Open Your Heart for Good

This weekend, the Perechyn Boarding School and Opika welcomed around fifty guests from Holland. As supporters and volunteers of the CHOE Foundation, these are the families who support the organization and host children in their homes every summer.

They spent the morning at the orphanage touring the place where their "summer kids" live the rest of the year. The kids had been

preparing for their visit for weeks, making colorful beaded potted flowers as gifts, cards, welcome signs, as well as, cleaning their rooms and themselves and memorizing new poems, songs, and dances.

At four o'clock, the Dutch arrived at the Palace of Culture for one of the most impressive performances I have seen in Perechyn. I expected to see a group of 50 Dutch people when I arrived; instead, the 400 seat auditorium was standing-room only. Many from the town also came out to show their support, including graduates of the school from all over the coun

try.

Graduates of the orphanage came from as far away as Korea to perform for the guests in a tribute to their generosity for the last 15 years. The performance, called "Open Your Heart for Good" included the youngest of the boarding school residents, seven years old, and the oldest of the graduates on stage, now 37 years old.

"Studio Suprise," the name Iryna gave to her performance group many years ago, boasts graduates who now live and perform all over the world. Joseph, now a performer in Korea, and Oksana, now a professional dancer and student in Kyiv returned for the performance. Sasha, who speaks five languages, just returned from the six months working for the United Nations. He now lives in Kyiv, but plans to return to Zakarpattia. He not only performed, but translated for our guests into their native language.

Throughout the performance, Jan, the founder and director of CHOE and the leader of this delegation of Dutch, moved around the room - hopping from one chair to another. He talked with different graduates he had know from the school throughout the performance and at one point, he sat in front of me. I had told him one of the things that the Americans (Julie and Ted) had told me

about their girls was that they found the school open and the children accepting of their presence and that they thought this was in great part due to the fact that the children from this school had already lived abroad, in Holland, during their summers. Jan told me that this meant a great deal to him to know that this had contributed to the successful adoption of these girls. I imagine it is hard to "adopt" children for a summer and then have to send them back home, just as it is difficult for the kids to have a home life for three months and then return to the institution. But, the Dutch cannot adopt from Ukraine. I am not certain the reason, but when Americans come to adopt children here, it takes quite a bit of time and money to navigate the system. And, being in a school with experience working with foreigners, certainly helps.

I heard Jan speaking some of the "little bit" of Ukrainian the kids told me he knew; all the words he knew were those of love and encouragement - the most important ones.

I couldn't help thinking about the power of one person to be inspired and inspire so many

others to not only give their time and their resources, but to open up their homes for children, who speak another language, to live with them. You could see from the slideshow that these families had become attached to the kids just as much as the kids had to them. I couldn't help thinking, how unfortunate it is that Holland does not have an agreement with Ukraine to adopt children from here. I would bet many of these kids would be permanently with families in Holland already. The good will of the Dutch is legendary here and their international hospitality makes it easier for those of us who can adopt them to build these bonds. I don't know what the future has in store for Max and for me, but I certainly hope that one day it will include opening our hearts and doors for children in our own home. We shall see.

Visit to the Svalyava Infant Orphanage

Svalyava is a town about an hour away from Perechyn. Svalyava is well known among the boarding school crowd as the "infant orphanage." This is the place infants are taken when they are removed from their mothers, following a few days waiting period in the local hospital.

As I wrote before, one of the reasons we started the "Mother's School" project was to educate young people and build the capacity of mentors to help educate young people from the orphanage to reduce the rates of teen pregnancy among graduates of the Perechyn orphanage. Over the past five years, more than 50 lives births have occurred among 38 teenage mothers graduating from the school. Most of these children have ended up here - in the Svalyava orphanage.

Iryna's goal, by taking them to see the actual orphanage, was to make this process "real" for them. She wanted them to see the place and understand what happens when children come to this place. We were not able to go into the school, as this is forbidden by Ukrainian law (only those who are authorized to be there are able to go in). However, we heard from people who know about life in this place and we facilitated a discussion with the children. The message was not to suggest that the children aren't cared for in this place - they are certainly cared for as much as they can be in an institutional setting. But, the bond between a parent and a child begins very early and the message was that they should consider their actions and their readiness to care for a child before having one.

Two members of our group know this very well. One of them, whom you see here with her child, was only able to keep her child from this place because a community mentor took her and the child into her home, and she is helping to care for them both. Another young mother was not so fortunate and as she stood peering through the gates, I couldn't imagine what she was thinking wiht her child in there and her standing out here in the cold. She was on the verge of getting her child back when a quarantine was put into place at the orphanage and she learned she would not be able to visit the orphanage or take her child until this quarantine lifted. Quarantines are common in Ukraine, as the availability of vaccines and medicines to combat outbreaks of such things as Hepatitis, the flu, etc. are not available.

Many thanks to Erin Simms, the PCV in Svalyava, who arranged for us to have a classroom at her school where we could hear from presenters and have our discussion. Erin is hoping she might be able to work with the infant orphanage herself.

Training at the Boarding School

We have had a busy few weeks! Here are photos from our training at the orphanage with about 30 teen residents. As you see here, one of the teachers at the school (also a mentor in our Mother's School program) used the information she learned from our training to design a training for youth. Our consultant, Olena, provided advice about how to adapt the material for a younger audience and we were able to do so. This training will be repeated in the future for other young people.

The teacher/mentor was able to pass along information she learned to the young people. They discussed such things as teen pregnancy, the developmental needs (physical and emotional) of pregnant mothers and their babies, as well as, the material needs they require after they have been born.

This kind of open dialogue is important with these children, as many of them have no parents (and thus, no examples in their lives) and/or little contact with adults who provide them such education. We take this for grantide in our everyday lives.

These kids are like every other teenager in the world. Their bodies are changing and the hormones are causing them to act in ways they may not understand. Many of them say they know these things and understand them, but we often found that their information was skewed and incorrect. The training, as much as anything, was important to changing their perceptions about how to become pregnant and how sexually transmitted diseases are passed on to others. But, just as important are the softer issues like psycho-social and moral issues as they relate to the choices these young people make in their lives.

Stan, Julie and their 3 girls

Over the last two weeks, I had the wonderful opportunity to spend time with a lovely couple from Indiana are now the proud parents of three girls from the Perechyn boarding school. They found this website after a search of the internet. It was such a joy, getting to know them and, at least in part, traveling with them on this epic journey.

They visited three schools in Ukraine, before finding a good fit with our own here in Perechyn. Like all new parents, they ran the gamut of emotions the month they were here, from nervous to happy, from tired to overjoyed. As they explained in their interview with a reporter from the Perechyn Kalaidescope newspaper, from the first day, the girls were absolutely certain that these were their parents – all of them, including the youngest who, barely able to read and write, insisted on signing the paper herself that it was her sincere wish to go home with this couple (even though she had an advocate who could sign for her). If you had met them, you would understand why; goodness and love transcend language barriers.

After trying to work out of his hotel room, Stan, a computer programmer, and I met at the time when he was considering returning to Kyiv in order to have regular internet access. Each day they were allowed to see the girls for three hours at a time and Stan and Julie would have been away from each other and from this experience together. So, it was quite provident that our office was equipped to fit his needs. Stan became a regular part of our “collective” and he fit right in.
On Men’s Day (also known as Red Army Day and Soviet Army Day), he celebrated with us in the kitchen. I joked with him that we are so much like a family, that we would normally be eating from the big plate of the chicken with our fingers. Plates and forks had been passed around in his honor. Stan, sat up and brightly asked if it would be ok to eat with his fingers; I smiled and translated his question to the rest of the office staff. Everyone let out a great laugh and the forks were put aside. Stan shared with us that our camaraderie reminded him of the four years that he and his wife Julie spent in Morocco.

In true Ukrainian fashion, theirs was a time of hurry-up and wait. Things would happen very quickly for awhile and then full-stop, while they waited to be added to the docket of the local courthouse line-up, or stood in line for a stamp, birthcertificate, or passport. Had I not gone through something similar (marrying a Ukrainian), I could not have appreciated the amount of patience they had, even though they had hired a facilitator to help them navigate the system. As we entered a very long holiday weekend, there was a mad dash to get all the paperwork completed so they could get to Kyiv for medical interviews and final visa checks (before the holiday festivities began and offices closed down).

I went shopping with Julie as she prepared a party for each of the girls’ classes at school. I had this vision of her with a Tupperware full of cupcakes, she had made with one of her daughters, sitting in the backseat of a minivan two years from now; after dropping her girls off at school, she made her way to her job as a nurse practitioner at the local hospital. Life - ordinary, beautiful.

On Tuesday, they waited in a local government office all morning, and then rushed into our office to pick up the cakes they had left in our refrigerator the day before. They were off to the classroom parties. At the end of the evening, Max (my husband), Michele (another Peace Corps volunteer in Perechyn), and I happily celebrated their new “simeyni zhittia (family life)” at our apartment. It was Julie’s birthday and the birthday of their new family. We talked about their experience and their journey to get to this place - really, just the beginning.

Many people ask about the language barrier between the girls and the new parents. Stan and Julie speak some Russian, but anyone who has spent any amount of time in a foreign country knows that when you cannot communicate with words, you learn other ways to express yourself. In some ways, this expression is more meaningful than words could ever be. It is non-verbal communication that brings people to their most meaningful relationships, whether or not they speak the same language.

My husband, Maksym, took the day off to clean our apartment and make a traditional Ukrainian meal in honor of Stan and Julie. Just before we ate, he made this toast. “I grew up in the boarding school, myself, and I want to tell you that what you are doing for these girls is a great thing. Here’s to good people who do great things.”