The Artful Giver

Some of our co-worker friends have started an organization that provides art supplies for an orphanage in Krivoy Rog. They also auction off artwork made by the students (who are using the donated supplies!) There are a couple pieces that you can bid on now...Please check out their website www.artfulgiver.org.
Also, they aren't yet a 501K (non-profit) because they need help going through the hoops. If you can, please help!

Marigolds

It's the end of March and the snow has just melted off the ground! The Spring breezes are blowing today and walks are once again pleasant.
Lately we've had a rough go with our nanny. The poor thing got chicken pox last week. Ken stayed home on Monday to take care of Rawly and I took Tuesday off. We both really enjoyed our time with the wee little one, but needed to be back at work. Fortunately a co-workers' friend was available to fill-in for the rest of the week. She doesn't speak English, so Olga (co-worker) came to translate the first morning. She's really cute and tries to tell me everything in Russian, but luckily her husband knows English, so between him on speakerphone or an electric translator we've been communicating! She writes down a brief descriptions of what they did throughout the day. This is one of my favorites:
i cut marigold on hand and on foot. i see, how on foot on big finger--wound. He marigold break down? Must plaster?
Marigolds, hmmm, it is hinting at Spring but we're still a long way from having blooming flowers...okay, I thought, she must mean finger nails. That morning we had trimmed one of his big toe nails because it had split--there was a little area that looks like a hangnail, so she thought that he might need a band-aid. As I had guessed, the words marigold and fingernail are very similar in Russian, hence the cut marigolds in March:)

Wrapped in plastic

This may be humorous only to those who have lived here, but here's a little background info for those of you living vicariously through us--you know who you are, don't deny it, you have secretly always dreamed of living in Ukraine! Every type of document is stored in a plastic sleeve. A P.E. teacher has even said she gets, "Please excuse Sasha" notes in a sleeve.(Sasha is the common Ukrainian name here for boys or girls equivalent to how we always say Johnny or Sally.)
We were at the American Medical Clinic (which I'm so thankful for the AMC) waiting in the lobby when Rawly filled his drawers. We had come directly from school, so didn't have a change of clothes and wanted to get him into a new diaper pronto so that he wouldn't be messy. Since there aren't really changing tables anywhere, we've grown accustomed to the quick change on our laps...so without thinking, we stripped him down. Unfortunately, his diaper had been folded when he had been changed last, so as we held him up, out came the poo--all over everywhere! About that time, the doctor came out to get us. So I had poop all over my coat and pants and Ken was holding a half naked baby. Shocked, the doctor suggested that we change him in the room where it was warmer. Oh silly parents.
Anyway, the doctor began his examination--Rawly needed his clothes off for that anyway, right? Once the appointment was finished, we put Rawls into his jacket suit (kind of like super thick pajamas) we were trying to figure out what to do with his soiled clothing when the doctor suggested a plastic sleeve. To which he said, "Why not?" Also probably more funny to us because this is a very common phrase that almost every English-speaking Ukrainian uses. So out we went to catch a taxi, soiled clothes wrapped in a plastic sleeve and tucked away.
It took me a lot of scrubbing and washing my pants three times before I was able to get the stain out of my black dress pants--weird.