Hinges and elevators...

Hello!

Tom here...

I know you've been waiting for the hinge story and the waiting is over! I will tell you the tail of the hinges.

HINGE STORY

First you must know that the toys we brought were rather generic. Remember, we had no idea if we were getting young kids or older kids, boys or girls... so, we couldn't bring everything. We have already exhausted the kids on most of what we brought, but boys like to play catch. We have been allowed to visit with Tyler in one room in the school and that room has a large storage system on one entire one. This is at least 20 years old, maybe more? It looks fine from a distance, but up close the thing is falling apart. Well, we have some balls with lights on the inside and we have occasionally even turned the light out when we were playing catch. Most of the time it's just Tyler and myself playing catch, but on occasion both Lois and Vasya (our interpreter) also join in. Well, on one such day the ball was thrown to Lois and it was not a good throw and she had to move to catch the ball. She moved right into the storage system and broke a door right off it's hinges! Yep! She broke three hinges in a second! We all laughed and then realized we had to fix the thing! Vasya told the Director of the orphanage what Lois did and she forgave her, and we told her we would fix it.

Seems simple - go to The Home Depot and by a few hinges and fix the thing - right? Well, there is no Home Depot and hardware for something that old may not be easy to find. Vasya found some hinges and we headed back the following day to fix the door. We arrive and start removing the old hinges and the new hinges do not look similar at all! Yep! We had the wrong style of hinges. Vasya claims they were the old Soviet style and we needed the old Ukrainian style!

A few days pass...

So, we went to the central market and found a different set of hinges and headed back to the orphanage - this time to fix the thing once and for all! Yep! These hinges would not work either! We were perplexed - now what? Well, Lois said, all you need to do is buy some wood and that would allow the hinges enough room and they would work. Vasya told Lois to go get Tyler - kinda brushing her idea off. If you know Lois - she doesn't care for that! She persisted and you know what - it may very well work.

So, we measured and recorded we need a pieve of wood 1 cm x 3 cm and at least as tall as Vasya's shoulder! Sure, no problem!!!

A few days pass...

So, back to the central market and we had to find someone sellinf wood! Not an easy task at all... but God is good and we found exactly what we needed and headed back to the orphanage - this time to fix the thing! Sure enough we were able to fix the door and in the process fix the door next to the one Lois broke!

ELEVATOR STORY

On Saturday the kids were sitting in front of the computer watching animated films dubbed in Russian and I thought they had seen enough and wanted to take the kids outside. So, I asked them to help me take the trash out. It is about a four block walk to the dumpsters - a nice little walk. So, Lois gathered all the trash - two bags and each boy grabbed a bag and off we went. We stepped outside our apartment and pushed the button for the elevator. We are staying on the 7th floor and we all piled in...me, my two sons and two bags of garbage. Zach likes pushing buttons and asked to push the button for the first floor. So, I approved and he pushed the button and the doors shut. In about 3 seconds the elevator stopped... I knew we were not completely down to the first floor, but the doors did not open! We were stuck between the 4th and 5th floors! Now, let me tell you the details about the elevators here... they are small - like 4 x 4! They stink! I thing every person and there pet has at one time used the elevator as a urinal!!! It is really bad! Then the garbage we brought with us... not a pleasant smell! So, I called Vasya on the cell phone and he was outside the elevator in a matter of minutes. He told me to press the alarm and hold it and when someone came on tell them I needed help. Sure, no problem - I speak such good Russian!!! No problem, nobody would answer. So, Vasya called a few people - who do you call when you need to get someone out of an elevator??? Well, Vasya got in touch with the right person and it would be 25-30 minutes. No problem! Except the two boys could not stop hitting each other - I had to separate them, but that didn't work and then Zach got tired and wanted to sit on the garbage bags! NO, NO, NO!!! Vasya then told them to settle down and before you knew it - the elevator was moving again. Just 25 minutes - not bad!

Well, that's my stories and now it's time to go.

Vissyo!