Dana L. Yeoman, DDS
Dentures and Implants
The Power of a Smile to Transcend Borders Part 23
Site last published: 10/04/10
The Power of a Smile to Transcend Borders Part 23
I am not someone who is big on holding babies. There have been many opportunities when children have been passed around at church or parties, but as the youngest in my family, babies remain a mystery to me. My niece, Charlotte, once upon a time, baptized the front of my blouse with nasty sour bottle-milk, but otherwise I remain rather unschooled in the arts of baby-care.
One thing I know is that babies need to be held. Without kind and nurturing touches, children grow up emotionally disturbed and socially disabled. Our goal was to check out a few baby orphanages surrounding Kiev, see where they needed help, and hold a whole lot of babies.
The first baby orphanage we visited looked pretty well cared for. Cute-Appeal helped market their needs rather well within their own community. The volunteer workers were digging through large boxes of hand-me-down clothing when we arrived. Though they didn’t appear to need any financial help, we were ready with open arms.
After getting permission from the workers to pick up the kids from their cradles and play pens, we enjoyed “working hard” at playing. Some kids were learning to stand, some to crawl, and others to walk. The volunteers were good-hearted women, who liked what they did. I could see they took an interest in their babies and helped encourage their development. One of the women, in her white uniform and hat, proudly showed us a little boy who was going to be adopted into a family. She beamed with the pride that one of hers had been chosen. Among all the orphanages that I have seen, this was the only child I had heard of being adopted.
I thought it funny that I was getting coached on how to handle babies from our translator, who was a new father himself. He gave me lots of authoritative advice that sounded an awful lot like something his mother-in-law must have told him a few months earlier. Wives tales or no, he was a dear fellow and I followed his instructions much to his satisfaction.
My heart is easily stolen. This time it was a little tow-headed chap named Ruslan. Somehow, his color and features reminded me of an oil portrait my grandma had painted of my dad when he was just a little tyke. Something about the similarity made me attach to Ruslan. I walked around holding him for a long time, sweetly talking into his hair, and helping him discover the part of the world that is hard to see from the ground. At that age, everything is an amazing discovery and it was fun to see it through his eyes. This was by far the most fun hard work we had done in Ukraine!
In the picture, from left to right, is Vicki Nelson our leader, me holding Ruslan, and Alisha Sandalow enjoying ourselves immensely at the baby orphanage.
Having had a great day together, we were sorry to have to go home. We needed a good night’s sleep for my team to get geared up to visit another baby orphanage whose reputation was not as glowing.