McDonalds Outing for Orphanage #14 – Wed, Oct17th

Wednesday was planned with a little different schedule. In the morning we worked with the kids in the Baby Home. Today we had them making tissue paper rainbows with different colored tissue paper. The speech therapist really seemed to like having the kids do this activity as it helped them teach colors.

At the end of our time with them, we were able to spend some time talking with the director. The first two days had been too busy, but we wanted to present her with some of the humanitarian aid and gifts we had brought. One of the gifts was a suitcase full of handmade baby blankets. Mary Arrant, a member of Hunters’ Glen, had worked on these all summer. The director was happy to receive them and they immediately put them on some of the beds for the children. These soft blankets would be warmly enjoyed by the children this winter in this 130 year old mansion converted to a Baby Home.

After a wonderful lunch in the Lomonosov Church we headed back to St. Petersburg to take the kids of Group 2 in Orphanage #14 to McDonalds. Susan Bollinger, one of our trip participants, had worked with us each fall for the past 5 years in this Orphanage and worked specifically with this group of kids. SAC always tries to put trip participants with the same group of kids on return visits so that relationships can continue to be built. Sasha, one little girl in this group, hugged Susan so hard and nearly took her breath away! Sasha (in red coat) loved being with Susan!

It was raining as our group began to walk to a place we could catch a Tramway. This Tramway is an electric railcar that travels’s tracks on the street. They are much like street cars in San Francisco except these have a more industrial feel rather than quaint wooden streetcars. Our Tramway took us over a bridge and stopped near another Metro station near a McDonalds.

The crowds were overwhelming and people in line had their backs against the wall! I thought, “Oh Boy”, this is going to be interesting trying to seat and feed 11 kids and our team and translators! I sent the kids upstairs in this McDonald to try to find seats. Orders were taken and three translators worked to get everything right. It didn’t go as planned, but nothing seems to go that way anyway! It was a nice outing and the kids seemed to really enjoy it. I could tell as four of the boys sitting at a table, who had just finished a McFlurry shake, shook my hand and gave a sincere “Thank You” in English!

The kids headed back to the Orphanage with their group counselor and we headed to the Metro to ride back to the hotel. As we came closer to the metro I could see problems. I hadn’t seen a Metro station that busy in about 4 years and that meant crowds of pushing people. We still needed to buy tokens for the trip. Some of us were swept away in the crowd like a swift flowing river carrying us downstream. Nevertheless, we all stayed together and made it down the escalator. It was still busy downstairs and the subway cars were crowded, but again we all made it on board and several stops later we were back at the hotel. It’s a metro experience I don’t enjoy, especially when you have a team with you!