Hello all,
Greetings from the other side of the world. It's very difficult being upside down like this. All the blood rushes to your head. Of course, since my normal thinking processes are inverted, I am just a normal person when I'm upside down on this side of the globe. It all makes perfect sense to me.
After meeting with the director of the orphanage, we have been allowed to visit with Anya twice a day. It seems that her and the Russian psychologist lady like us very much. The Ruskies (pronounced ROO-skee's) come off cold as steel when you first meet them, but seem to warm up to you after a while.
When we arrived here the weather was in the 60's in the daytime. It actually got into the 70's one day. Then a HUGE dust storm blew through the city and brought freezing Siberian air down from the North. Yesterday we walked downtown for an hour or so. The wind blew like it does in Chicago in the winter. It went right through us. We returned to our apartment to find
that the hot water didn't work. The hot faucet had no pressure, but the cold faucet had plenty. It seems that the City supplies TWO water lines. One is hot and the other is cold. So, if the hot water line is ruptured, the entire city has no hot water! The genius who engineered that system was probably sent to the prison camps in the north to think about that for a while.
This morning we discovered that the boiler in the building isn't working either (if there is one). It could be linked to the city's hot water line. If so, the entire city now has no hot water OR heat (as all heat in Russia is radiant). And to think, these guys actually have access to nuclear reactors and weaponry. In my mind, that's kind of like a six year old with his own personal hand grenade. Ok, I'm done ranting now.
Making the two trips back and forth to the orphanage and the time we spend with Anya pretty much consumes our entire day. Contrary to our last trip, we actually found a restaurant that serves some very palatable food.
We want to thank all of you for your thoughts and prayers!
~Marty
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