Hospital Tour and 4 Orphanage Delivery

This was an unbelievably long day! It started with a tour of the Chausy Hospital at 8:30 AM. We met outside:

Hosp

Inside we met with Dr. Galena who woulld lead our tour. She took us through the children’s ward where we met a little boy who had been abandoned and was waiting the necessary time before he could be placed in n orhpanage. Here Michael is giving him a toy:

Boy

Here is Dr Galena outside the newly renovated operating rooms that were sponsored by Don and Shirley Green of Brockville:

Galena

And here is the new OR … pretty impressive:

OR

Here is shot out of the OR window. The building you see houses the laundry on the left and the heating plant on the right:

Power

One of the nice things that happened this year is that we have several young people with us. Here are 3 of them … Jonathan (2nd trip), Alex & Sam (both 1st timers), there are a few others and it is wonderful, not only for my back, to see the dedication of these younger members of our delegation!

Boys

After the hospital tour we hustled over to the concert hall for the semi-annual “Day of the Angel” party. This is a particular highlight for the delegates. Every 6 months the birthdays of these children are celebrated with presents, games and food. It is a great time for everyone. We are met at the door with a traditional offering of Belarussian bread and salt:

Gap Bread

There are lots of games and the Canadians get to play too:

games

Some games are harder than others!:

Hoola Hoop

Of course there is plenty of opportunity to interact with the kids … not sure who the bigger kid here is!:

Pat

This beautiful girls name is Ira:

Ira

Next my team made the trip to Mogelev to meetour container. The first stop was the Mogelev Children’s Orphanage for kids from 4 – 7 years old. Here is the chain gang passing the boxes to a window. We had lots of help from the staff:

Mog Children Orph

Here is a shot in the room where the boxes were being stored:

inside

The next stop was at the Mogelev Girls Orphanage. This is an orphanage for gifted girls aged 8 – 17 or 18. We had to unload over a fence:

Mog Girls

Once again we had lots of help from both the staff and the students. Due to the fence the distance was pretty great:

chain

Next we made the 2 + hour drive through the evacuation zone to Kostukovichi and the orphanage there. By the time we arrived it was dark and getting late. We managed to get everything unloaded and were invited in for dinner. The orphanage director, Villeri, is a good man who really seems to understand the needs of the children. They have many excellent programs here and are making improvements all the time. Many with our help. One of the children here named Alex met one of our delegates last year when we delivered. he made such an impression on Jennifer that she arranged to host him in her home for respite last summer. This year he was able to spend the past week with jennifer in chausy and helping us with our deliveries and loading and unloading. he is a really good kid who’s English is quite good. Tonigh Jennifer and Alex had to say goodbye as he would be staying at the orphanage (his home since he was eight). It was an emotional goodbye. here is Alex and Jennifer having dinner at the orphanage before we left:

Alex

Finally we drove 30 minutes to Klimavichi where we delivered the last boxes in the container to and invalid orphanage. it was so late that we basically just dropped them off and ran.. By the time we were all home, exhausted it was about 1:30 in the morning. The good news was that while we were gone the rest of the gang unloaded the last 2 containers!

Eric