An outing with Marianna

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Oksana is an early childhood music teacher. For two years things have been slow. People were scared of the virus, Kyiv was locked down for months at a time, and half the city left on account of the war.

Zoriana attended to nursery school starting last fall. We began in Happy Home, a fairly traditional one, and then moved her to the nursery school that started up at Sunflower School, which Eddie had attended. All of them shut down immediately after the war started. They were not in a position to protect the kids from the Russians. Scared parents didn't want them on the streets of Kyiv, and took more than half of them far away to the west.

Happy Home was one of the first to start up again, about a month ago. Zoriana was the second to enroll. They quickly expanded to about ten children and four caregivers. Today Oksana was delighted to be asked to give music lessons to the five older children. She took off at 10:00 with a bunch of beginners’ instruments on the back of her bicycle.

Eddie left on his bicycle at the same time for his 11:00 music lesson with Mme. Pilipchuk, the lady who also teaches Zoriana. We indulge him the fiction that it takes an hour to get there. It takes me only 20 minutes when I don't have children along; it should take him a maximum of about 35. He enjoys being free to wander on his own.

The upshot was that I had Marianna to entertain for a few hours. She loves going for walks, and I had some shopping to do and a package to pick up. This is a pictorial report of our 2 1/2 hour walk.

We walked east, toward the railroad tracks. I was hoping to get a picture of Marianna with the goats, but they weren’t there this morning. Here’s a picture of the two of us on the road past where the goats are usually pastured.

200 yards further down the road we went up to the railroad tracks. Here is a picture of Marianna with the platform of the local electric railway in the background.

We walked along the lake to my favorite playground. It is just on the other side of a bridge, where we found this trio of local boys practicing fishing. Everybody here loves to fish. I’m a fish out of water - I don’t. Eddie is learning it from the neighbors. Note the bathers in the background. Park police and other officials don’t bother the bathers - even on the occasions when there are pollution alerts. They treat us like adults here.

As I expected, there were a good number of young moms with their kids at the playground.  Marianna is not yet at an age to be very social. She enjoyed playing by herself.

The playground is wonderfully well-kept. I don’t know the story of this one, but many of them are maintained through informal collections taken up by the parents. This sort of thing pulls the neighbors together, and it ensures that everybody has a proper respect for the equipment. Here is Marianna perched to go down the slide.

The structure she is on has a ship motif. Just to the left of the slide is the simulacrum of a quarterdeck. Here she is looking out the window.

We continued to the grocery store, where I filled my backpack with groceries, and then on to the Nova Poshta where I picked up the biology, math and geography books I ordered for Eddie for next year. Just like every child I have ever known, Marianna loves to ride in a grocery cart. I kept her on my shoulders as we picked up the books – I didn’t want her running all over the place getting in people’s hair.

She was a bit tired by the time we came out. Tired children become a little bit unruly. She kept heading off on her own. One of her tangents took her to this stone wall surrounding a bunch of trees alongside the lake.

As we came back over the railroad tracks we passed the group of street dogs you see in the back right of the next photo. A well-meaning old lady warned Marianna not to touch them. However, though these dogs live on the street they are very well fed and totally relaxed. Following the example of my neighbors, I feed them myself when we have bones left over from corned beef or ribs.

At this point we had been out a little bit too long. Marianna kept telling me she didn’t need to go to the bathroom, but right after I took this picture she peed in her pants. The remaining half mile was a bit of a struggle. I carried her under my arm rather than on my shoulders.  My resolution for next time is to bring the second pair of pants in a plastic bag, so she has an accident we can just change and continue.

She fussed just until we reached our gate, then she gracefully let me help her take her wet clothes off before we went in the house. She was a happy, smiling child by the time she went to her mother and grandmother.

That’s the news from Lake WeBeGone, where the strong man has finally learned to take a camera sometimes when he is with the kids, the good-looking woman always enjoys looking at the pictures, and the kids are happy enough being photographed.

Graham