Conversation

So part of me wonders in what detail I should keep blogging.  It is possible that some of D's relatives actually have found this... I guess with Google translate they might be able to read enough to make sense of it.  At some point I'm sure Snezhana will know enough English and I'd like her to read the entire thing from start to end.  Dennis certainly will in not too long.  Anyways, I've decided that any negative of what relatives could do is already past and I can only hope there is an opportunity for positive.

Our first letter to Ukraine grandma will go out this week... it isn't very long and just starts the conversation that we expect to be one-way.  We are also going to try to send Snezhana another package though since she has not received anything we have sent from Ukraine or the US in the past two months we are pretty certain someone on her end is filtering it.  We'll probably revert to sending a letter and pictures only via mail and if we know someone traveling there we will ask they take a package.

Dennis has been missing Snezhana and today he wanted to talk to her even though we just called her yesterday.  We caught her washing laundry and had a good conversation.  Dennis was showing off some of his new English words.  It was funny that he would actually talk to her in English more than in Russian (I love you, Snezhana America, School bus, shovel, etc).

We recorded the conversation just so we can understand what is being said.  I'm not really worried about her saying anything bad to him but having the recording allows us to give to a translator to remove all question of what is said as well as giving us an important perspective as to what he's thinking.  S asked D if he missed Ukraine to which he said yes, S said he shouldn't.  S asked if D wanted to go back to Ukraine to which he said no, S said that he shouldn't as it is much better for him here.  S told him to make sure to listen to us and to work hard in school.  So she was being a good big sister.  He asked her to come to America to which she said "we will see, ok?" -- I asked later about summer hosting and got similar indecisive responses.

I did find out some answers to out list of people D asks us to pray for.  Last night he listed Dana (teacher?), Ma***, and Snezhana.  He added Snezhana's friend O and "K'susha" to the list -- which could be one of the adults we know or another kid.  During the call Snezhana's friend T got on the phone to say hi... she's pretty out going and even called us the weekend we arrived in Kyiv when she heard we were there.  Well Dennis referred to T by her full name and the Ma*** name is her last name -- we noted the kids at the boarding school refer to each other by full or last names a lot.

In the next couple of days she'll probably get asked about summer hosting... that question for her will be essentially the same as asking if she wants to see Dennis ever again.  We pray she'll say yes, but I can say that the answers she is giving are the same sort she has given when being pressured to say no before.

Anyways... should go and the superbowl party isn't too long from now.  Dennis just showed me how to fix his new toy with my car keys... smart, I didn't think of that.  So metal plate bent properly and now it's working great.