Morning update

This morning the girls headed our to the village to spend the day with The farm five while we met with Olga. Olga works for the Society of Cornelius. She runs a social help centre here in town. She does everything from Speech therapy and tutoring to dance and music lessons... she is also very socially active, and has plans to open an emergency shelter for women. It was amazing to us to see in a place like this town in Central Asia, children receiving one one one help....regardless of their parents social standing. We spent several hours with her going over the many projects that she is undertaking, and seeing her desire to build everything in such a way that she is self sufficient....I was trying to get some understanding of her cost/ student for such a project... so I was looking at everything from rent and overhead to tax and salaries .. So when I asked about salaries, she was explaining about how the staff are paid, I then asked about her salary, and she looked at us kind of shocked and said... OH NO.. I don't get a salary...I can Just hear Sammy..."You have got to be kidding me .." She then said that Mr Hank gives her $100 a month for her own needs, but she must be very carefully because that does not go far... She also said that with the recent economic crisis, the demand on her services have gone way up. So after we crunch the #'s it looks like the total cost of running and maintaining this service is around $20 a month per person that is being supported.

After lunch, I headed to the Bazaar to pick up supplies for a food drop to the Baby orphanage.

50 lbs of Potatoes


75 lbs of Flour

66 lbs of cabbages

5 gallons of cooking oil and 75 lbs of carrots and 40 lbs of apples

22 lbs of pasta and 50 lbs of rice

All of it carefully recorded and entered into the books at the baby house to ensure it makes it's way to the kids.... Thank you to everyone that donated money toward this.. You know this time I was able to bring everything into the storeroom myself..... and I can tell you that in your own home with a family of 2 adults and your 2.4 kids, you likely have twice as much food... or at least had.... until today.

When I was talking to Dr Tatyna , she said that this year has been a difficult winter for them, with the economic conditions, or as they call it "The crisis" food has been expensive and scarce. She was also very pleased with a large bag of children's vitamins and baby creams etc that I brought for her from one of our friends from the Yahoo adoption group.

I hope to make several more drops like this while we are here, and would love to set up some standing orders that would be delivered to them when I leave... I guess I will have to watch the paypal to see If anyone else thinks that it's a good idea.

Now for a little nap before the girls get home, then it's off to dance lessons tonight with some of the kids that are sponsored through iam1ru ... Fred has been swinging from the chandeliers in anticipations... we will post more this evening..