Angels Will Watch Over You

Arrival in Moscow has heretofore meant navigating Sheremetyevo Airport’s dingy, tired, and cramped international terminal, but this trip our plane halts outside a building I’ve never been in. It is immaculate, modern, innovative, and expansive. If signs weren’t in Cyrillic, or if the flight attendant hadn’t welcomed us to Russia, I’d think I’d deplaned at a new airport in the United States.

The next day, I return to the airport to pick up my families. Ten are traveling, by far a record. They come on two flights, about an hour apart, so I chat with the first group as we await the second. Kate, a young girl whose parents adopted through our director Hope years ago, has read much of my blog. She reminds me of details I’ve revealed about myself in posts past, and wonders if I find it creepy she knows so much about me.

At the hotel, everyone unloads their bags. After their all-night flight, they good-naturedly vote to sightsee. Travel is my favorite hobby, and they delight me with their gameness to see a place that, despite its grittiness, has become my third-favorite city, after Grand Rapids and Venice.

The metro is the most sensible mode of transportation for us in Moscow. Before the trip I work hard to apprise the hosts of what to expect, but the metro deftly defies description. While I loathe pushiness, I warn families that boarding the metro is no time to be selfless. Still, I know that, early on, some chivalrous soul will step aside to let everyone else board ahead of them. It would be a nightmare to reconnect were we to be separated, even though we distribute Russian phones to all travelers, to be safe.

Sure enough, our first foray onto the metro, a few hold back to permit the rest of the group to meander in. When the alarm sounds to warn the door is closing, I physically stuff the person in front of me onto the train, and not a moment too soon, as the doors slam shut behind me. Beside me, an elderly lady also makes it. She smiles at us, very rare for Russians, as they believe to smile at strangers is to announce the smiler is crazy. She speaks to me in Russian, as I smile and nod. When she continues, I answer “Da!” though I haven’t any idea what she is saying. If the country is enjoying a nascent movement toward friendliness, I’d hate to squelch it. As she persists, I counter with da’s at each pause, until she finally realizes I’m not Russian. While speaking English is becoming more prevalent among the younger generation, the older the person or more menial their job, the less likely they are to know English. So the lady flabbergasts me when she abandons Russian and switches to first-rate English. “Angels will watch over you!” she declares. She asks a few questions, which I answer until the train grinds to another stop. The car is already standing-room only, and as more Muscovites shove their way aboard, the lady is swallowed by the crowd. “Angels will watch over you!” she calls as her parting benediction, slipping away.

We emerge from the metro’s tunnels just outside the Kremlin, which the group has chosen to see this trip. The world’s largest cannon, a 200-ton bell, and the official residence of the president of Russia lie within its red brick walls. While atheism was the state religion for over seventy years, this seat of Russian government also harbors five fifteenth-century cathedrals. A Russian Orthodox lady traveling with us to meet sisters finds the churches especially meaningful; watching her appreciate them blesses me, too.

After the Kremlin, we walk next door to Red Square. Two babushkas pose outside the Kremlin bell tower as a man takes their photo with a digital camera. When he shows them the result, they are so overcome with laughter they cry. I yearn to know if this is their first visit here, or their first digital photo, or if they’re just overwhelmed in this glorious place now that their land is free. It is the sweetest thing I’ve seen in Russia, and Kate snaps a few photos for the blog. How I wish I could see them laugh, to know their moment of joy is savored by others a world away!

Tomorrow morning our arms will open to the children now on their way to us. Today, though, it was our turn to be embraced, by this giant of a country. New friends from America are here, and I’ve been privileged to share with them just a few places I love in Moscow: this day embodies all that’s best about travel. Along the way, Russians we don’t know, and will likely not meet again, have shown their goodwill, and opened their hearts and the heart of their country to us.

Angels are watching over us.


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Crushed Little Blossom

Angelina on one of our trips to Moscow

I honor two self-imposed rules on our Lighthouse Project trips to Moscow. The first mandates I never bring the same child unhosted twice, as I resist breaking a heart with scant chance to find a family. The second dictates I won’t cry at the train when the kids leave, because while I deeply feel for the hosts as they leave “their” children, the train’s departure signals the close of a Herculean effort for one trip, and the commencement of a new push for the next.

Angelina, now 11, grabbed my heart when I met her in October 2009, so trampled in her orphanage, talked over and disrespected by a loudmouth orphanage director (Scared, 12/21/09). Seven Moscow trips later, this gem of a girl, who would blossom with a family’s attention, has garnered more advocacy than any other child I’ve met. The passion and frequency of my presentation has not availed her: when I mention she’s a wallflower’s wallflower, callers never request her photo or documents.

On Angelina’s first trip with us, unhosted, one boy from her orphanage monopolized the conversation during our question and answer session. Finally cajoled to speak, Angelina uttered four words before the boy’s mocking silenced her. I broke rule one by bringing her on a second trip, still unhosted, because of a situation where I thought she stood a chance. During a game requiring each participant to share a personal factoid, Angelina collapsed into the couch at her turn; even gentle encouragement provoked tears. Finally hosted on her third trip, I was elated by her opening up when focused on; alas, it was not enough to earn a family. So I brought her again this June, as even unhosted, new circumstances offered her a possible family.

Arriving at the train station, Angelina rushed to give me a hug of remembrance. Day one, she mingled admirably, and seemed drawn to two hosts. Walking the second day, she attached to one mom, delighting me with the premonition that she’d found her family. My joy evaporated, though, when the mom politely asked me to lure Angelina away, as her hovering was off-putting to the child the mom really wanted. When another family echoed those sentiments, I buddied up with Angelina the rest of the trip. Grasping her stiff palm, I held her hand much more than she held mine; when I let go, she returned at once to the others, glancing accusing daggers my direction. Only with my repeated and exaggerated collecting of her hand did she resign herself to the truth that she was specifically rejected, and acquiesce to my more institutional attentions.

Angelina, alone in Red Square

Outside Red Square, kids tossing coins over their shoulders made wishes at the medallion marking Russia’s center. Angelina fingered a kopek, but participated only when I dragged her with me to toss our coins in unison. So shocked was I that she went, I neglected to make my wish. In the square, hosts clamored for photos with the children they hoped to adopt; while I would never begrudge anyone this happiness, my heart cried for Angelina, the lone child whose photo was unsolicited. She stood forlornly aside, watching the families to whom she’d latched pointedly ignoring her in their zeal to avoid sending wrong messages to her or the objects of their interest. So I requested her photo, though by trip four I’d been “outed” as a worker, not a family. As I was hardly looking to adopt again, it wasn’t like the real thing, but she derived some solace from not being so conspicuously solo.

As we walked hand in hand, I winced at her shirt bearing a Cosmopolitan-like magazine cover photo, spewing innuendo mercifully in English, and hoped no Angloglot thought I’d dressed her. Perhaps a number of these had been donated to the orphanage, as another child wore this remarkable shirt, in a different color, on a previous trip. While she was surely oblivious to its message, the shirt felt a flashing neon announcement of her alone-ness, and I grieved her privation of anyone to guard her innocence and dignity.

During our discussion session, the chaperone Svetlana, from Angelina’s orphanage, encouraged her. Asked what she liked to do, she had no answer, so Svetlana extolled her as a “good girl” who “liked everything.” Later, in a whisper, Angelina identified her favorite colors, ice skating as a preferred sport, and English and math as best subjects, though she kept mum about her life’s dream.

The last day, I asked Svetlana privately to describe Angelina. From a dog-eared booklet she pointed to the words modest, kind, serious, just, and hardworking. Through the translator, she confided Angelina had never attended school while at home and was not a stellar student, but always tried her best. Svetlana reiterated that she was a good girl, yet without many friends after four years in the orphanage. I ached to ask if she had any at all.

Angelina clings to me at the train station

At the train that evening as we said our farewells, Angelina clung to me until I thought my heart would burst. Several new disappointments and rejections to her account, her fourth trip was history, she no closer to a family than when I’d first met her. She bade goodbye to everyone, but kept returning to me, thanking me with a lisped, “Spaceba.” I wished she could know how hard I was trying, though knowledge of my intensive, but failed, efforts would risk making her feel even more inconsequential.

So my search continues, my sinking heart wondering what else to do to find her family, or how to convey to callers how kind and deserving I think she is. As the train stole away that Sunday night, carrying several children rejoicing in their newfound families, and one crushed little blossom, I broke rule two, and cried.

I cried for Angelina, and cried for myself. I should never have brought her when she didn’t stand a chance.

*****

If you are interested in hosting Angelina or another needy waiting child on our August 20-26 trip to the Moscow countryside, please contact Becky via phone at (616) 245-3216, or e-mail at becky@lhproject.com.

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Slideshow

With my alarm clock across the room, Friday morning I wake punctually. I’m venturing to the train station again, this time for Melinda, who’s returning from our region having met Evgenia, four. Barrie thoughtfully accompanies me. Eliminating both the tardy departure and the storm breeds a more relaxed jaunt than yesterday’s.

Evgenia, now five, and able to travel with us

When the train lumbers in, several familiar faces alight with Melinda, including six children whose families have finished court. Arriving in Moscow, they’re in the homestretch of their adoptions. Nadia, 15, greets me with an embrace and an English “Thank you!” worth the world to me. Her new brother Nikolai, 11, shadows her. Melinda’s visit was to his orphanage, and she tells me he was so excited to be going home that he donned his coat two hours before leaving for the station. Daria, 15, is joined by her two siblings. Before they boarded this train, 30 kids and teachers from their orphanage, all crying, came to the station to wish them farewell. I hate mornings, but seeing these erstwhile orphans, now sons and daughters, and knowing I had a hand in it, is a shot in the arm even at this hour.

Barrie, Melinda, and I leave the station alone. I am itching to hear about Evgenia, who due to her young age was not allowed to travel with us. Evgenia’s a big girl, Melinda says, ready to learn and affectionate. Adding she had a rough start in life, Melinda found she does not speak. The orphanage provides speech therapy, but can afford only 30 minutes weekly, which they worry is insufficient. I wonder if any family will take a risk with her.



Peter, a very pensive little boy

Back at the hotel, I find little Peter playing on the floor without his slippers. The soles of both his socks sport the hand-sewn characters A3-7. It’s a pragmatic solution for the laundress who mates hundreds of socks in an institution, but the markings distress me anyhow. A mom could match them, but no one at the orphanage can pair Peter’s without the aid of a monogram.

Artem

Maria

Later in the morning, we talk with the kids. Blonde sprite Maria, six, oozes confidence. Asked to describe herself in one word, she chooses “beautiful” and “smart.” The kids reveal what kind of animal each would most like to be; Artem chimes, “An angel!” It’s entirely apt, from this cherubic lad who remains one of my three favorite Lighthouse Project kids. When the meeting adjourns, the kids tear into their gifts. Maria gets new jeans, which she is soon modeling with evident pride. She fancies the tag, refusing its removal. It’s so comical I grab my camera. She eagerly poses, after turning the tag to reveal its more flattering side.

After the gifts, I repair to my room, only to be interrupted by a frantic knock. I open to Amy, waiting with Sheri grasping Igor’s outstretched hand. “Igor has a staple in his finger,” Amy gushes, “and when I saw it, I said, ‘Becky! Becky’s a veterinarian!’” Theatrical Igor, who even moans with flair, bites his lip hard at the staple buried in the flesh of his thumb, deep enough to pucker the skin. I’ve never treated a human because of my profession, but in Moscow, though woefully underequipped, I smear hydrocortisone over the wound, pinch the finger, and jockey a tweezers under the staple’s bar. As a tear glides down Igor’s cheek, Amy launches insistently into song, “A, B, C, D, E, F, G…” My patient joins her, in English, and dares a little laugh at the ridiculousness of it. Sheri and I start, too, and by “P,” I’ve steeled myself sufficiently to yank out the offending fastener. I trade the staple for a thank you, and seal the deal with a Band-Aid. Hours after, I ask him how he feels. With assurances he’s well, I divulge I’m a veterinarian. He thinks it hilarious to have been saved by a dog doctor.

Crowds in the Moscow metro

At the train this morning, our Russian adoption coordinator Love gave me small flags as gifts for the hosts. Our group numbers 25, making metro travel harrowing at rush hour. I’m forever counting, though I never get that high before the train roars away. Once, early this trip, we disembark so slowly that we cause the separation of a mother and her young daughter. As the door slams shut, stranding the girl, the mother frantically motions the child to get off at the next stop. While I am relieved it isn’t one of our kids, as a mother I feel a vicarious frenzy, mingled with shame, since our disorganization birthed this trouble. Here I vow to co-opt one of Love’s flags myself, and to hold it aloft in the metro as I lead.



Smiling, before strangers started staring

I always seek to blend in, and heretofore enjoyed a measure of anonymity in Moscow in my black coat, even without the dyed hair or spike-heeled boots Muscovite women favor. Now, hoisting the red and gold standard, I explode from my camouflage. Descending the steep escalators into the metro, the wind tunnel effect whips the flag violently. I feign self-possession, but the flapping draws scads of eyes traveling on the ascending escalator. “People are staring at you, Becky!” someone laughs, in case I haven’t noticed. In their heavy Russian coats, I can’t imagine anyone is naked, so I solace myself knowing they have no idea where the flag is from. Amidst the monochromatic masses swarming the subway, the flag does make shepherding the group simpler. After several hosts hail the flag as a lifesaver, I grimly realize it has a future every trip.

Friday, entering Red Square by Resurrection Gate, SpongeBob, a diapered monkey, and a Stalin lookalike loiter. A Lenin impersonator stands with them, leaning on the pole of an old USSR flag. When he spots me, he raises his flag, waving with gusto, and blows a few kisses. I don’t relish the attention, but answer his volley anyway with a half-hearted wave and one kiss blown back. Numerous wedding parties stroll through the square, after the brides have laid red carnations at the nearby Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. Katya, our translator, is getting married next weekend, though she won’t be home until Monday. We’re astonished she’s traveled with us, so close to the nuptials, but she shrugs it off, saying she’s ready except for choosing the traditional white fox cape winter brides wear with their dresses.




Barrie and Alexandra say goodbye

Barrie’s wife Joyce can’t join us this trip, though she traveled in both June and August. Barrie wants more time with Alexandra, 14, and is missing his 40th anniversary for it, with Joyce’s blessing. She’s sent me an anniversary card, with which Alexandra surprises him on the appointed day. Someone gives her a confetti popper, and she releases it to augment the celebration. Barrie is giddy at the prospect of Alexandra joining his family, and shares his anticipation with everyone. While he never shopped much for their other children, Joyce tells me he is driving the expeditions now. When she laughed once he should have been half this excited years ago when she was pregnant, he retorted, “I was half as excited!”

The kids’ last day, Igor wants to sing for us. Valiantly trying to assemble the entire group in the common area for his performance, he counts repeatedly, never reaching 25 as kids keep coming and going. Finally he gives up and settles for having all the adults. He chooses the Russian National Anthem, and with a powerful voice, occasionally cracking, regales us with a passionate rendition. It’s clear he loves singing, and his country.

After the kids are safely returned to the train, headed to their orphanages, the hosts and I share a Moscow farewell dinner in the basement of a new MuMu. We want to enjoy ourselves, but the kids’ departure is too raw. On the way back, we stop at Eliseevsky’s, my all-time favorite store, for chocolate mousse, my all-time favorite food; I unwind with this reward at the end of every trip. It’s nearing midnight when we get to the hotel, but we’re aching for the kids, so David debuts a 2400-photo slideshow he’s compiled of our time together. My host families, friends with whom I’ve shared deep camaraderie these past few days, gather in my room to watch. Only a few photos in, we’re laughing, crying, and reliving our week. It’s so good, and so cathartic to end this way, I almost forget my mousse. As the last photo fades, all concur this was the perfect finale for our time together. I am energized, and yearn to watch it again, now.

Good Lord willing, I’ll be back. There will be new families, winsome kids, more mousse, and my red and gold flag flapping in the metro breeze.

I can’t wait.


Our November kids



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Alarming

I burn the midnight oil Wednesday. Testing my new alarm clock before slipping off to sleep, I find it in working order. When I awaken to the ping of rain on the metal roof outside my window, it’s still dark. I love rain and lay reveling in the stormy symphony, surprised my alarm hasn’t sounded yet. Tired, I plan to rest a few more minutes before checking the time.

I am not done thinking these thoughts when a sharp knock jolts me from recumbency. Cracking the door, I am horrified to see Roberta. “It’s 5:40!” she says. Throwing on clothes and brushing my teeth doesn’t take long, but as I run into the common area, everyone is waiting. Departing ten minutes late, the downpour accentuates our urgency. When we’re almost to the main street, I realize I don’t have my phone. So flustered that I fling fear of the dark aside, I sprint back to the hotel alone. Glancing round my room, I remember I’d readied everything last night, and had the phone in my bag with me. I can’t bother with my umbrella as I tear back to the group; I’ve sloshed through ankle-deep puddles and already look dreadful. As the only one who knows where we’re going, I have to reach the group before they reach the metro. Gasping, legs shaky from oxygen debt, I catch up, beneficiary of their fortuitous delay at a crosswalk whose leisurely cycles I curse at every other encounter.

We rush into our metro stop in time to watch the train pull away. Metro trains typically arrive every 90 seconds, but this early, it’s a stress-compounding five minutes. When another finally screams to a halt, it’s empty and I collapse, frazzled, in a seat, thankful we have no line changes. The kids’ train is due at 6:37 a.m. When we emerge from the metro into the railway station, it’s 6:34 a.m. I can scarcely believe we made it. All other trips, I pass the wait with tortured pacing, praying the families deem the kids worthy of their efforts to traverse the globe. Now though, relief is a lonely emotion; I’m quite void of the energy worry and pacing extract.

While David is telling my video camera that he’s anxious and nervous, the train lumbers in. Before we get to the back, where the kids traveled, they’re standing outside the car watching for us, with Katya, age twenty, our translator. Katya’s mom, Irina, translated our last two trips, but as our first-call court translator, her services are required for a family adopting two children today. Before the trip, Irina shared with me Katya’s apprehension. As we meet, I encourage her, expecting she’ll do a great job. “Thank you,” she beams, “that’s very pleasant!”

Rudimentary introductions over, kids, chaperone, and two hosts board a minibus to the hotel. The rest of us take a less hectic return trip via the metro. When we get back, the hosts are serving the kids Count Chocula and Frankenberry cereal I brought from home.

After breakfast, we commandeer the common area as games spill out and hosts begin to interact with the kids. The hotel owner stops by, congenial, but shocked we have so many children this time. When the rain relents, we visit a playground behind the hotel. Sheri distributes Pixy Stix; when one child shows us his blue tongue, the others crowd around to display theirs, too. Nine-year-old Andrea is here hosting with her parents. Metal equipment like that long ago banished from U.S. playgrounds outfits this park, planted in hard-packed earth. While the playground is likely far more austere than anywhere the Arkansas girl has played previously, she is having the time of her life with the kids. “This is the best playground ever!” she shouts at me, before darting off to rejoin the others.

Lunchtime takes us to the Golden Arches. Our trips feature repeated meals at the kid-pleasing chain, which the hosts good-naturedly tolerate both for its familiarity and popularity with the children. I ask the kids what they’d like to eat. Given the choice of one or two cheeseburgers, all the older kids clamor for two, seemingly amazed their preferences have clout. As they pick their drinks, prior experience warns me I’ll have to get lucky for them to remember what they ordered when I return. It never fails; the last child served feels slighted when the remaining beverage is not what they requested. Maria, six, refuses food; I order anyway. She ultimately drinks her Sprite, and eats one or two fries when goaded by an adult.

After lunch, one family, the chaperone, and the youngest kids return to the hotel, while the rest of us see the Cosmonaut Museum, joined by Dima, our driver. Once there, the kids flit between exhibits, more interested in taking photos than taking in Moscow’s best-produced museum. Witnessing this, Dima decries their indifference to the displays themselves. He tries, with modest success, to corner some kids for discussion of a few artifacts, but eventually gives up. I’d like them to glean something educational, too, but they’re enjoying themselves; with children’s tickets less than $1 apiece, fun alone is adequate recompense.

Afterward, we take a spin on Moscow-850, the 23-story Ferris wheel constructed in 1997 to honor Moscow’s 850th anniversary. The saleswoman distrusts my Russian as I ask for 15 tickets. She thrusts her finger at me and insists, “One,” with an air of finality. We go back and forth, until I trump her by saying, “Groupa!” This finally extracts the required tickets, albeit delivered with a hint of reluctance. The wheel makes a complete revolution in seven minutes, never stopping. Passengers board the moving wheel; to move slowly invites being jerked by the arm and stuffed into the car as it breezes by. The ride itself is silent and tranquil, the antithesis of the boarding procedure. Dima rides with me; he claims on a clear day like today, he can see Red Square and St. Basil’s Cathedral. I’m not knowledgeable enough to argue, but I never spot either.

After the Ferris wheel ride and disembarkation as harried as boarding, we return to the hotel. It’s a very long metro ride, and I lack the gumption to venture out to another restaurant. We end up cooking pelmini at the hotel. The kids love it, all except Maria, who eats only a slice of tomato. After dinner, several kids play Twister, Andrea among them. Though she has a family and doesn’t speak Russian, the orphans accept her as one of their own. This interaction is one of my favorite developments during the week.

While I prepare the food, Igor asks Katya to inquire of me when the rest of the families are coming. He’s counted hosts, and notes with dismay that the kids far outnumber families. I am shocked by the query, and realize too late I should have instructed Katya not to translate such questions. After my artless dodging at dinner, Igor asks later in the evening if anyone is coming to meet him. There are two other kids with him who aren’t likely to get families this time, and Sheri has travelled over 7000 miles to tell him herself that she wants him. Giving a lame, noncommittal answer, I slink off to my room before he can ask anything else.

I have work in spades anyway. During my end-of-day accounting, I discover with sinking heart that, after the ticket seller’s runaround earlier, I left the Ferris wheel bereft of 1250 rubles change. At bedtime, I check my alarm again, and find it was properly set today. I obviously turned it off unaware this morning, in an overtired stupor. I banish it from the nightstand and set it far from the bed; henceforth I’ll have to rise to quiet it.

If all goes well, I’ll pick Melinda up at the train station at 6:37 a.m. tomorrow after her trip to our region to meet Evgenia. I’ll be ready at 5:45 a.m.

On the button.

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Friends

Wednesday my families arrive. Three have traveled previously, and want to visit kids they’re waiting for. Sheri hopes to adopt Igor, but he doesn’t know it yet. She wants to see his face when he finds out, so she has traveled to tell him personally. Barrie worries Alexandra will lose hope as the adoption process drags on, so he is here to encourage her. Amy aches to see Yulya again; she’s been waiting a year, through no fault of Amy’s. David is traveling to see Zulya and Lora; his wife met them last trip, and they’re planning to adopt, but he's anxious to meet them himself. Mike and Roberta are coming, along with their daughter, and Stefanee is visiting, just four weeks after a cross-country move with her husband and young children. Melinda is already in our region to meet a child too young for the trip. It’s her second trip with us, and she’ll join us for the weekend to spend time with the rest of the children.

Dima calls me when he leaves the airport with four of the families; the others are arriving at another airport later today. I expect them in an hour, but it’s closer to two, as traffic is punishing. When they walk into the hotel, it feels like a reunion of sorts, even with those I’ve not previously met. They’re kindred spirits in my mission, and we’ve spoken so often. Meeting the hosts is almost as big a thrill as meeting the kids.

Before we all left home, I offered them the options of resting upon arrival or sightseeing. All good-naturedly choose the Armory Museum over a nap.  Armory tickets come with an entrance time, and a 90-minute window to view the exhibits. The museum is within the Kremlin’s walls; entrance requires an expensive ticket, passage through a metal detector, and a half-hearted inspection of purses. Bags are not allowed inside, though it’s still a mystery to me how Russians differentiate between bags and purses. Calling my bag a purse, an attendant rebuffs my attempt to leave it at the bag check room.

The doors open at precisely 2:30. The Armory is my favorite Russian museum; I like everything about it. The museum is intimate, the restrooms are the cleanest I’ve seen here, and there’s a time limit. We start at the end, as the best exhibits are there. Catherine the Great’s wasp-waisted coronation gown; Peter the Great’s boots, like eighteenth-century hip waders; and Ivan the Terrible’s very straight-backed ivory throne are preserved in these final rooms. My favorite exhibits are the gaudy carriages of Russia’s tsars and tsarinas. Signs in Russian and English bid viewers not to touch, but the carriages are so alluring our group never manages strict compliance. A guard in a green sport coat shadows a more exuberant member of our band, but his requests to refrain from touching are issued in Russian, and fall on deaf ears. When an arm comes too close to a carriage, red lights flash, and a loud multi-lingual recording rebukes the unwitting miscreant. While it’s embarrassing if I’m in close proximity, it’s good for a chuckle at a distance.

After the Armory, dusk is descending, so we wander next door to Red Square to see St. Basil’s by night, when it’s even more magical than by day. Once there, it’s still not quite dark, so we end up in GUM Mall for a snack. I order a Coca-Cola, my go-to beverage. Barrie adores it, too, I learned on the August trip. Now I  feel selfish imbibing in front of him when he says he and his wife have forsworn it until they get Alexandra home. Seeking a way to relate to her inability to enjoy the “finer things in life,” they’ve vowed to forego soda in a Lenten-like exercise of self-denial. As I sheepishly quaff my drink, Barrie graciously salves my conscience by confiding he’s finally beyond the point of temptation when in the presence of someone enjoying a Coke.

Back in Red Square, the Kremlin bell tower is striking five, the red stars above its towers are aglow, St. Basil’s domes shine, and GUM is completely outlined in white lights. The scene is glorious; I want to stretch out my arms and twirl around to take it all in. While the photographers in our group finish their photos, I ask everyone if they’re punctual. We’re meeting the kids at the train station tomorrow, and need to leave the hotel by 5:45 a.m. I don’t know if I should tell them that time, or earlier. All of them claim they’re prompt, so we set 5:45 for our departure.

After Red Square, we return to the hotel to find Mike, Roberta, and David waiting. We’re hungry, it’s been months since I’ve eaten at MuMu, and I have a hankering for pelmini, so our destination is obvious. MuMu’s atmosphere is cozy and the food uniformly delicious, but its quirks seem Soviet. The restaurant is cafeteria-style, and the line staffed by Central Asians with infinitesimal patience. To hesitate even a moment when ordering is to invite certain rolled-eyed censure. Each item ordered is meticulously weighed, and any overage painstakingly removed. As I watch a worker reclaim a half-bite of coleslaw from a plate overzealously served, I can’t help but think the cost of the time exceeds the value of the few strands of salvaged cabbage, unless Russia’s minimum wage is much lower than I imagine. At checkout, each paying customer receives a sugar-crusted caramel candy most of my travelers find irresistible. But no matter how many diners are on a single order, only one candy is presented: one receipt, one caramel, no exceptions. No amount of protest or gesticulation at the vastness of our party ever wrests additional candy from the cashier. In Russia, the customer is never right.

Back at the hotel, Sheri, Roberta, and Stefanee exhibit the extra things they’ve brought to send back to the orphanages as donations. While sorting all their gifts and candy feels festive, I am moved by their generosity and creativity, as I sense the compassion that drove their selections. This was not required of them, yet they yearn to brighten the kids’ hardscrabble existence. The kinship I feel with those who care enough to travel with me never grows old.

As I anticipate tomorrow, I hope my hosts, my friends, will find what they’ve come here looking for.

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For Cats

Entering Sheremetyevo Airport in Moscow two days prior to our November Lighthouse Project trip, I am amazed to see crowd control stanchions separating lines at immigration. These bestow a Western sense of order, replacing the line jumping free-for-all I’ve dreaded most of my flight. The queue for bearers of electronic passports is so short I fear selecting it, but I waltz through in record time, and collect my luggage among the early bags on the carousel. In the arrivals area, a throng of taxi drivers plead, “Tahk-see? Tahk-see?” I feel a twinge of guilt in refusing them, but I’m seeking Dima. When he finds me, he grabs the carry-ons from my grateful shoulders and greets me with a polite, but scratchy, kiss. From touchdown to airport departure is a felicitous 25 minutes.

Outside, I rejoice in the chill, thankful the smoke and heat of August are relegated to miserable memory. I think I recognize Dima’s vehicle in the distance, but when we get closer, he tells me it’s new, and asks if I like it. I admit I’d seen no difference, but he smoothes it over, saying he painted it green to match his old Nissan. After depositing my bags in the back, he climbs in and turns the key in the ignition, to silence. “Sorry,” he mutters, as he springs out to swap batteries. Once the van is moving, Dima looks pained when I ask how long he’s been driving it. “Since yesterday,” he confesses, chagrined, adding it’s the best he can afford.

We are inspecting possible new lodging for our trips, visiting a tiny, well-heeled hamlet northwest of Moscow. Along the way, the only snow I’ll see the entire trip descends. Leaving Moscow’s city limits and entering the country, I peer out windows I defog with my sleeve every few minutes. As giant flakes light on birch forests lining the road, we speed through slush to a soundtrack punctuated periodically by a breathy male announcer. Everything about this ride is quintessentially Russian, and I love it more than ever on this, my eighth foray into the Motherland. After several calls to the house manager for directions, we arrive. Our host meets us with tea so hot that I recoil at my first tentative sip, splashing it on the floor. While I take the grand tour, Dima waits in the kitchen, watching his van out the window. Fearful it might not start again, he’s left it running. An hour later, when we’re driving off, the temperature inside feels more equatorial than Russian.

I’m desperately tired, but breakfast food shopping, Ashan-style, looms between me and the hotel. Gloom fills my heart as we park; the store is always grossly overcrowded and unwelcoming. As I deliberate the merits of products whose labels I hardly understand, I impede hordes who don’t bother to disguise their annoyance. Shopping for 25 souls, my cart begins to overflow, necessitating a second, then third. Dima suggests I leave the first cart by an end cap, and reclaim it when we’re done. I am profoundly hesitant to abandon my hard-won foodstuffs, but I take comfort seeing several other full carts alone. More than 30 minutes later I collect cart one, untouched, where I left it.

Back in the parking lot, the snow has changed to a hard rain. I’m hacking from a cold that sleep deprivation will not let me fight. I try to help Dima load the van, but I can tell I’m in the way again. I don’t object when he directs me to the van because I’m “coughing already.” His excuse is transparent, but I don’t care in my cold, wet stupor. I nod off on the ride to the hotel, so Dima wakes me when we’re there. I am loved by the hotel after all our stays, and staff greets me by name as I enter. The receptionist sets my key on the counter as I walk by, and I take my usual room without any of the typical hotel formalities.

After I’ve wrestled my groceries into the refrigerator, I am cooking rice for my dinner when Nancy, the lady who started our director Hope in adoption nearly twenty years ago, drops by the hotel. She’s in Russia separately, but forgot something at home, which I’ve brought for her. Now, after years of hearing about her, we meet. She says I’m “a doll” for carrying her things, though right now I look more like a drenched rat.

The next morning, my first family arrives. Melinda is meeting a four-year-old, and has to catch the train tonight to the region where we work. She treats me to lunch, then we visit the circus to buy tickets for later in the week. The saleswoman speaks no English, and I struggle to convey to her that I want our seats together. As she tires of my attempts, I give up and hope for the best. On the way out, I peruse the seat assignments, relieved to see they are grouped in two areas, rather than the hodgepodge we sometimes get.

Beggars, street musicians, and the ragged elderly selling flowers, kittens, and fruit are omnipresent as they vie for the compassion of passersby in Moscow. At the end of our August trip, returning from a late-night visit to Red Square, I witnessed a young man in the metro hunched over from kyphosis. While his condition was less grave than many beggars I’d ignored in the past, I’d scarcely bypassed him before I felt a crippling shame. I tried to salve my conscience with thoughts that our group was exhausted, and that the money I carried wasn’t really mine. But leaving him helpless haunted me, and I vowed next time to have my own money.

On the way back from the circus, Melinda and I walk the main street leading to the hotel. Up ahead, an ancient babushka, in padded coat and headscarf, perches on a folding stool, pan at her feet. Two cats robed in sweaters keep her company, one a Siamese mix, the other a lilac point Himalayan. I covet a photo in the worst way, but worry if I ask I’ll be refused. Shooting surreptitiously from the side, I am unmasked by my flash in the twilight. The lady rebukes me so vehemently no translation is required, leaving me thankful she doesn’t wield a cane. When my dressing down is over, I sheepishly step up and hand her enough rubles to guarantee my forgiveness.

I leave ashamed, both for the photo and the donation. As a veterinarian and cat-lover, I’m allowed to help a granny feed her pets. But somewhere in Moscow there’s a broken man, with years of dependency on the goodwill of strangers ahead of him, and I left him in the heat and smoke of August, alone, with nothing. Then I made my first donation into a pie tin.

For cats.

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Looking Up

Without air conditioning, our windows are constantly open. We wake to smoke less punishing, thanks to an overnight shower and the prayers of many back home. We walk to the kids’ flat; several run to let us in when we buzz the bell outside their building. Having sacrificed the air conditioned accommodations for them, it is mildly annoying to find the unit turned off as we enter.

After breakfast, a game helps us get to know each other better. When a yellow beach ball is caught, the recipient shares a fact about himself, then tosses the ball to someone of opposite nationality. Through the passing of the ball, we learn Egor is the best reader in his class, Alexandra dances, and Oleg likes English. We’re in a circle, and Angelina’s the only one sitting. Once, I throw her the ball as encouragement that we want to know her, too. She pushes it away, looks down, and won’t say anything, even with Svetlana’s cajoling. It’s slightly awkward, and while I wonder if we should try harder to coax her participation, I acquiesce to her choice.

Angelina travelled unhosted in January (Scared, 12/21/09). The last day of the trip, we interviewed the kids; toward the end, she had yet to speak. Faith gently probed about what she’d most enjoyed, and got three or four words in response before a very charming boy started laughing, interjecting a snide comment. Angelina clammed up, not willing to finish her thought. It vexed me that the charmer, family safely in pocket, heartlessly mocked the shy girl. As Angelina refuses participation, I feel sure she remembers the January experience, and I must work to suppress resentment toward the boy whose long-past thoughtlessness denies her a chance to shine now.

Gifts are distributed next, to the glee of all. Few here have received many before, unless they’ve traveled with us previously. Lora is an astute trader, making several beneficial swaps before a few of the hosts intervene. When our group sets out for the day, the boys pose by a red Ferrari parked in the courtyard outside their flat. As its owner has carefully tucked it in a corner by an adjacent building, I doubt he would approve of several children leaning against it for photos.

At the metro, my magnetic ticket allows us sixty rides, the least expensive option for short-term visitors. Before we’re in the door, the kids clamor to scan the strip on the card reader. It’s already hard to remember who has had a turn, and who hasn’t. As I watch a child scan the card, I worry it won’t read between entrants, and that the gate will slam closed on the unwitting second to pass, assuring its victim multiple bruises. The metro resounds with a loud, singsongy tune whenever able-bodied cheaters jump the gate. Cheerless women wearing sour, no-nonsense expressions man booths nearby, blowing police whistles as they menacingly, but impotently, jab the air at the freeloaders.

We emerge from underground by the Kremlin, stopping at a bronze plaque embedded in the stone outside the Resurrection Gate, my favorite entrance to Red Square. Popular culture considers this spot the center of Russia, though geographically that title belongs almost 3000 miles east. With their backs to Red Square, people stand on the plaque, tossing coins over their right shoulders for luck. The coins are generally kopeks, tiny denominations valued in hundredths of a cent, but a few tattered elderly ladies hover nearby, collecting the coins with frail fingers as they bounce off the stones.

Right before departure, I’d seen several horrifying photos of Red Square shrouded in smoke, just the outline of St. Basil’s visible. Today, though, with much of the smoke dissipating, I’m absent my mask, no longer fighting carbon monoxide reputed to have been as high as seven times the safe upper limit earlier in our jaunt. For my friends’ sakes, I am relieved that their first view of Moscow’s most iconic site is fairly clear. After the requisite photos with St. Basil’s as backdrop, we grab lunch at my favorite GUM Mall eatery, dining amidst a smorgasbord of color. Every time I visit GUM, there is a new, and unfailingly classy, display of decorations or artifacts; today Audis from the 1930s to the present form a car snake through the mall’s corridors. A man sits in one, and lets the kids join him. He demonstrates the GPS, a gadget the kids find irresistible. The man is so accommodating that I assume he is either not Russian, or not working for the vehicle’s owner. I keep waiting for the ubiquitous mall security officers to descend on us, rebuking and shooing us away, but they never materialize.

After GUM, we cruise the Moscow River. It’s sweltering out, though a breeze on the river provides a modicum of relief. I spring for ice cream, and most kids thank me without prompting, though I remind a few. It’s refreshing how many of the kids, orphans, remember this pleasantry, even in English. I wile away much of the ride chatting on the phone with my friend Valerie, our adoption coordinator. She calls me with encouragement daily here; I love her, and almost forget my troubles as she commiserates with me.

Cruise over, we return to the kids’ flat to prepare dinner. As we assemble the components, Lora proudly contributes the four leftover McDonald’s cheeseburgers she’d collected yesterday and stored in her bag overnight. She is appalled when I throw them away, telling her we can’t use them, since meat needs to be refrigerated. Krista brought macaroni and cheese from home, and I have pelmini, Russian ravioli served with sour cream. Kids commonly name macaroni as their favorite food, but it is eaten sans sauce here. When Krista mentions American kids love macaroni and cheese, the Russians eat it with extra gusto. Cucumber slices and plums languished earlier, but fashioned into a smiley face on a plate, they’re promptly devoured. After the meal, we’re tired. I feel guilty leaving, but the heat has sapped our strength.

Traipsing back to our own flat, someone remembers we need toilet paper. At a store open day and night, shopping reminds me of a book I read about marketing; in a phenomenon they called “the butt brush effect,” the authors claimed customers would stop browsing in an area the third time they were bumped from behind. Here, in aisles wide enough for only one person, I’m thinking the butt brush threshold would have to be higher. The inventory consists of expensive blue paper, or abrasive brown Soviet-holdout paper, sold singly for about twelve cents per roll. Back at the flat, exhaustion lowers inhibitions as we envision how we would advertise the rough paper, were we the ad agency charged with such an unenviable assignment. We settle on, “Your butt might feel it, but your wallet won’t!” and laugh uproariously until I feel lightheaded.

My room is really an office next to the kitchen, and it lacks a door. The location teems with distractions, and renders blogging impossible. While I’m on the phone, Jeff cobbles together nine wimpy trash bags into a makeshift door. Before I hang up, the thin blue plastic offers some semblance of privacy. Krista decorates it with my name, but I can’t decide if I should be honored or offended by the crown she draws atop the “B.”

By the time my lights go out, a fifteen-minute rainstorm has begun and ended. A stiff breeze is blowing through, and I reach for the duvet. With a cleansing rain, the welcome chill, my bag door, the hearty laughing session, and the prayers of those who love me at home, things are looking up.

I'm going to make it.

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Little Journey: Photos

Our metro stop, on Tuesday morning

Honoring the lost

In Red Square, in front of the State Historical Museum

The domes of St. Basil's Cathedral

Pay toilets, outside Red Square

Vera, 15, helping with the cake

Our first trip, bottom, left and second from right

Yuliana, 5; Yana, 7; and Erik, 4

At the train station, saying goodbye to Elena and Lidia for now

In the metro

Story below

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Little Journey

Red Square, the most Russian of sights, is on the docket for Tuesday. While our group is anxious to go, a few express reservations learning Faith intends to use the metro to get there. It’s a ten-minute walk from hotel to station. The number of pedestrians bearing flowers swells as we approach. Outside, TV cameramen and police with dogs scan the masses; yesterday’s tragedy has bolstered today’s crowds. I’d feel like a gawker, were this not our station. Eyes welling with tears and knot rising in throat, I am shocked by the violation I feel as I enter.

Just inside the doors, a table holds bouquets in front of a placard decrying the heinous act. A small group rings the display, some praying, others crossing themselves thrice, Orthodox fashion. An elderly woman croaks a mournful song, candles flickering at her feet.

Our group flows down the elevators; no one says much. In the crush to board the train, I momentarily shed my angst, but once aboard, I survey those surrounding me, hoping their only interest is getting to their stop. I feel a private and ashamed relief when we disembark outside the Kremlin.

On my first sojourn with our new trip last November, we visited the Lenin Mausoleum. To my chagrin, questionnaires I collected post-travel heaped scorn on Moscow’s quirkiest sight, one of my favorites. Nixed for January, several travelers express interest this time. Lenin takes Mondays and Fridays off to soak in a secret-recipe chemical preservative bath, but he receives visitors today. Some in our group prefer to mill about in Red Square, feeding potato chips to the youngest children who stay behind. The rest of us desk-check our bags and pass through metal detectors, an exercise taking far longer than the minute or two we’re allowed inside the mausoleum. Having visited twice before, I am more captivated by the reactions of my comrades than by Lenin. One boy uses a laser pointer, earning a stiff rebuke from a guard beside the glass case enclosing communism’s poster child. The ceiling is denuded in places where plaster has crumbled, and I doubt such disrepair would have been countenanced in Soviet days. On exit, the adults have muted reactions, and the children appreciate the spectacle more for its macabre value than its historicity.

Red Square is sunny, and for the first time ever in Russia, I shed my gloves. After our requisite group photos in front of St. Basil’s Cathedral, we find the gate open to the church. In five trips to the motherland encompassing at least fifteen square visits, I’ve never ventured in. Guide books deem the interior of Moscow’s most iconic structure anticlimactic, and rather than rob it of its mystery, I’ve chosen to just appreciate the exterior. Passing through the gate, we circle the building, though no one asks to actually go inside. Filling my memory card with stunning close-ups of domes decked in geometric shapes, I love the walk, and vow it won’t be the last. The only pock is the dumpster behind, ill-placed beside the resplendent church.

Lunch is in GUM Mall, at a cafeteria so perkily painted I find it irresistible. The food is inexpensive and Russian, but of sufficient variety that even American palates find something pleasing. Space is scarce, but Faith works her brassy magic, asking diners at several tables if members of our party can join them. I chuckle from a distance, until she points me to the table she’s solicited for us. Two strangers sit there; one serves me a withering glare as I sidle reluctantly to the table’s far end. By the time Faith joins me, my unwelcoming companions have excused themselves. I ask her if sharing tables is socially acceptable, or desperate, within Russia. She seems amused I find it discomfiting, and assures me it’s fine style, if  given permission.

GUM offers western, clean, and free restrooms, a rare Russian trifecta; savvy travelers use such facilities when available, needed or not. Outside Red Square, a row of portable toilets, lacking sinks, cost almost seventy cents for single admission. A dignified attendant, looking Maytag bored, awaits customers, ensconced in a converted outhouse office.

All week, Vera, fifteen, has hung from Ed, a single man traveling with us just to encourage children who otherwise might have been hostless, and left behind. On our excursions, kids have a walking partner, and Vera is quick to claim him. As our week winds down, she pulls Faith aside and confides she wants Ed to adopt her and brother Sasha (Her Brother's Keeper, 1/2/10). When Faith tells her it’s impossible, since single men may not adopt from Russia, Vera’s face drops. “Can he get married?” she implores.

After our outing, the metro whisks us back to our station. Near the accident site, a somber throng surrounds a mushrooming floral mountain. Faith starts toward it, glances at the children, then leads us home instead. Walking to the hotel, swarms of mourners carrying bouquets stream past.

We transform the common room of our hotel into a festive birthday celebration for the kids. With all the rooms we’ve rented on three trips and more booked for June, we are popular with management. They let us hang streamers and scores of balloons; I derive a proud thrill taping balloons by framed photos of our first trip gracing the common room walls. After an English “Happy Birthday”, the kids blow out the candles on count of three. Faith humors me when I command a repeat performance for video. Afterward, we eat bird’s milk cake, a confection somewhat better than its name suggests.

After our party, we gather toys, candy, and trinkets for orphanage donations. Kids pack their new belongings, and goodbyes begin. Two adoptive families and all our group’s voluminous luggage fills much of Dima’s Nissan, allowing only the chaperone and youngest kids to ride to the train station. Dima astounds me with his packing prowess, squeezing eleven people into a van he’s wrung over 200,000 miles from. Three hosts ride the metro to the train station with eight kids and me, where we’ll meet the others for the twelve-hour trek back to the region. As Faith leaves with Dima, I wonder if she worries we’ll get lost, but we arrive before those who fought Moscow’s traffic in the Nissan.

At the train, an accommodating conductor lets me board to say my goodbyes. It’s a third class platzcar, with about fifty bunks in one mostly open space. Kids sit on beds, at tiny tables picking at leftovers we packed for them. Several hug and thank me as I bid them farewell. When I’m ushered out, the hosts are waving and snapping pictures through the windows. Fifteen- and twelve-year-old sisters Elena and Lidia see their host, and future dad, and poignantly put their hands to the window to meet his.

Back at our metro station, we stop to see the burgeoning mounds of flowers. It’s eerily silent, except for the screech of trains arriving every minute. A righteous indignation flares as I stand there, solemnly honoring the victims whose tragic deaths seem a personal loss. These souls were once countrymen of my own daughter and son, and the countrymen of so many of our Lighthouse families’ dear children, and I share the sense of betrayal and grief.

In the night, I mull the dichotomy of this evening. At one station, such sadness permeates. The lost cannot return, their lives snuffed out by hatred and wicked misunderstanding. At the other station, our temporary loss expects joyful reunion, and rebirth into families. My host families, my friends, have pain in the forecast before that happens. But at the close of our little journey, we have hope for the future, and a confidence that, however wending our paths, they’ll merge together again.

*****

Photos above

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