Donya and Marat, Our Life-lines

The men in the picture are Donya and Marat in front of the orphanage entrance. Donya, the one in the red, is our interpreter and Marat, the one with the hat, is our driver. They bring us to the orphanage and anywhere else we want to go. They are great guys.

Donya reads what we need him to, tells us about the area, the culture and interprets at the orphanage, bank, internet card store, phone card store and grocery store. He even reads the labels on packages in the grocery store and tells us what it is if needed.

Marat, the driver, doesn't speak English but he comes out with some English words sometimes and makes us laugh. We play around with each other everyday and he'll say the english word and we'll say the same thing in Russian and we all laugh. "spa-she-ba" (thank you), "doe-bray-oo-tra" (good morning), and "posh-lee" (let's go)are some of the things we say. He has gold teeth but you can't see them in this picture. Maybe I can get one of him smiling in the future. I have seen many people with gold teeth. They don't smile a lot here though. Americans smile a lot compared to here.

We went out to lunch with them a couple of times. Donya reads the menu for us. It only costs 10 U.S. dollars (we use tenge "ten-gay" currency here but $10 is the equivalent) to feed all of us and that includes drinks. It is very cheap compared to the U.S. An average person here makes about $200/month.

The other picture was taken from our kitchen window this morning. It is snowing today (Saturday.)

p.s. When Michael Oscar saw us this morning at the orphanage he had a huge smile and hurried up to us with open arms. We're making progress. :)