Trying something new!

I was quite proud of myself for getting out of the apartment on time this morning. It is difficult to get to bed on time because late nights here are a great time to catch up with stuff at home in the afternoon. Midnight here is 4pm at home.

So as I'm walking to the bus stop I notice lots of cars parked on my street. I didn't take much notice. Then as I'm walking up the wooded path I notice people hanging around on the path. Very unusual. More and more people as I approach the main street where the buses run.

Pretty soon I'm am pushing through a crowd. There are policemen, military personnel, blue tents set up and people with flags. When I make it to the crosswalk there are military men standing shoulder to shoulder. The crossing light turned green and I pointed to the bus and tried to get through but they moved together so that I couldn't cross.

I wanted to get my camera out, but I had an odd feeling like maybe that would be a bad idea. I had to get on the bus, so I walked down to a corner and tried to cross. The traffic was insane so I went ahead and snapped a photo while I was waiting to cross. This is looking back toward my bus stop.


I got this photo after I crossed over and was walking back up toward the stop.

Ignore the man in the blue tank. The military people in the red berets in the background were the ones that were blocking the crosswalk. It was almost 9am by the time I actually got on the bus. So much for getting out on time. I was hunting on the internet this afternoon trying to figure out what is going on. I did find out the the blue flag people are from a political party called Party of Regions. There were even more of them when I came home at lunchtime. I had to take the bus to the next stop and walk down the hill to get home.

I pick up Theo first in the mornings, but this morning the caregiver would not let me have him. I had to call my facilitator to find out what was up. It seems that the doctor assigned to the groupa has to personally look (examine?) at each child each day. She had not yet seen Theo this morning, so I would have to wait.

No problem, I just went to get Zhen. He was happy to see me! He has some purple medicine dotted on his face.

I wish he was waving hello, but no. He is trying to grab the camera!

We tried a little something new today. I ran out of small bills yesterday and I needed to grab a bus. Not wanting to hand the driver a 100, I ducked into a pharmacy and found these cute toothbrushes! I bought some cotton swabs too. You don't even want to know what it is like to go three weeks without those!!

Zhen did really well chewing on his toothbrush!

Theo was a little harder to convince.

I was pleasantly surprised that he let me put the brush in his mouth. He even let me move it around a bit. One of our first stops at home will be the dentist. He's going to need some work in that department.

It was very hot even this morning. Somehow Theo's shirt "fell" off! As great as he is doing and as much progress that I've seen...well, he has a very long way to go.

I get the impression (even translated it is difficult to understand) that the orphanage doctor is opposed to giving Theo extra calories due to the summer heat. Does this make sense to anyone? I have offered to bring him fish oil, high calorie formula, whatever to help him fill out a bit, but no. We just cannot get home soon enough.