(Susan’s blog entry today)

Natalie and Annie were going to teach Patty and me how to make peelmeni (a meat filled dumpling) on Saturday. We spent the first part of the morning at the central market looking for a peelmenni form, which allows formation of 36 dumplings at one time. These open markets are really amazing. They keep them open all year and only close them if the temperature drops below 0 deg. F. They have every manufactured good you can think of in them. The only problem is that you have to wander around until you find the booth that has what you want in it. This particular market is made up of well over 1000 eight-by-six (average size) contiguous booths – that’s just the outdoor section. We counted 370 in just one row. There doesn’t seem to be any order to them. Indoors there are more innumerable booths, as well as a large gymnasium-sized room with counters of unrefrigerated meat for your selection. The fish are also very plentiful, including the boneless, meatless (!) variety. We haven’t figured what these are for. We finally found the form and of course it was in the last place that we looked.

After taking the form back to the apartment we caught the #4 bus for the school. As we walked up the drive to the school we could hear some of the younger students shout, “Americanski, Americanski!” They are all getting to know us and if the children aren’t waiting for us they run and find them shouting, “Dasha, Stan, Toli!” John and Annie took the children back to the apartment and Natalie and I got off at the supermarket to buy the meat for the dumplings. The children watched a movie while we gals made over 150 dumplings. Every one of them was eaten in a matter of minutes. The children are bottomless pits when it comes to food. They also ate 2 kilos of ice cream after the dumplings. Natalie says that the food that they get at the school isn’t prepared very well so not to be surprised that they like the food that we serve them. We really hope that this carries on back home.

On the way to the apartment Dasha told us through Natalie, our interpreter, the heartbreaking story of how the Suhozhenko children came to be at the orphanage. It was all that we could do to keep from crying on the bus. We really just want to love and cherish these children. We hope that we can help them heal from some of the hurts of their past. And yet they seem to be very happy and good natured children overall.

Sunday

The weather forecast for today was rain with some snow! Does spring ever come to Sumy? The boys had a soccer competition this morning. Their school team is doing very well. Out of 18 schools they are in the 5th place and they won both of the games they played today. They met us back at the apartment after the game. The girls came with Natalie to church with us. Back at the apartment it was a feeding frenzy. We just fixed something light because we invited the Missionaries for dinner and a message at 6:00 p.m. While we were waiting for the food to digest between meals Sasha asked Patty if they would be able to visit our children when we are all back home. They have developed a bond with each other that they didn’t have before. We find all of these children so delightful even though they may have their moments. After all they are still just children. After more food and a nice message from the Elders Natalie took the children back to the school after much resistance from them. John, Paul and I walked the children to the bus stop and bid them farewell until tomorrow. We went back to the apartment to see what the damage for the day was.