Mushrooms and berries

The morning and afternoon of our first full day at the orphanage was spent mushroom hunting, berry picking, and picnicking. Sarah and I and our translators covered ourselves from head to toe (despite temperatures in the low 80s) and loaded onto a bus with a half dozen or so of the kids from the orphanage and a handful of the caregivers and drove out to a nearby state-owned park. The plan was to divide up by gender and go in search of mushrooms and berries. Immediately the boys split off from me, Misha the translator, and Vadim the woodshop guy. I should have expected this, given the way my first meeting with Sergey went the previous night. Still, it was difficult not to feel a bit discouraged. Nevertheless, we had a good time rummaging through the woods. When we got back to the site of the picnic the boys were there just hanging around. I decided to try to engage them again. Let me first say, the male of the species, I think, needs to do something together in order to bond. It's not enough--really, it's just too difficult--to bond over a mere conversation. Several of the older boys, Sergey included, earn some pocket money by chopping wood for various people throughout the village. This is a skill that I've never developed and it doesn't look like I have a very promising future in wood chopping. But I decided to have the boys teach me how to chop wood for the fire that was roasting our lunch. Let's just say we all had a good laugh at my attempts. Then it was their turn to demostrate. They were all of course much more proficient than I. One of the older fellas, Andrey, was able to do it with one hand--no mean feat, I must say. This activity lasted all of ten minutes, but it was a start. There was a spring near the site of our picnic and so after lunch most of the kids found their way to the water. Undeterred by previous failed conversations with the boys, Sarah and I made our way over to them and tried to chat about going fishing the next day. I asked what I thought were important questions, such as "where will we be fishing?" and "what time are we planning to wake up and leave?" I got mostly shrugs, but one of the guys responded that they don't worry about waking themselves up in the mornings because the caregivers are responsible for that. I really started to worry about these kids at that point. First, they have real trouble engaging adults in a conversation--I understand why and I don't blame the kids for this, but still, you have to admit, that the inability to carry on a conversation could be a serious stumbling block. And second, they don't even know how to wake themselves up in the morning at the age of sixteen or seventeen. The orphanage director and the caregivers do a great job with the kids. They really try to help them become functional adults, but the fact remains that these young people live not in a home with parents, but in an institution. This is difficult for even the most resilient people to overcome. We had a fun time mushroom hunting but this chat we had down by the spring was a stark reminder of what Sarah and I, and Children's HopeChest, are up against in trying to look after orphaned and abandoned children.