I Got To See Gulia!

We’ve been praying I could see Gulia, the 12-year-old girl who lived with my family this summer in America, and also meet Olya, her friend, a pastor’s wife who takes her in when she doesn’t have school.

This is taken and edited from an email to my family:

Tuesday I rode with Canadian Sabrina and Dutch couple Rueben & Elia to her orphanage. We left at 12:45 and arrived (this is by car, yay!) at 1:45. We waited in the lobby for the kids to finish school at 2. Gulia knew I was coming and ran to give me a big hug.

She looks a little different cuz she has bangs now, and she seems to have lost the weight she put on in America. She was wearing nice winter clothes but nothing that we gave her, and I saw one much older girl wearing the sketchers jacket. But Gulia said that she left all the summer clothes at Olya's and she keeps the suitcase locked on the winter clothes. I gave her photos of her last week. She left her album at Olya's cuz she forgot it, so I gave her the picture of M&D from my album. She left the CD player and sunglasses at Olya's on purpose. Shrek is still sitting in her room. I didn't realize how cool the CVS photo envelope with the peel off coupon things would be in the stark orphanage; she played with it for the whole of our visit! I got a picture of her room and met her best friend Nadia, age 13.

I had to sign a statement that I was taking her out for one hour and would be responsible for her health and safety during that time. The counselor dictated the enormous Russian words to me! She was allowed to go with me and Nadia was allowed to go with Sabrina, but there was a sewing class and no one else was released, although some of the girls who meet with Sabrina and Rueben and Elia every week cried. They don't want to go back on Tuesdays anymore and just frustrate the kids, so they tried to find a better day, but the orphanage is scheduling activities to keep the kids out of trouble - which really is an improvement - and so it'll be Saturdays whenever Sabrina can do Saturdays. E and R have to leave in two weeks for visa reasons, so then we have to take public transportation.

Gulia said she finished the comic strip Bible cover to cover, also still at Olya's. She said they are starting sport competitions soon, she has a lot of lessons, her sister visited Sunday. What grieved me the most is that she doesn't get to see Olya from the start of school Sept 1 to fall break in November. I thought she went to Olya's every weekend and I could meet them together, but she only goes on vacation times. She has school on Saturdays. So she isn't getting to go to church or getting that family/spiritual input, (or to use her cd player) til November. I can perhaps get in touch with Olya and go to church with her myself, but I have to wait to see them together.

If I had seen her in the orphanage context before I saw her in America I would have ungrudgingly spent every minute with her and done anything for her. It felt really jarring, because I'd only ever seen her in our family. It's so different. I don't really have any regrets because I did love her when she was with us, but I appreciate it more now. So little of it seemed left in that bare room of hers. She told me that at first she couldn't remember what our names were after she left us, but then she remembered.

She asked after the girls, Buddy, the parakeet, and the rabbits. I showed her pictures of Pinebrook and told her you started school and Claire got her license. She was glad to hear Buddy's eye got better.

Sabrina has been going to this orphanage weekly for four years. She said it's a bad environment; all the kids start smoking there, and she sees them becoming angry. She says they will be even more angry because she was like their relative who visited weekly, and now that's denied them. She says there are counselors who yell at them a lot, and when they hit the normal turbulence of teenager-hood there's nobody to help them, listen to them, guide them, or understand if they need to be alone. Other counselors are caring, but they have too many kids to care for to really be a parent to anybody. A lot of kids from this home go to America every year, and I asked her if this has an overall positive or negative effect. She said it depends on what kind of promises the family makes and whether they keep them. "If they make the kid feel like the family wants to keep them or have them back, and then don't, the kid feels rejection. If they just treat it like a vacation trip, it's OK. If they promise to keep in touch and don't, the kid feels rejection. If they do keep in touch, then it's a positive input in their life."

She knew Gulia earlier at her previous orphanage. She said she's seen Gulia's cheerfulness and confidence fading here, that she gets into these moods of "I can't do anything, I'm not good at anything." Last week I wrote Gulia a letter and sent it with Sabrina. Sabrina said Gulia had wanted to reply but she had told her that she wouldn't see me again until the day I came to visit Gulia myself, so there was no point. "Then it was like she was... stupid or something. It took me ten minutes to make her understand. And she wans't in a bad mood either, it seemed like she had an attention disorder or something." I'm wondering if this was the effect of emotion, because she told me how much she had wanted to write to me at once when she got my letter - and of course you know how impatient she is. She seemed very intelligent, together, and healthy when we talked, albeit less bubbly. She gave me three big hugs, one on arrival and two on departure, and at home she only hugged me when I gave in about something she wanted. I brought the camera, and although she submitted to the pictures I wanted to take, she didn't want to take the camera or take any of her own, which is VERY unlike her! I don't know if she was just subdued or if it isn't interesting to take pictures of her home environment, only America, or what. I asked, "do you remember this camera?" and she said "yes, it's the one that got lost."

I miss her very much, but I don't just miss her, I miss having her with you in our loving home. There were advantages to just talking in a lobby though - it was just the relationship, none of the materialism.

Marina told me a very interesting thing. She said, "there is a sense in which at whatever age the child entered the orphanage, that;s how mature they'll always be. If at 15, 15, if at 4, 4. After that, they aren't given reponsibilities." Gulia entered at 3. And Gulia is good, really really good, because she has olya and she doesn't have abusive memories. Vera said all kids from the orphanage scream your name from other rooms until you come instead of coming to you : D Apparently that's how it works there.

I should go. I miss you so much. I think either this system of orphans is all a bad dream, or our family was a good dream. It's hard to fit two such different worlds into one world. I'm waiting to wake up from one dream or the other.