We get many students who end up here because they are orphans over 18 with no place to go so someone has sent them to us. Sometimes they are unhappy about being here, even if they are afraid of the cows, or have other problems. A week or so after arriving one of the boys said he was afraid of the cows, so one of the other boys asked to be paired with him to help him out. We were not too worried as Karina came two years ago afraid of the cows, dogs and wanted to leave after a week. Now she is chief cow chaser in the new parlor and never wants to leave here.
Here's the last photo of Sergey or Serosjha, taken on Friday afternoon as we were leaving for teaching English in Dnepro. Sergey's the one wearing shorts and the Chicago Bulls coat we gave him.He complained whenever I took photos so he is not in the one with the boys posing with their new hats. He came a month ago and kept telling us he was going to leave whenever things were not going his way, and was asked to leave after telling the police a lot of untrue things about the school Friday night. Hopefully he'll be happier back in the city. There was a lot of friction between him and the other boys who thought he was lazy. They would help in the yard at their house while he watched TV. I think the only thing he liked was English class, because he knew everything we studied so far.
However a couple hours earlier on Friday our latest female student Masha arrived (now I will have to call Maria, Garry's assistant by the name she prefers). So far she is excited about the farm and even Saturday evening church although she seems to have a problem with withdrawal from some unknown substance, a first for us.
She was sent to us from the same Christian organization from Kherson that brought Nina a week earlier. Nina is the one with short hair at the end of the row in the photo. She seems to be adjusting, although if she shows up at the house again with cold feet because she isn't wearing socks in her rubber boots after receiving several nice warm pairs... I may not find her more. She seems to have studied English before, and we were told that she and Masha don't like each other when Masha arrived. Now there are three girls at Luda's house, so we only have room for a couple more students if we find more until the addition is finished inside, which the guys are working on now.
Tomorrow Losha (the artist, we have two Loshas now) will be 22 years old, he's the one with longer hair in the photo, sitting with Dima, who did a lot of the cooking for the party. Losha arrived back in March, and has been doing some painting with some oil paints some one left here a few years ago, he came by the house last month, he wanted to get some brushes because his were missing. I found the paintset and gave it to him, he was so excited I got a big hug, and he has a couple of his painting hanging in his bedroom.
