FIRST DAYS IN IVANCIV

During the first weekend we needed cleaning supplies and a fan for our room. The rooms at the hotel had windows put it was still warm and it took until after 11 pm to cool down. We enlisted the kids to help us find just what we needed. They took us to there enclosed shopping mall. It had the capability of having about 8 - 10 stores in it. There were 6 operating and a lady who sold flowers at the entrance. It was two stories tall and about 4,000 sq. feet of store space with about the same in area to walk around to get from store to store. The middle area was where they set up vendors during the winter who set up outside in warmer times.

Our group of children had grown from our three girls and the girl who could interpret to ten with other children who just tagged along. As a group we entered these little stores and the shop keeper looked at us with horror. Later we found they were afraid the kids would steal things from them.

We quickly found the things we needed and headed back to the hotel . We bought soda's for everyone and when we got to the room we opened up a 3 1/2 lb. bag of mixed candy and passed it around. It made it one time around and was empty. We also had a dozen banana's we had bought for the girls and they got eaten within the first 15 minutes. The fan got hooked up and the rooms got cleaned by everybody doing something and in no time we were all watching pictures I had brought with us on our laptop.

As you could imagine they were enthralled with the pictures of our house and the pets. Then we all started taking pictures of each other and then the wrestling started. Next thing I know someone is banging on the door asking us to hold it down. With that we took them back to the orphanage and played there for a while.

Word of the candy spread quick. I was surrounded with kid's wanting candy. I went to the nearest store and bought about a dozen packs of gum and started handing it out to all of them. This started something that we did for the rest of the trip. Candy or gum or ice cream, they were looking for it when we got there.