Hello Everyone! This is the free woman roaming wild in Mariupol! Or is it the wild woman roaming free in Mariupol?! My new translator Tayna looks as if she could be my younger thinner sister! Her hair is dyed red (as is many woman's hair in Ukraine. They don't even try to get it to look like mine, they go for the fire engine color!). She is 26 years old, married and working on her doctorate degree in foreign languages. She teaches English at the University along with Edward and this is how she got the job of babysitting me for a week. I cost $40/day to look after. Just my luck, she loves to talk and she has a cat! She laughed at me today as I fed "every single cat in Mariupol." She makes me wash my hands with antibacterial wipes after I pet each set of cats.

I decided to use her expertise in teaching English to work on Kolya, to his dismay. He said his favorite subjects in school are Drawing, physical training and computers. he does not like his English class. HA! He picked the wrong family to live with!!! We spent about 30-45 minutes on the alphabet and writing his name. As a reward he then got to watch a Russian cartoon/movie. Tanya and I could not stay awake during the movie, but tried hard to look interested.

But the real story lies in our morning session today. I interviewed Kolya with the camcorder. I used my journalism savvy and started with easy questions to soften him up then ended with the hard ones. I almost did not want to post this, but it is easier to tell everyone all at once instead of each person asking me individually and having to tell his story in front of him over and over again. I learned that his father left his mother when he was young (I know that is relative as he is still young) and he went to live with his father and his father's parents. This is the grandfather we met the other day. This is also the house where Kolya grew-up in. Kolya loved his grandmother and she was a good cook, so he says. She is now deceased. His father was a drug addict and was killed in the home by some people who broke into the house, stole the drugs and video tapes, then beat his father to death. Kolya and someone else came home to the dead father. Kolya was then sent to live with his alcoholic mother, whom he helped quite a bit. One day he said he ate something that made him very sick and he had to go to the hospital. It was then that her parental rights were taken away. I had Tanya interpret the video tape of the visit to his home and the grandfather was happy for him to go to America as he is too old and sick to care for Kolya. Kolya told the neighbor ladies his mother is in a hospital. I did not ask Kolya to elaborate on this subject as I don't really care where she is now. The neighbor ladies want him to write to them. He did not say he would, yet he did not say he wouldn't.

So that's it. I am so glad we can provide a better life for him and I made sure Tanya told him that if he ever wants to talk about his parents or grandparents we would love to hear the good stories as well as the bad. I also told him we are very grateful to his parents for having him as we would not get to raise and love him if they hadn't.

I will end now as I have only paid for an hour and want to check my e-mail and read your comments. Then I must hit the disco across the street because I look and smell so wonderful after walking and sweating all day! Joe and the kids got to Kyiv just fine and signed all the necessary papers. They will do sight-seeing tomorrow and fly back on Sunday.