Katyusha

I first met Katya in March 2007, when we spent about 2 hours at Sovietsk during a tour of Kirov orphanages. She had just come to the orphanage a few months earlier. She didn't talk. She didn't smile. But she stuck by my side, and when it was time for us to leave, she ran looking for me.

I promised I would write to her, and I did. When we became sponsorship coordinators for Sovietsk, I immediately searched for Katya's profile. I became her sponsor, and we write to each other regularly. She sends me pictures she draws and tells me about her interests--gymnastics, boxing, school, or the orphanage animals. Her letters are a bit reserved, but always a little bit funny--full of spunk.

When we arrived at Soviestk in August, I met a different Katya. The caregivers told her I would be coming to see her, and she was watching for the bus to arrive. When she saw us, she snuck over to our group and hid behind a caregiver until I saw her and called her name. That was the last time I saw a shy Katya! She ran over, gave me a huge hug, and was joined at my hip from that point on. It was such a joy to hear her laugh, to see her smile, to watch her confidence and adventurousness throughout the week.

Katya wasn't staying at Sovietsk when we were there. She spent the summer at a caregiver's home within walking distance from the orphanage. Every morning, our bedroom door would fly open, and there was Katya! She brought me fresh milk--still warm--and berries from the home she was visiting. She played guitar and volleyball and introduced me to the cats and helped me find mushrooms and showed me how to flip blini and laughed at my horrible pronunciation of the Russian ы vowel. At dinner time every day, it was hard to send her home.

I was so amazed to see what a different girl Katya had become in the last year and a half. I am not naive when it comes to children living in institutions, though. The survival skills these children develop are quite sophisticated--if a child has the resilience to capitalize on her strengths, she will use that to her advantage in an institution. It is easier to be gregarious than it is to be vulnerable. Befriending the adults in the room has its advantages, and I have seen her exert her 'leadership skills' over the other children. As the director put it, Katya is 'complicated.'

Katya is 10 years old, a point when girls start learning how to be young women. This is yet another crucial time when a girl needs a mother.

Katya got a letter from her mother while I was visiting. I gently asked her what she thought about this, but she didn't say much. As the week went on, I wondered . . . . I'm 28, and Katya is 10. I wonder if I am her mother's age.

I wonder if I am anything like her mother.

Katya has so many wonderful qualities: she is hilarious, smart as a whip, a natural leader, brave, beautiful, strong, and kind. But even bright and spunky and clever girls need a mother.