Trip to the big city

Our interpreter took us to DniproPetrovsk yesterday so we could find some clothes for Alex. Nikopol had nothing. Our standard cab driver picked us up at 8 am. The road there was slightly bumpy but I've seen worse on I-15 in Montana. It took around 90 minutes one way. We passed thru this rather ominous check station where police randomly stop people and check for documents or inside the car. We cruised right past them on both directions with no problem. This city back in the cold war era was apparently locked down to all outside traffic. Only people working in the missle industry were allowed in. This was the main city for producing Soviet ICBM's. It was only opened up after independance occured. There is between1.5 and 2 million people here and it is 2nd only to Kyiv for shopping. We went directly to Karl Marx Avenue which is the main street for all the high end shopping. We saw many stores that had Italian and French fashions. Once again it was stream after stream of pointy boots. Judy and I went into one store that had these boots and we saw a pair of knee high ones that cost $400 US. Right next to it was a store that sold sunglasses. Judy saw a pair that was $600. They were huge wrap around style. The desparity between rich and poor is amazing. Our cab driver spent almost 3/4 of the day with us driving and waiting and he was paid only 250 Grivna or around $50. When you take out his cost for gas, etc. He maybe only cleared around $35 and some of these women are walking around wearing in some cases $1000 worth of clothing and accessories. And I'm sure they have several of these outfits. It's ultra rich and ultra poor over here it seems. Roman told us that the woman at the orphange maybe earn around $80 to $100 per month. We saw an ad in a Kyiv newspaper written in English that had an apartment for rent at $3000 per month. It was a one bedroom with satellite. That is exactly what we had when we were in Kyiv. Don't know how our facilitator swung that deal.

We finally got to our kids store and bought Alex enough clothes to get him home. It was a pretty large store and had a fairly large selection for us to choose from. It was by no means what we are used to at home, Foleys, Dillards, etc., but we found everything we needed. We also picked up a few toys to keep both of them occupied while they stay with us over Ukrainian Easter.
Alex seemed kind of bumbed a few days ago when Judy was trying on clothes for Nikki to see if she had the right size. He should be pretty excited to see that we also bought some for him. We bought him a spiderman and batman action figure the other day and he totally loved them. Played with them the whole time he was at the apartment. I spotted a spiderman baseball hat at one place and will pick it up before we leave.

It's still really frustrating not to be able to talk with them. A couple of days ago Alex was desperately trying to tell us something and we had no idea. But our interpreter told us that he wanted the picture of our house that we had printed over here. He wanted to take it back to the orphanage and show his friends where he will be staying. That was pretty cool. Tells us that he is aware of what is going to happen to him and his sister. We can't wait to get home and spoil the little guys. I know we really can't do that because we may create a couple little monsters but it will be difficult not to. This road has been a long time coming for us.

Cliff