We had something happen while we were in our last days in Kyiv Ukraine finishing up our adoption of four lovely girls. We had been out most of the day and returned with some food from the local store. Among the items purchased were banana's and other fruit and eggs. As we had come to learn of the girls, they loved banana's and eggs. The apartment we had was on the 7th or top floor of the building we were in. It had a small balcony off the kitchen and another one off the living room. We were all watching TV and talking and the kids were enjoying eating all they wanted when they wanted. This was something they couldn't do in the orphanage. All of a sudden the door bell rings and son and oldest daughter come running in from the kitchen to answer it. As the door opens I hear and can barley see, two women just giving son and daughter the what for about something. Daughter says something to them in Ukrainian and slams the door in their face's. As I get to the door this happens and I ask what was that about? They both shrug their shoulders and son says they were at the wrong place.
Now.... we have been in Ukraine for about 8 1/2 weeks at this point and I can understand a little bit of what is said. Son doesn't know too much more that I do and don't see how he could have understood what they were saying. I think there is more to this than they are fessing up to. As I continue to question them about this I walk into the kitchen and notice that all the banana's are gone. I look in the refrigerator to see if they got put there and I notice the egg carton is open and four eggs are missing. As I am looking daughter is looking at me with a strange look on her face, like the one of the cat Sylvester with the Tweety bird in his mouth. I also notice that the door to the balcony is open and since it is about 40 degrees out I think it see what they were up too. As I look out over the balcony into the street I can see banana peals all over the side walk and eggs splattered there as well. I turn tell them to get garbage bags and come with me. Son starts to tell me that daughter was doing it and that he tryed to stop here. She understands enough English at this point to realize that he is blaming her and starts to protest in Ukrainian. I hush them up and tell wife what has happened and that we are going down to clean it up. All the way down in the elevator they are arguing as to who did what. Once down on the street they pick up all the peals and egg shells as people are walking by. Some of these people see what is going on and say something that only daughter understands. Her response was to stick her tongue out them.
After completing the task we go back upstairs and wife gets her two cents in. Later as I tell her what happened down in the street with daughter sticking her tongue out we start to laugh. With that daughter comes in and asks " ok now?" All the kids come in and start tickling and playing and finally son tells all.
It seems he and daughter were eating a banana when he went to throw his peal in the trash can , he missed and they started to take turns throwing it in. One of them got the idea to open the balcony door and put the can out there and throw them in so if you missed it would go over and down to the next balcony. Except it went further than they thought and hit the side walk and the street. After throwing a lot of the stuff son looked over after having just tossed an egg to see where it all was going. As he looked over he saw that all of it was in the street or side walk and that he had just missed two ladies with the egg. They were the two who came up to the door fussing at them.
We still laugh at that one, especially when a banana peal misses the trash can.
Haman's Gallows
2 weeks ago
