They Have to Love Children

A wet snow descended at the close of our three days visiting orphanages. During the drive, Faith briefed me on a sibling trio she’d promised to help find a family for ages ago. We were coming to visit them, to do a picture retake of another sibling group, and to collect three kids for our first reverse Lighthouse Project trip to Moscow. School was history for the week, and as Faith opened the orphanage door, music pounding in celebration slapped us in the face. Kids spilled out into the hallway from several rooms to see us; several I recognized from old interviews I’d watched.

There was more protocol to suffer here than at some places we visited, as the staff graciously insisted on feeding us first. We had sated our appetites on the way, though a bulging stomach was least of my objections when tepid chicken soup awash in fat was set before me. I scarcely had time to resign myself to the greasy atrocity when an ante-upping plate appeared: a pickle and tomato, both steaming, paired with chilled mashed potatoes and still-scaled herring. It felt immoral to discard meat, lest an animal perish in vain, but the fish’s odor, aesthetics, and temperature worked wonders for my powers of rationalization. When our server briefly excused herself, Faith, eyeing the fish banished to the side of my plate, swapped her scales for my herring, salving my conscience in one deft exchange.

Formalities mercifully over, a parade of children entered. Those awaiting their families’ arrival appeared with confident smiles, lavishing hugs of recognition upon us. Others, not yet slated for a trip, made more circumspect entrances. One girl, leaving with us this afternoon, was Larisa, ten. The elfin brunette piqued my interest during an earlier interview, allowing of school only that she liked it “better than being in the hospital” while paradoxically aspiring to a nursing career. She defied anyone to dislike her, and finding a host for her on our trip was a cinch.

Now in Russia, waiting to meet her in person, we learned she had a sibling, of whom we’d been unaware.

Larisa bounced carefree into the room, leaving sister Maria, 13, her pensive shadow. As we spoke with her, Maria warmed up, but remained decorous. Interview basics were addressed: favorite subjects, music and physical education; preferred seasons, summer and winter; hobbies, crocheting and reading; and career hope, medicine. Her dream was a good family, thoughtfully defined as one where parents love children. She “certainly” believed in God, and affirmed God loves her, editorializing, “He loves everyone.” Larisa’s characterization of Maria as strict elicited a chuckle from Maria, and a swift addendum from Larisa that it helped her. My friend Elaine asked how long they’d been here. “One year,” Maria answered, alluding to how momentous their arrival was by giving its exact date.

After our meeting, Larisa left to collect her things for Moscow. While I liked Maria’s dignified charm, I knew her existence would shock the host, who was leaving the States in a few hours, oblivious that a second child would also need to be adopted. With Maria unable to travel with us, it would reduce the girls’ chance of being adopted this trip. Watching Larisa through the window as she returned with her bag, it was devastating to know we’d unintentionally failed to give either girl her best opportunity.

Several interviews later, we departed the orphanage, three kids in tow. With five of us wedged in the backseat, we sought respite from our boredom by playing tic-tac-toe in the window’s fog. As he glared at us in his rearview mirror, I suspected our entertainment choice displeased our chauffeur. But as his reckless driving risked seven lives, our window game seemed minimal recompense. One last orphanage stop killed time and dished up a few more interviews. As she waited for us to finish, Larisa mixed effortlessly with the kids she met there. When we left, four children richer, an orphanage van whisked us to the train station in a joyously forgettable ride.

We reached our Moscow hotel before the families. When they arrived from the airport in early afternoon, I spoke with Larisa’s host. While her magnanimous understanding of our discovery of Maria was a boon to my stress level, she doubted any second child, particularly one she couldn’t meet, would fit her family.

As our visit unfolded, Larisa smiled generously. She knew some English, with a hearty appetite for more. She shepherded the trip’s two youngest children, and accepted guidance from an older child who criticized minor shortcomings in her behavior. Asking a host parent if she was adopting two other children on the trip, the affirmative answer brought Larisa genuine happiness. Still, she retained her own painfully obvious desire to be adopted, as she shooed away kids who wanted to hold her host mom’s hand. The day we departed Moscow, another child gave Larisa’s host a heart-shaped "I love you" pin, complete with blinking red lights. Larisa’s efforts to convey that the garish pin was from her, too, were heart-rending in their desperation.

When we left Moscow, every family had chosen a child for adoption; Larisa, twinkle in her eye, was not among those picked. Twice since, she and Maria have been selected by families, only to have both families back out before even meeting the girls. The last few weeks, whenever Lighthouse Project director Hope and I discuss kids for future trips, she tells me Larisa and Maria still very much want a family.

I appreciate the reminder, but don’t need it. I remember the request.

They have to love children.

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Moving Day

Our hotel stands in the shadow of one of Stalin’s seven skyscrapers, a monstrosity at once repulsive and appealing. I identify this landmark for my travelers every trip as a reference point, should they venture out alone. This morning, as we leave for the train station to meet the kids, the wicked smoke obscures its tower, and I wonder if it’s still standing.

In a nod to my neuroses, I always allow an exorbitant amount of travel time to get to the train station. We leave quasi-punctually, though one host makes a mad dash back to the hotel for forgotten passports. The heat makes his sprint torture, but he reunites with the group just as we reach the metro to find the doors locked. A note on the door presumably provides explanation, though with my skimpy Russian, it’s academic. Worrying how to get to the kids’ station when the one way I know is closed, I utter an urgent prayer, turn, and walk away with sham nonchalance. Immediate inspiration comes in my sighting of the underpass spanning the ten-lane road beside us. Since most metro stations have entrances on both sides of busy thoroughfares, I cross under the road, leaving my fears unspoken. When the doors to this entrance open, I know how Moses felt at the parting of the Red Sea. The rest of our trip is uneventful, and we have time for a photo below a clock showing two minutes before the train is due.

The train pulls in as we’re finishing, and we walk nearly to the end before we find the kids standing outside their car waiting. I am masked, but shed it when I notice the kids eyeing me strangely. Angelina, ten, from the January trip, gives me a huge embrace; with her shyness, her hug surprises and delights me. Egor spots the family he met in Missouri last year. His wait is nearly over, as they’ve been assigned a court date in mid-September, but they wanted to see him again. He stands there staring, disbelieving. When mom-to-be Teresa approaches him, touches her heart, then his, he breaks down in tears. Alexandra, fourteen, sees Joyce returned from the June trip, auspiciously this time with husband Barrie. Krista is meeting Zulya and Lora. Two weeks ago, when first we spoke, she didn’t hold a valid passport; now she’s with us, halfway around the globe. Her commitment is breathtaking to fathom, and I’m hoping she finds the visit worthy of her effort.

Oleg and Andrei are unhosted, and they’re here for my assessment if they’re good candidates for adoption. I’d met them briefly at their orphanage, and thought them promising enough to warrant this step. Angelina is hostless, too, and I’ve violated my policy of not bringing an unhosted child twice by bringing her now. Since I already know and like her, she has little to gain here. Extenuating circumstances led me to break this rule, and I am praying I don’t break her heart.

Leaving the train, I distribute masks to everyone but never see them used. Back at the hotel, I’m figuring out if they will refund our money, if Hope has our flats booked, if Love knows when we can get the keys, if Dima can bring sleeping bags, and when he’ll move our copious luggage. It’s frazzling with too many questions and everyone waiting, so the hosts help out with the kids’ breakfast. The lady I need to speak with won’t be here until eleven, so after breakfast, the kids and families go outside to throw water balloons, a fitting hot weather ice breaker. Courageous hosts lend the kids their cameras, while Teresa works to get a good photo of Angelina. By trip’s end, the little girl, so sparing with smiles, has a portfolio demonstrating a metamorphosis from our October to January to August meetings (Scared, 12/21/09).

I aim to sandwich a Moscow River cruise between our lunch and move, but as the wait for the employee drags on, I’m seeing the families’ first day with the kids frittered away behind a hotel. At 12:30 p.m., too late for our boat ride, she finally appears, apologizing as she declines my refund request.

At last we leave for McDonald’s, Oleg holding my hand. Soon he is dragging me, and as we fall behind, I start hyperventilating behind my mask. I close my eyes and let Oleg, gentler now, lead me. Translator Irina and chaperone Svetlana see this and ask if I’m okay, demanding it when I ignore them. Svetlana digs into her purse, where she stores a mini-pharmacy she now attacks with the vengeance of a paramedic on call. Dousing a cotton ball with a pungent potion from a brown glass bottle, she holds it under my nose. I am immediately alert, incredulous that the bottle’s contents hold their own against the stench of the smoke. When she’s satisfied I’m better she proffers the cotton, issuing orders in Russian to sniff it. Irina sacrifices her water, which I guzzle. From up ahead, Zulya notices I’m lagging, and she insists the group wait. When I catch up, the cotton’s powers and the water have revived me, and I feel peachy, except for a stout headache.

After lunch, we meet Dima back at the hotel and pile our luggage into his van. Next, we find Love, who now has the keys for both flats. She greets me with an embrace to soften a bombshell. “Only one flat is air conditioned,” she moans. My mind refuses this. I hate her cruel joke, but she wails she’s serious. The heat alone makes it distressing, but realizing I’ve moved sixteen people to an unpaid-for place, wasted all day doing it, and crushed hopes of salvation in the process catapults my horror to the stratospheric. Love asks which flat I want. It feels selfish consigning the kids to a hot, smoky place, but I don’t relish telling the families they’ve moved for naught, either. Finally, not knowing which flat has the air conditioner, I opt to house the kids, who need more space with ten in their group, in the larger flat.

In updates prefacing the trip I caution families to expect inconvenience in Russia. The flat charade is maddeningly typical, leaving me grateful I’d issued the warnings. When my despondency fades, I grudgingly realize the families derive cultural value from the episode as a quintessential Russian experience. Still, the owner’s lame defense, a repairman removed the appliance and never returned it, seems delivered with almost criminally minimal self-flagellation.

Entering the kids’ place, a cool breeze hits me, leaving me comfortless, knowing we’ll get the hot flat. Their flat is beautifully maintained and modern. When the kids are settled, we venture with heavy hearts to our place, about one mile away, literally around the corner from the Kremlin. If we weren’t here to spend time with the kids, the location would be stellar, in the nerve center of Moscow. Our flat is toasty, but bordering bearable, on the building’s sixth floor. Each party has private space, and while air conditioning isn’t included, free international phone calls are.

Dropping our bags inside, we scurry back to the kids’ flat; freshening up would be futile. We redeem our rat race of a day at the circus, arriving late, as usual. A stir ensues as we block the aisles while the usher goads people planted in our seats to move. This production is made laudable by her persistence, even if it deeply annoys those whose view we obstruct at length. After the show, the kids are abuzz over the tigers. Mirroring every trip, they point to plastic trinkets as we exit, vainly hoping we’ll buy.

When I stumble into my shared home, it’s late, but I spend hours talking with my friends, enjoying the luxury of free calls. My last is to fellow Lighthouse Project coordinator Elaine.   As I unload my woes in a diatribe taking thirty minutes, she makes no comment. When I finish, she offers no acknowledgment; finally, I realize she’s not there. I find the exercise a strange balm, even without an audience. Later, she tells me all she heard was “Hello.”

The windows of our rooms are well situated, and a decent, if stinky, breeze wafts through the flat. As I drift off to dream world on a fold-out loveseat, today seems a loss. With three days left, I hope the rest of the trip looks up, and that hearts can be won in the compacted time remaining.

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No Chance at a Chance

Bouncing along the back roads of Russia, swerving at the penultimate nanosecond to pass cars we’re tailgating, I’m grateful for the plentiful potholes and our Volga’s poor shocks, as our driver must temper his speed somewhat in heed of them. The day before I’d left home, I’d acquiesced to Hope’s advice to buy insurance for the trip. In the back seat, watching wide-eyed as we surge past a motorized contraption defying categorization, I comfort myself with a promise from the insurance brochure that, should this jaunt end in my demise, repatriation of remains is a covered benefit. Immediately after one of our risky passes, an ambulance flies by. The way we’re driving, I worry we’ll see it again.

We’re ambitious today, visiting four orphanages, the furthest a death-defying three hours south of our home base. So many of our orphans hail from this backwoods institution, I’m anxious to see it. While no orphanage replicates a family, there is a quality continuum, and this one is at the bottom. The orphanage is in a sizable town also housing a large prison; some kids here are orphaned by a parent’s incarceration. Tiny wood dwellings trimmed in blue line the road; at one, an elderly babushka restrains a leashed cow in her postage stamp yard outside the orphanage grounds.

The Volga halts outside the orphanage. Grubby children spill out heavy doors to greet us, and shadow us in. A row of posters bearing Soviet-era safety admonitions hangs just inside, on walls thick with paint. Soiled linoleum, ’70s-style, covers creaky floors; workers in blue house dress uniforms and caps pretend to sweep but eye us warily, without welcome. After several kids’ adoptions, they worry our success will close the orphanage, at the cost of their jobs. Faith navigates the orphanages effortlessly, and we hurry to keep pace with her. I can’t get over how purposefully we race into each, meet the kids on our list, and run out. Here, children form a gauntlet along a corridor, watching us rush by. Many older boys in ill-fitting, shiny suits appear and vie for our attention as we head for the office. A teacher tells us she’s been waiting for us six hours on her day off. It’s a friendly rebuke, and she proudly breaks out an album of her daughter’s weekend wedding. In several photos, the bride is flanked by adoring parents, one of whom will introduce us to kids without any, once we’ve seen her own child. The normalcy of this Russian bride’s life, contrasted with the lives of these orphans, who know no normal, smacks me hard with its inequity.

Several kids from Elaine’s trip, and a few from mine, enter. Egor, nine, clutches a gift from his anxious family, but doesn’t open it until Faith urges him. He beams at the photo of himself and the family, taken in Missouri. Faith tells him they’re excited and coming soon. “They will be my family forever?” he chirps, incredulous. “Forever,” Faith assures, adding that another boy in the orphanage, Sergei, will be his brother ("He Just Won Our Hearts", 7/17/09).

Vasily, ten, is mistakenly summoned with three boys awaiting families. I’d loved him in Missouri, but no one chose him to be a son. When the three with families receive gifts, Vasily alone stands empty-handed, trying heroically to smile, as if it doesn’t matter. Faith produces a trinket, but it’s a sorry substitute for a care package from waiting parents (Solid Gold, 12/1/09).

We begin meeting prospective kids for future trips. The amount of need distresses, but that I’ll have a substantive say in who travels and has a chance at a future, and who stays behind and ends up dying on the streets, is beyond agonizing. Vanya, age unknown, stands in a group outside the door. “Please show us,” he entreats the teacher guarding the entry. He wants to be a welder, and aspires to visit America. He calls Denis, newly in the States, his best friend ("Tell her you want a family, too!", 2/18/10). Andrei, thirteen, is next. He likes to read, but not too much, he says, ironically hastening to add his favorite poet is Pushkin. He dreams of travel. Sergei, ten, likes to read, especially the aptly-titled Reading. Asked if he cooks, we’re told he makes soup from a powder. Andrei, nine, claims he knows English, and scrawls a “w” on paper as proof. He doesn’t yet have a dream. Dima, 15, has wiled away eight years of his childhood in the orphanage, and no longer remembers his parents’ faces. He yearns to ask them why they hid away so long and never visited him. He graduated his class with honor last year, but turning sixteen in less than six months, will graduate from the orphanage without a family. He dreams of seeing his best friend Sergei again. Now in America from one of my trips, and home less than a year at the time of this visit, Sergei is the first child adopted from this orphanage (It's a Boy!, 12/8/08).

Our last subject is Slava. Faith’s first question is his age. “Sixteen,” he says, as my heart sinks. “There’s nothing we can do,” Faith moans, but asks a few more questions, out of courtesy. His dream is to visit home to see what happened to his family. I wonder if he notices how much shorter his interview is than all the others, or if he  realizes donning the suit was in vain. As Faith dismisses him, she tells the doorkeeper sixteen-year-olds cannot enter America on an orphan’s immigrant visa. “I know,” the teacher explains, “but when he begged me, ‘Please show me to them!’ I couldn’t tell him no.” It’s enough to rend the chilliest heart.

We’re still in demand, but hours away from our hotel, with two orphanages yet to visit. As we scurry out, kids trail, requesting pictures with us outside. Faith opens the trunk and they circle, curious what treasures it hides. While Elaine and I wait in the Volga, kids knock on our windows and wave. When Faith climbs in and we drive out, a few kids chase us. I can’t tell if they’re playing, desperate, or both.

Speeding toward our next stop, I am deeply disturbed. The orphanage’s condition is abysmal, but the urgency the children show transcends mere lack of comfort. They’re hopeless, and know it better than the orphans we’ve seen until now. Adoption is a new phenomenon here, and already the kids are clawing to see us, putting on their best clothes, queuing, pleading if they have to, for their chance at a chance.

Most gut-wrenching is Slava, whose unhappy fate Faith described with truth cruel in its brevity: “There’s nothing we can do.” Kids age out of orphanages daily, and it bothers me. A lot. But a desperate face now exemplifies this factoid, a face I’ve just seen for the first time, when it’s already too late even to try. There is no help for Slava, or Dima either. I’m heartsick, and expect Slava to haunt any sleep I eke out in upcoming days.

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Mission: Never Accomplished

Yakov, a shriveled goatherd wrapped in an ancient camouflage coat, tended his meager flock along the road to our first orphanage, and seemed more surprised than flattered at our stop. Our driver, having given too little thought to risking our lives behind the wheel, was sufficiently obliging for several photo stops; besides the goats, we posed with the sign at the outskirts of town, and shot the hamlet church and its ten napiform domes. Thousands of miles from home, but within minutes of our target, I was stalling with the dread of a mourner en route to a funeral visitation, pregnant with purpose, but reluctant to consummate. Conversation sputtered minutes from the orphanage, in a dichotomous aura of anticipation and foreboding. While I’d been to an orphanage before, it was to pick up my own kids, not to see the need.

Outside the institution, gas pipes a foot in diameter skimmed the ground, then rose up, forming an unsightly bridge over the dirt road just beyond. Sheep freely wandered as geese rested warily in the street beside their pond, framed at its far end by a motley village. The orphanage, white and red brick, was the most auspicious building in sight, seducing me with sufficient curb appeal to briefly sweat the ethics of past depictions of orphanages as bastions of hopelessness.

Faith sprinted in, with a swelling group of kids shadowing her, and I had to hustle to avoid being lost in labyrinthine stairwells and halls. Young and old welcomed us unprompted with formal hellos as they saw us. Several paired children, each lugging a handled cardboard box holding a meat carcass, greeted us with a pleasant self-confidence that said they had no inkling how squeamish their burdens made us. I wondered if this friendliness was standard for all visitors, or if it was reserved for those from America, who might get them out.

We’d come to see Alexandra, a retiring thirteen, who’d earlier said she wanted a mom and dad from the Lighthouse Project. I’d seen the results of a hundred orphanage interviews before, but mystique surrounded their creation. Since interviews are the deciding factor in a family’s child selection prior to a trip, I always imagined discussions of why we were here, what things we would ask, and what answers would be advantageous, before we rolled.

We invaded Alexandra’s room, a spartan space she shared with one mentally impaired girl, at naptime. Underdressed in pajamas, she self-consciously tugged at them in a futile attempt to cover her knees. Faith greeted her, wordlessly turned on her camera, and started questioning. This minute action evoked a barrage of dissonant emotions: relief at the uncoached purity of the interview mingled with horror at the lack of preparation in her appeal for a life, letdown at the loss of the interview’s mystery alongside hope in sharing nascent steps toward a future, empathy for her losing battle for modesty but delight at her desire, and prayer for her success with a yearn to flee because of her discomfort. Oddly, the interview dredged up a strong and haunting reminder of the first euthanasia I witnessed as a student, prior to being numbed as a veterinarian. I’d anticipated these seemingly disparate events with dread and awe, but found them disturbingly similar, each process lacking the drama to portend the weight of the result.

The interview lobbed a few softballs as I willed Alexandra to excel. We gleaned that she likes red, roses on bushes, cats and dogs, and pictures of foxes. She does not study English, since her school has no teacher. And that was all: these few, unpretentious words encapsulated a petition I worried couldn’t be enough to induce a family to take her. Faith earned a smile when she gave Alexandra a purse, then I awkwardly offered a handful of gum and a hug. Leaving, we popped in to see a boy awaiting his Wisconsin family.

Our whirlwind visit left Elaine and me plenty to ponder on the road to our next stop. In an orphanage with one hundred children, we’d entered two rooms, each housing two children, but focused all effort on one resident. How could the others know that we also cared about them, but that their circumstances would not permit adoption? Did they wonder what heroics garnered Alexandra and the Wisconsin boy American attention? Did Faith’s childish shadows pray she might notice them, and lament our determination to visit just two rooms, with hardly a glance their direction? Did Alexandra puzzle why strangers would bounce in, ask a few questions, and go?

How deflating to realize the humble chance we’d given Alexandra was the only glimmer of hope we’d left at her orphanage. Other souls, equally needy and with futures as bleak, were relegated to barely supporting role status, remembered only for the atmosphere of generalized desperation they helped create.  In one stop, one orphanage, ten minutes at most, my optimism abandoned me.  Our mission would never be fully accomplished.

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In the Russian Cold

Back in Russia, Day 2

I arrive in Moscow an hour late, worrying Dima, our driver. At the hotel the families and kids already sleep, exhausted from their respective journeys. Elaine and Faith calm my neuroses, telling me how well things have gone. After Faith leaves for her flat, Elaine and I talk late into the night.

I match host family faces to telephone voices the next morning. Faith reads to the kids from a book about Russia’s history. With the kids occupied, the families prepare the gifts they brought. After Faith’s history lesson, clothes, toys, school supplies, and treats are handed out one giddy child at a time. Several spirit their treasures away to the dorm room; when I check on them later, a proud show-and-tell is unfolding. Diminutive Anastasia, at five the youngest child on the trip, receives her gifts last. A suitcase overflows for her, and when she sees it, she bursts into overwhelmed tears. We try again, with just one tiny item. She cries more, pushing it away. Time alone with the chaperone helps her handle the emotions that accompany receipt of such a stash, and the next time I see her, she is wearing new clothes. Alexander and Yulya agreeably take a rain check, since luggage holding their gifts was lost in transit.

Setting out, we meet a camera crew conducting “man on the street” interviews at a government building. Predictably, they interview Faith, who has honed her skills in flamboyance, quick wit, and spontaneity to an art. At the metro, she cajoles a stone-faced turnstile attendant to let three of our kids through without paying, as she doesn‘t have enough rides on her ticket. “Little, little!” she insists, gesturing toward the children, some of whom are noticeably big. For once, Faith is told no, and she trudges off to buy more tickets.

I spent much of the last trip worrying a child would be lost in the metro amongst stampeding Muscovites. This trip, I make cards with contact information, and hang them from a length of yarn. As Faith instructs the kids to wear the cards as necklaces, I am shocked even the older ones do so without argument. Each adult is given a metro map with instructions in case separated from the group, and assigned a child “metro buddy” who is to be their sole responsibility while in the subterranean system. “If your metro buddy is lost, make sure you are lost, too,” I chide.

Emerging from the metro’s bowels outside Red Square, our exuberant Nikolai, (Ray of Light, 12/16/09) lectures us on the history of the area, giving us a verbosely enthusiastic interpretation of the lesson he’d had earlier in the day. I wish his host family was here to witness this, but they’re still in New York right now.

Guidebooks concur the Resurrection Gate is the most majestic entrance to Red Square, and grants the most glorious initial glimpse of St. Basil's Cathedral. The gate itself is spectacular, though not original; it was rebuilt in 1995 after its 1930s demolition by a Stalin bent on easing access to the area with Soviet tanks and armies on Communist holidays. Today, our sightlines are obstructed by a makeshift outdoor skating rink, and for once we should have entered elsewhere. Just St. Basil's domes are visible, though I derive a modicum of comfort as gasps ascend even from this truncated view.

More kids alternate explaining the square’s history. Faith translates a story a child relates about Ivan the Terrible, the ruler who commissioned Russia‘s most iconic church. Toward the end of his life, a paranoid Ivan famously murdered his only son, so consequently had “no hair,” she solemnly tells us. I strain to be polite, but turn away when my smirk morphs into laughter. Faith learned English as an adult when she moved to America, and I respect the hard work that allowed her to master our oft-tricky language, even as I chuckle at her unintentional humor.

With our feet and noses numb, we invade GUM Mall, adjacent to St. Basil’s, to thaw and window shop. The mall is still dressed in holiday finery; Russians celebrate Orthodox Christmas January 7. The kids crave borscht, so we eat at a third-floor cafe. Russia isn’t known for efficiency, and our appearance in the restaurant exacerbates this. We are twenty-one in number, and most adults are unfamiliar with the language, food, culture, and money. Faith flits about from the head of the line assisting payers, and the tail of the line assisting in ordering. By the time we’re finished, a lengthy queue stands in our wake. Inconveniences are intrinsic to Russian existence, and those behind us seem to take the delay we’ve caused in stride. We dine under streamers made from the flags of the nations, though we never spot Russia’s white, blue, and red.

We are attending a performance of the Russian fairy tale Czarina Frog at the Natalya Sats Musical Theater, birthplace of Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf. We arrive to the welcome of costumed characters on balconies at the entrance just as the show is about to begin. With 200 audience members, our $5 tickets could never pay for the live orchestra, elaborate set and costumes, and cavernous castle-themed building; the government and private donors subsidize the theater. Russians love the arts, and cultivate this appreciation even in childhood. Entering the theater hall, it is plain our children are underdressed. The children with parents wear dresses or fancy outfits; our orphans in their mismatched, oversized get-ups stand out. One man, well-dressed tot in tow, sees our children and wrinkles his nose. Throughout the dazzling performance, I fight the need for rest heroically. At the end, Faith and the kids congregate in the foyer, dancing around the Christmas tree, in Russian tradition. Later, Faith finds a piano and leads the children in renditions of several folk songs. When the Lighthouse Project visits the United States, the children sing for the public in an evening program; I cherish this moment tonight, and see in it our own, private program.

Leaving this morning, I clipped my German clothespin on my bag, thinking I'd make its appearance at various Moscow sites a blog theme. The idea, charged with promise, fizzles when the flower drops off the clothespin at the first metro stop and the clothespin falls off the bag somewhere between another metro stop and the theater. After the musical, I offer a prize to the child who finds the clothespin. Alexander, hostless, walks ahead, determined to find the pin, but we don’t retrace many steps before Faith leads us in another direction, foiling any hopes of a reunion and reward.

One of my favorite memories last trip was the trolleybus breaking down on the way home from the circus. We switched buses, leading to laughter, merriment, and singing in the back of the replacement trolley. As we charge aboard tonight, I hope this one will break down, too. My wish sees no fulfillment, though when Faith tries to pay, the driver says the ticket machine is out of order, so we all ride free. Several stoic babushkas ride along, emotionless as the kids sing with Faith.

Needing food, we cause a sensation at Yolky Polky, a Russian buffet. The host asks for a headcount; when Faith says “twenty-one,” he walks down the line disbelieving, but verifying the number, assembles the requisite tables. I disdain American buffets as quantity over quality, but experience epiphany when I find Russian buffets feature neither. As our group fills their plates, servers inefficiently refill the pans with small bits of food. The fried, chopped fish patties and white hotdogs ensure that, even at $12 a head, I don’t want my money’s worth. Evgeniy sits at the end of the table and devours seven hotdogs as part of the largest meal he’s ever consumed. No one spends any time with him, and he won’t stand out if he doesn’t get a chance to talk.

All day, the hosted kids hang from their families. Alexander doesn’t have a host, though I don’t think he knows yet. He sticks with me, and holds my hand much of the way; I wish he’d circulate through the group and let others see what a fantastic kid he is, my favorite in both November and now. He can’t know there is no way I can adopt him, so he puts his eggs in the wrong basket, snapping my photo, hunting my clothespin, holding my hand, and beaming at me when I look down at him. He tells me things, kindly, in simple Russian, and I understand a little. I rue his inopportune choice of me, but I don’t push him away toward more auspicious folks, since I fear hurting his feelings, and worry about orchestrating too much of what happens. Ultimately, people need to adopt the right child for their family, even if it leaves some of our orphans out in the Russian cold.

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Before Midnight

Back to Russia: Day 1

Last trip to Russia, I fell into bed at 3:00 a.m. the morning of my departure. I vow to do better this time, and technically do when I collapse at 2:45 a.m. Hope tried, unsuccessfully, to extract a promise of sleep every night in Russia by midnight. It's hopeless since Elaine will be there, and I've not seen her since she left Russia in October, though we've talked almost daily. Since our meeting last January, she has sprinted to top minute-user status on her cell phone plan. I tell her the timing is mere coincidence, but she is dubious. She won't be racking up minutes for a few days, though, since we're sharing a room in the hotel. While I expect a festive time together, I can't write until she falls asleep mid-conversation, rendering a midnight bedtime wishful.

Elaine will host fourteen-year-old Nadia, whom we stumbled across in an orphanage visit last October. A demurely smiling wallflower wearing a wooden icthus pendant around her neck, the girl was not on our list of children to visit. Eyeing the necklace on the wistful girl, Elaine asked repeatedly, with a mounting urgency, to meet her. Finally pulling her aside, Faith learned that one day earlier, Nadia had penned a plea to her biological mother, a prisoner,entreating her for a release permitting adoption so she could "have a life." A hardworking student, Nadia harbored aspirations of becoming a veterinarian. My degree in that field took six years to earn, so I wielded a grim certainty she would not achieve this goal without a supportive family. Talking several minutes, her thoughtful musings, gentle smile, and passionate ache for a chance left me über-impressed, and I gratefully conceded Elaine was right to insist. Back in the States, Hope told me obtaining such a release from the biological mother would be a longshot, but after several weeks a persuasive orphanage worker wrested the signed document from her, allowing Nadia to travel with us in January.

Morning comes. Randy mercilessly drags me from bed shortly after I lay down. Grousing about mornings and the frigid tile floor, I rise and ready. We stop at the library en route for two Russian travel books I've borrowed enough to deshelve as I whisk by. I depart Detroit, not Grand Rapids, so the ride affords me cramming time on the Pimsleur Russian CDs Hope lent me. My travel books claim Russians will be delighted by attempts at their language; at the end of the three-hour drive, I am prepared to order two beers and decline an unwanted date from a very persistent suitor. As a happily-married teetotaler, I question their utility, but should I need them, my Russian listeners will swoon.

My flight is practically empty, and I silently rejoice when the cabin door is secured and the seat next to me is still vacant. While I avoid unwanted conversation, the extra space and quiet garners me no slumber on the intercontinental flight. My sleepless night belies my exhaustion, and I half-heartedly fret I'll let Hope down. Faith told her I fell asleep at the circus during the tigers' act last trip, and during the midnight bedtime speech, I hear Hope wants me awake this go-round.

I have a seven-hour layover in Frankfurt, where I find piles of snow. I shiver, seeing a harbinger of weather to come in Moscow. I have resisted bringing a heavier coat for this short trip, opting to be cold rather than bulky, but I can't shake the nagging sense I will pay for my vanity. Silence is golden, especially for this writer, but awaiting my flight, I blog amidst conversation that doesn't distract, as I understand almost no German. A balding man approaches my table and wordlessly lays down a clothespin decorated with a plastic flower and ladybug. An accompanying card says he's deaf, and will accept any donation for the trinket. He repeats the procedure at each table, and when he returns, I can't say nein, knowing everyone else will. Cursing the exchange rate, I hand him a two-Euro piece, the only respectable coin in my pocket. As an outspoken proponent of light travel, claiming success only if everything packed gets used at least once, using the kitschy clothespin will challenge my creativity.

When I arrive in Moscow this evening, all but one of my host families will be in the hostel already. It's a bit of a letdown to miss seeing them meet the kids I hope they will love. I solace myself a little, knowing Elaine was there yesterday. I plan to debrief her tonight as I wait for her to fall asleep, mid-conversation.

Before midnight, of course.

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Aching for the Right Soul

At the last orphanage on our last day in the region, my relief at our completed task engendered an unseemly inertia. We’d interviewed the kids on our list and were just killing time before heading to the train station. With our ten Lighthouse charges, we readied for the overnight journey to Moscow, anxious to meet the host families arriving for our inaugural Lighthouse Project trip to Russia. Rain had been falling all day, and darkness now hid its slide into snow. Lounging on the floor in the girls’ living room, my gumption had set with the sun, my journal burgeoned with notes, and I’d long ago reached empathy overload. Katya, fourteen, stood by herself, longing to be noticed and chosen for an interview, but sans the panache to solicit one.

Faith drew her in when I wasn’t even looking. Emerging unwillingly at first from my emotional lethargy, Katya swiftly mesmerized me with her needy profundity. In the orphanage just six months, she lived with her biological mother until the woman vanished two years ago; only recently, Katya, then living with a grandmother, learned she’d died. Now, even her grandmothers don’t visit, since their ages preclude travel to the orphanage. Queried about her dream, she confided, “A family,” in one of her quickest answers; most of the others were occasion for pensive reflection. Katya attended a music school for six years, learning to play the piano. Famous for her last name, meaning “haystack,” she dislikes both the fame and the name. She believes peace and good communication would make the world better, but doesn’t believe in God, adding her mother never told her He existed.

Counter intuitively, most orphans report they like their orphanages, though I consider this more an indictment of their previous circumstances than an endorsement of institutional life. Katya, still trying to get adjusted, was emphatic she dislikes the orphanage. “It’s difficult to find the right soul for you,” she lamented, meaning the hardest part of orphanage life is finding a soul mate. Faith encouraged that with patience and persistence, she would find that kindred spirit. Asked about her desire to go to America, Katya shook off her melancholy deportment with a spirited, “Yes, with all my heart!” and demonstrated her suitability for American life by reciting a few words she knew in English. At the end, she motioned she wanted to hug me, following the lead of another girl who had latched on to Elaine. As she squeezed me, I felt the hypocrite in allowing my exhaustion to excuse my apathy.

Pondering our orphanage visits on the ride to the train, I knew I’d found in Katya the child whose outlook could most be improved by having someone take time to really care. While her orphanage was the best appointed of the nine we visited, her ache for a soul mate witnessed that the comforts proudly exhibited there were vain window dressings shrouding barren, hopeless souls.

I can find her a soul who will care. With God’s help, I can, and I must.

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I LOVE This Kid

Twelve-year-old Evgeniy sits thoughtfully before us as Faith fires questions and I scrawl notes. The language barrier aids me, giving me double the time to write as Faith says everything in Russian, then English. With Elaine sitting behind me, I scribble, “I LOVE this kid!” in the margin of my book. A bit sophomoric, perhaps, but I will her to know, and now. The more he says, the more insistently I underline “LOVE.” We interview a gaggle of kids in the nine orphanages we visit before the Lighthouse Project trip to Moscow, and Evgeniy emerges as the single best interview we get.

Mom admonished, “It’s not what you say, it’s how you say it,” and Evgeniy embodies the truism of her advice. Confident, not cocky, and considerate, not brash, Evgeniy tilts his head, engrossed in the queries. Furrowing brow, he answers, then punctuates with a smile. In this beguiling way, we learn he wants to build houses, loves reading books of all stripes, enjoys “farm duties,” and has a slew of friends. With his personality, I see why.

When I first saw Evgeniy, he was similarly charming, and I promoted him as my favorite child for the October-November trip. Back then, he said he’d lived at the orphanage the six years since his mother’s death, and he’d love to have a family again. He bakes cookies, and likes gardening and eating carrots. A church neighbors the orphanage, and orphans at times attend; Evgeniy believes God created everything. When asked his dream then, he wished everyone worldwide would be good, and that he could make the world a brighter and happier place. Now, Evgeniy dreams of America; he knows some English, and would like to travel and practice it more.

In his original interview, he was “trying so hard” in school, but found Russian and math most difficult. Now, Faith allows me a question, so I request a description of a teacher he likes. Naming one, he says he chooses her because she is demanding, adding he appreciates how well she prepares her students. Said instructor teaches Russian, one of the classes he listed last year as especially challenging. Now, the Russian teacher is favorite, not because she’s easiest, but because she’s toughest. This maturity garners Evgeniy my most emphatic underlining yet. I’ve been studying Russian myself, and could benefit from a little goading under the tutelage of his teacher. I ask him, in passable Russian, if he speaks English. “I’m Zhenya,” he answers, using his nickname, as the interview concludes. He shakes Elaine’s hand, not mine, since I am still feverishly writing. I am delighted by Evgeniy, and like him even better than last time.

At the end, a worker strides in. I’ve not met her before, and find her a dour, joyless soul. I start to offer a Russian pleasantry, but she adamantly refuses it and I forget my lines. Unprepared for this reception, I improvise as she bids us sit. With her dictatorial demeanor, I comply instantly. Faith explains to her that I have coordinated the Moscow trip, and the newcomer unleashes a tirade with an icy glare my direction. Faith apologetically translates words that sting me, and since I’d reserved my most impassioned promotion for Evgeniy, it hardly seems my doing that he is still hostless. I stumble through a witless excuse, believing with foreign language on my side, anything is preferable to silence. Ostensibly translating my words, Faith leaves me a shaking, and grateful, beneficiary of her speed on her feet. The worker is not amused, though that doesn’t appear unusual, and I’m rescued for now, and waved from her presence. Needing no second invitation, I bolt out with a little shiver.

As we hightail it back to the car, Faith tells me not to worry, that this worker doesn’t like anyone. Seeing Evgeniy’s cheer, and the curmudgeon who could wrest joy from St. Nicholas, I appreciate him and his irrepressible spirit even more. I want to help him out of here, not to avert her wrath or earn her accolades, but for him: for a good boy, who appreciates those who bring out his best, and who, after six years in this institution, still thinks he can make the world a brighter and happier place.

I LOVE this kid.

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Solid Gold

Vasily, Daniil, Vladimir, and Sergei stood in the orphanage office. As alumni of Elaine’s July Missouri trip, all were summoned when Elaine, Faith, and I arrived in late October, bearing gifts for the boys with families. As each boy accepted his present, he received an all-important promise that someone in America remembered him, and was working toward his return to their family. The gifts handed out, Vasily stood there empty-handed. He didn’t have a family, and was mistakenly called. Faith mined in her bag and found a trinket, a sorry afterthought without a family's well-wish. As the other kids beamed, I could not begrudge them their elation, but there was something amiss as Vasily politely smiled alongside, small, alone, with nothing and no one.

It wasn’t meant to be this way. Vasily had a family a few weeks after the Missouri trip, but a child they had been waiting for subsequently became available, and he was selected, rather than Vasily. While it was a reflection on the Russian system rather than on either Vasily or the erstwhile family, reality is no one waits for him, or readies for his return.

I loved Vasily when I met him in July; in this space months ago, I proclaimed him my favorite child on the trip (Rolla, 7/11/09). With his never-say-die spirit, he won my heart the moment we met. Newly arrived in Missouri, I was waiting at the hotel when he and his host mom drove up. I greeted him in Russian, and instead of assuming a condescending air toward my Spartan command of his language, he grinned, assured me he was well, and offered the firmest handshake a ten-year-old could muster.

All the other kids, save one, found families.

After he’d returned to Russia, Elaine and I brainstormed, but were hard-pressed to recall specific anecdotes about him. There was nothing flashy or obnoxious in him, leaving us void of a storyline. But we mutually retained memories of his omnipresent smile, cooperative spirit, unfailing positivity, willing participation, and verve for everything he tried. “How can you argue with solid gold?” Elaine reckoned, when we realized we remembered character traits, not stories.

While our first adoption from Vasily’s orphanage occurred only a year ago, several are now complete, and more pending, from this hamlet far in the region’s southern reaches. Staff there is anxious; too many adoptions on our part spells unemployment on theirs. It happened before in this region; my kids’ old orphanage closed this June. The exodus of children for America rendered the orphanage and its personnel obsolete. That’s success for the Lighthouse Project, though workers who eke out their meager existences on the backs of orphans take a less congratulatory view. Ten days ago, Hope, the Lighthouse Project director, informed me no kids from Vasily’s orphanage would be on our January trip, the result of unrest and ill-ease begotten by our recent spate of adoptions there. I e-mailed Elaine the news, noting only how devastated I was for this boy.

Days later, Hope told me our gem of a Russian coordinator, Love, had appealed the decision, asking if Vasily could travel, one more time. After he’d believed he had a family, it was unfathomable he not get a second chance at a future. Love’s sweetness is irresistible, and her request was honored.

So the final obstacle between Vasily and Moscow is finding his host family.

And how can you argue with solid gold?

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Seatbelts

In Russia: Day 11

Wednesday dawns with more dread than anticipation, since today is good-bye. When we get to the kids’ area, they’re not awake, so our breakfast is overly peaceful. Driver Dima comes and the kids get up; we gather in the common room for a tearful farewell. Love, our Russian coordinator, revered by our adoptive families, makes an emotional speech about how we have encouraged the kids this week, and given them reason for hope. I concur silently; it’s what keeps me coming back. Love adds that she hopes we’ll come again. I’m thinking I’ll be back in January for our next Moscow Lighthouse Project trip, but she really hopes to see the families, when they return to claim their kids. Forever.

Hugging each child, all express gratefulness in charmingly accented English. The oldest boy, one whom I wondered much of the week if would agree to adoption, gives me hope with his teary eyes as Love shares. Yulya hugs me tightly, but pins a heart-shaped plastic brooch with the word “Love” on Amy’s coat. Clinging to Amy, Yulya flips a switch and lights on the brooch flash. Another girl, Larisa, hangs from Amy and insists the gift is also from her. It’s at once tacky, sweet, and pitiful.

Todd and Ellen hug their two kids; one is Denis, my favorite child from my March Grand Rapids trip, whom they’ve planned since then to adopt. They’ve come now to visit an eight-year-old girl, a possible sister for Denis. I swiftly realized the four were a family. As they leave, they turn to look again at the kids. I feel for them; letting your kids return to an orphanage is one of the hardest things in the world to do. I’ve done it before, and don’t envy them.

I exit the hostel with Jamie. She’s saying she’ll travel in January so her husband can meet Dmitry, one of my favorite kids this trip. Wives don’t usually drag husbands halfway round the world to meet orphans, so for Dmitry, who confided earlier, “I hope someone will take me,” I am blissfully encouraged.

Larry and Ahna leave conflicted, unsure of which child they’ll adopt. They’re already adopting a boy I loved from my January Tulsa trip, and they’re after a brother for him this trip. While I’m not sure who their new son will be, I know another older boy has a family, so I enjoy a generalized delight.

As we pile into Dima’s van, Love wishes us well, blowing kisses. She’s still waving as we drive away and round the corner. Once she’s out of sight, I’m already missing her. A few minutes in, Dima tells us it’s a new Russian holiday today, Family Day, just initiated a year or two ago. It seems fitting that as we leave on a day set apart for Russian families to visit loved ones, each of my host families silently mulls whether to add a child they’ve just visited to their family. Down Moscow’s wide avenues, I see place after place with significance for me. Some are special from this trip, while others are sacred from my trip to adopt my own kids. Moscow isn’t home, but I have as many happy memories here as anywhere outside the Great Lake State.

At the airport, we walk through another dusting of snow. Inside, an agent advises our flight to New York City is delayed. Seeing the others’ dismay, I’m ashamed that I’m tickled pink. I was to arrive in Grand Rapids at 9:30 tonight, and leave at 3:00 a.m. tomorrow for an 870-mile drive to Tulsa. I had cursed my inopportune planning repeatedly; now the delay solves what my organizational skills couldn’t. I ask the agent to reroute me to Tulsa, rather than landing me in Grand Rapids at noon. With flexibility stateside airline agents should emulate, she cheerfully gives me several options as she rearranges my flights. I’ll overnight in New York and fly tomorrow to Tulsa, where I’ll meet my long-suffering husband and four angels after their drive.

When we finally depart Moscow, I eat dinner, then fall into a deep slumber. I never sleep more than a few minutes on planes, but this flight comes at the end of an almost sleepless eleven days. The trip is over in no time, and I awaken to a flight attendant’s welcome to JFK. Clearing customs and immigration with bleary eyes, I am saddened by the imminence of my farewell to my host families. Bidding adieu, my heart swells for these friends who will help the orphans so close to my heart.

At the hotel, I play insomniac. I talk to Elaine two hours, as she debriefs me on the Lighthouse portion of my trip. She is hungry for details, since she left just as the families arrived. I hear my husband’s voice for the first time since I left; it’s better than e-mail. When I finally nod off, it’s with thoughts of a repeat in just over two months. I can’t contain myself; I’m excited already.

In morning’s wee hours, a taxi speeds me toward the airport. I should be thinking profound thoughts of some eloquent way to close my series on the Lighthouse Project’s first trip to Moscow, but I think only about how strangely glorious it feels, tearing through a strange city in a taxi, buckled in a working seatbelt.

Until next time, “Pah kah” from Russia.

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