Orphanage Life

I am sitting here in tears of frustration - and not just because I am delayed in leaving for Kazakhstan. I am frustrated and angry because I could not rescue my daughter sooner.

Alesia has a sore spot on her back, cause unknown - probably a bug bite. One of her tutors said put a hot compress on it. So I put a hot compress on it at bedtime tonight, and Alesia read a book for a few minutes to let it work. Then I put Neosporin and a bandaid on the place. Hopefully it will clear up in a few days. As I was finishing up I noticed a wet spot on the sheet. I said "Oh dear, let me get the hair dryer and dry that place. you don't want to sleep on that wet place."

Alesia replied matter-of-factly, "It doesn't matter. I've slept in my own pee."

I was startled. "What are you talking about?"

"In the first orphanage where they put me, I would wet the bed. If I told the caretaker she would scream at me and scare me, so I quit telling her."

I looked at her. She was telling the truth. I wasn't surprised. She was only in the baby house for about 6 months before they put her in the orphanage in Topolevo.

I felt - and feel - such RAGE. Alesia was 6 years old and had just been taken away from the only mother she knew, and was in a place full of strangers, probably scared to death, and that monster screamed at her for wetting the bed!?!!

I marched into the bathroom and grabbed the hair dryer and went back in her room. I dried her sheet. As I finished, I looked at Alesia and said "You should never sleep on wet sheets. That should NEVER have happened. That woman was a barbarian. I wish I could go to Russia and find her - I'd slap her so hard!"

Alesia now looked startled. "Mom!"

"Alesia, nobody should do that to a child. Nobody. I wet the bed every night when I was small, and I just got up, got a clean gown and washed off, and crawled in bed with my parents. That's the way it should be."

I wanted to scream. I wanted to wail and weep and clutch her to me. I wanted to erase her memories of that horror, and all the other things she suffered - the raggedy ill-fitting clothes, poor food,  the shame heaped on her for having an undiagnosed learning disability, the fear of the other kids, who sometimes beat her, the fact that the only love she count on was from the stray dogs living outside the orphanage gate.

How did she survive that and not become filled with rage?

How can people turn their backs on these children in the orphanages? How do they sleep at night, knowing there are children suffering so terribly and they are doing NOTHING?!

All I can is rescue two kids. I pray every day to do MORE. I pray I can write stories that will change people's hearts. This has become the purpose of my life.

I pray to God my son has not had to endure the horrors Alesia has lived with. I pray somebody has loved him. I pray I can soon leave and go get him out of there.