Tonight, board member and a former host child of our program, Tati, came over to my house after the board meeting. She called as many of our former host children as she could, to let them know we will be on our way soon and what days to expect us. I am so excited to see all the children. My Belarusian host daughter's mother says she is bouncing off the ceiling with excitement to see me. Her name is Diana and she is 8 years old. She has broken the glass in her eyeglasses and I had hoped to bring them back repaired but the frames just arrived today. Dr. Aston gave them to her on her last visit to Petaluma. She can't really read without them. I will take the frames to him before I leave but will have to ship them back. So much for express mail between our two countries!
We also spoke to Tanya Kazrya tonight and she is thrilled we are coming and is attending college now just outside of Minsk. I have things to bring her from her host mother and I just want to see how she is doing. Hopefully, Tati's brother will agree to drive us there as he lives in Minsk.
We will land in Kiev on Tuesday and will spend one day there before taking the night train to Minsk. I wanted to fly but there seems to only be one flight per day and it was in the morning when we have meeting scheduled with the film crew. The film crew will stay in Ukraine but Linda and I need to go check on things and see our Belarusian friends.
We will be visiting the Gomel region after Minsk. The Gomel region is the most hard hit region by the Chernobyl nuclear accident due to the way the winds were blowing the day of the accident. The power plant is actually in Ukraine but the radiation drifted towards Belarus.
I can't wait to see our friends, our host children and to meet those we have only ever spoken to over the phone or via email. I have a lot of hugs to give out!
Ruth
God speed!
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