercedes-Benz. It was clean but had no bathroom. It stopped every hour for people to get out to smoke and to use the bathroom. Around 3 my Dramamine wore off and I felt terrible. But we survived. Sasha picked us up around 5:30 and took us back to our apartment. He felt really bad and hopes to get us an appointment this week.

Saturday- When we got back to the apartment, we showered and went to sleep. We woke around noon and lounged around all day. I still wasn't feeling the greatest.

Sunday- We took the bus and metro to the grocery store and McDonald's where I stupidly drank a chocolate shake. I had a stomach ache for the rest of the day.

Today Sasha stopped by to get our refusal paperwork. We had to write a letter asking for another appointment. Then we headed to the square for some internet time. We are going to McDonald's for lunch with some friends (no shake for me today).

We are doing fine although I am craving a Mr. Pibb and a salad from Whimp's. We miss everyone at home. Today a couple from Oregon is arriving. She has been emailing me for a while and is bringing lots of books. I ran out of things to read three weeks ago.