The Older Boy Comes to Town

We had been told by our adoption agency director that it would be impossible for us to travel to the boarding school of the older boy. There were no hotels or restaurants in that little village, so there would be no place for us to stay during our visit with him. In addition, she stated the drive to that remote area during this time of year could be “just disaster!!”. So we were expecting the boy and his caregiver to arrive in the town of Magadan later that afternoon. Our facilitator in the area called to say that we would be meeting the boy in a large visiting type room in the hotel, and that he and his caregiver, Ludmila, had arrived and were getting settled in at the orphanage in town for older children. We learned from our facilitator, Zoya, that both parents rights were terminated, and the boy had been harshly beaten by his father. She had spoken with the caregiver upon arrival to the city, and Ludmila remarked that “D” had asked her “Do these people beat their children?”. How utterly sad. It was determined that we would all meet at 2:00pm (dva che-SAH). The hour of meeting had arrived, and there was a knock on our hotel door. We had expected to see our facilitator, and were planning to leave our room to go to the larger area so that there would be space and more of an area to play. However, when we opened the door, we found Ludmila and “D”!! Now, they only speak Russian, and we are extremely feeble at communicating in Russian. But, somehow we managed to invite them in, and say it is very nice to meet you, how are you, etc. Neither Ludmila nor we knew where this supposed “visiting area” was, so we just quietly waited for our facilitator to arrive. It was only a few minutes before Zoya’s son arrived, and as we started to leave the room to go to the other area, the boy began to get very apprehensive and said he was afraid….and did not want to leave the room. He was afraid Ludmila was going to leave him alone with these strangers. We all decided maybe the best thing to do would be to stay in our motel room and visit there. We had two chairs, and the end of the bed to sit on, and there was a little room on the floor for playing and moving around. We were talking for a couple of minutes, when suddenly, “D” burst into tears……his caregiver, Ludmila was trying to talk to him, but he began sobbing and was speaking to her in Russian. He was inconsolable!! Ludmila finally related that “D” said when he looked at Wayne and myself, and thought of us as a “Mama” and “Papa”, that he was reminded of the last time he was with family, and he was severely beaten. Ludmila tried her best to settle him down, and he would not quit sobbing!! Finally I thought to myself, “ I must distract him somehow”. I pulled out this really cool book, that you all will find helpful, especially if you are adopting older children. It is called “My First Thousand Words in Russian”. On each page of pictures there is a little hidden duck. I opened the book and yelled “Guh-DEA OOT-ka?” (Where is the duck??). He suddenly became curious….and started looking at the pictures. When he found it, he pointed and said “Voht” (Here is). We went through a lot of the picture pages, where he concentrated intently, and found the duck on each page…..some pages harder than others. When he came to the end of the “duck” pages, there was a page with animals listed on them. He began reading the rest of the book. I then pulled out this storybook that I accidentally bought, that was written entirely in Russian, except for a small English synopsis at the end of the story. He started reading “Puss in Boots”, and quite well, I might add. Ludmila told us that he has only been reading for four months, too! Although he turned 8 years old last November, he is still in the 1st grade. Apparently when the children were taken away from the parents they were placed in a Rehabilitation Home. This is a home where children reside while the parents are being “rehabilitated” and are trying to get their act together, in order to keep custody of their child/children. “D” lived there for one year, and apparently there was no schooling there. When the parents were not rehabilitated, and their rights were terminated, he was sent to the boarding school in April 2006, and was placed in the first grade. He did rather well, but could not learn the entire curriculum by the time school was out at the end of May. So, when school resumed again in the fall, “D” was placed in the 1st grade again. Well, we finally we had to get the “Puss in Boots” story away from him, because he did not want to stop reading!! He was finally more at ease with us!! Continuing Part 2 tomorrow……