Days and Nights

During the day, Kovel is a lovely small town. We are staying in quiet, modern (for Ukraine) hotel near the center of town. We have a little suite which is clean and pleasant. During the quiet afternoon while Sasha is in school, we walk through the parks in the sunshine with the other residents, enjoying the spring sunshine and watching the happy children scamper and play. The houses in Kovel seem almost purposefully distressed because the way the colors have faded and chipped is so picturesque. There are nice stores and  small churches along with restaurants and other businesses lining the quiet streets. Every now and then you pass a horse drawn wagon or see an ancient looking babushka, wearing a long sleeved dress, heavy shoes and wool stockings,  and a head scarf tied under her chin while she naps in her cheery garden. I've noticed an old man selling home made brooms made out of bundles of sticks on the side of the road away from town on the highway. He sits sleepily next to his rickety bicycle and  only has 3 or 4 brooms. It seems like an odd business plan to me, but there he sits, patiently waiting for a sale each day, looking like an image from another century.

At night,  the mood changes and first we hear a big thumping techno party downstairs at our hotel which will go on into the wee hours. After the party ends, it seems like the ghosts come out. There are all kinds of strange noises outside. Sometimes it sounds like a man speaking into a megaphone followed by big bangs. The street dogs bark for so long I wonder how they keep up their enthusiasm for it. Car alarms go off and people yell to each other and the trains make noise in the distance. 

I don't really think it's ghosts, but if a place were to be haunted, this town would be a likely candidate if only from the misery that went on here in the first half of the 20th century. First, the Russians came in and violently enforced communism and then the famine of 1932-33  caused many deaths.  Less than 10 years later, the Nazis captured this area. As the Soviets retreated, they murdered and tortured priests, townspeople, even the local Abbot. Then the Nazis got control and decimated the Jewish population. They rounded up many Jews and made them wait to be executed in their own synagogue. Many of them wrote messages in pencil on the walls of the synagogue for their families and later someone copied those messages into a book.  It's amazing that there were people left to rebuild, but there were and they did.

 Kovel is situated on a lovely river. The orphanage is in a smaller town nearby and is on a quiet street with neat little houses and farms. We drive over each afternoon in a taxi.  Sometimes  we pass a farmer taking his three cows home. It looks funny because he's walking them home in the middle of the street. Beyond the orphanage, the farms turn into peaceful woods.

Today when we visited Sasha we got to see his whole group for a little while. They are all very sweet. I took a photo of him showing some of them our iPad. He was having fun showing the other kids what to do, but then left it to play soccer with Tato. We read a story in English, practiced color words (Ukrainian for us, which Sasha enjoys teaching us, and what a generous and patient teacher he is, and English for Sasha) and did a little math. In between, he played Q-Bert (also Tato's favorite!). It was another happy and relaxed visit.

Tonight we're listening to the techno-pop from the party downstairs, distant dogs barking and those loud bangs and odd yells. Tomorrow, it'll be another peaceful, sunny day in this lovely small town and another happy visit at the orphanage with our precious new son. With every visit we feel more endeared to him by his good, fun and sweet manner.  How happy we are to see that he seems to be perfectly normal and healthy and, with each visit, more relaxed and happy with his mama and tato.  It's good that after every scaryish night there seems to be a happier day.

BMOC (Big Man On Campus)

A lovely, quaint house near our hotel: