An organization in Ukraine contacted us asking us to make this particular part of the trip. A bus picked us up that morning and drove us to a nearby town, Slavyansk. We were met by many people, including some really important-looking men with headsets and the whole set-up. They had television and newspaper reporters there. We were introduced, given a short time to set up, and the kids began rotating through the OT, PT, and ST stations. We did quick assessments, made recommendations, and put files together for each child with handouts for difficulties specific to the child and exercises to do at home.
We had Olga and Alice translating with us, and the organization provided 2 more translators. There were so many people there! The translator that worked with Amy and me got really good with our questions and began asking some of our preliminary speech-language questions without us asking him to. Some people may not like this, but it was very helpful for our purposes as the first few questions were the same every time and we were trying to work with as many children as we could.
Most of the children we saw today had CP, a few had autism, and several with other diagnoses. Amy and I were able to demonstrate PECS and the picture boards we made where a child could point to a picture of something he/she wanted or needed. Dr. Jim helped us with our PECS demonstrations. He was the child, I was the therapist, and Amy was the back-up physical prompter. We were in our element and having lots of fun!
Gooooood morning! Christie, Kati, and Amy on the bus ride from the hotel to Slavyansk. It's amazing how refreshed and alive we looked after only a few short hours of sleep each night!
Abby and me ready for another full day.
Alex is Olga's fiance. He's also one of our drivers and an excellent photographer. We have all of these amazing pictures thanks to this guy!
The set up begins.
Some of the families waiting for our arrival.
Quick introductions.
News crews.
Families quickly began filling out paperwork to get started.
Our OT's and PT's paired up for today's assesments - 2 stations with 1 OT and 1 PT. Kym and Abby started with this handsome little fella.
A shot of all 3 stations in action.
Working on some crawling skills.
Hello, Dr. Jim!
For as many people as were in the room and as much going on, everything flowed quite smoothly.
This little boy was taking a rest on the mirror. The crib mirrors are a big hit with the kids everywhere we go.
I couldn't wait to get my hands on these 2 little boys. They were SO cute!
Christie searching for the right braces and shoes.
This little girl was completely overstimulated with everything that was going on. She spent most of her time covering her ears, though she was very calm when she was held.
Catch, Dr. Jim!
Lemme get my hands on these new SHOES!
We were doing some oral motor assessing on this young man, and he just kept looking at me like I was crazy for putting my gloved fingers in his mouth. I can't imagine why.... Ha!
Whew! Needing a water break. All this socializing is exhausting....
This little guy decided to make his own telescope using paper.
My, how exciting some paper can be!!!!
Doing some reaching...
Outside of the school/center.
There were several small playgrounds at the school.
So sweet how they're all holding hands.
Fine motor assessing.
Waiting their turn.
The CUTE twins again!
Amy and I made lots of shape and color pages to give to the kids. Amy's holding a shape page in this picture.
And here you see a color page.
A young lady in some new braces and shoes.
And a walker!
This little guy entertained everyone with his gymnastic skills.
Taking a short breather before his next stunt.
On his head now... Ha!
The OT's utilizing some wrist splints and braces.
Kym was helping this young man with weight-bearing for walking.
Such a happy young guy!
This kiddo looks a little wary of oral motor assessment. I can't imagine why anyone would be nervous about a lady speaking a different language, with a bright blue glove on, sticking her hands around and in their mouth... Ha!
I wish I could remember what I was thinking in this picture. Looks like maybe I'm breaking him in for the bright blue glove Amy's got... 
The OT's have this little one wrapped with coban to get him to use his weaker arm/hand for stacking blocks.
Whew! It's nice to just breathe for a second....
Look at YOU, sister! Kneeling on your own, without Miss Christie holding onto you!
These pink shoes will do quite nicely. 
She was very cautious in the walker, but did GREAT!
She was quite proud of herself!
Some ball play with Miss Amanda.
Wheeeeeee!!!
Abby: "And this is how you do this exercise....." And we're giving you this handout to take home so you'll remember. And you'll get a DVD showing how it's done, as well. I loved that we were able to provide the parents with materials translated into their own language with specific guidelines and illustrations for how to do the exercises.
After lunch, we were given a tour of the facility before finishing up with a few more children. Such a nice set-up for these children! They had their own personal lockers/cabinets.
This young man was very entertaining!
The rooms for children who stayed during the week.
A few children were napping. Look how the pillows are folded up on the beds....
The twins on some exercise bikes.
Lunch time!
More nappers. Of course watching us walk through was more interesting than going to sleep.
This young lady presented the team with a gift and recited a long poem for us.
I love Amy's face in this picture. She's so proud of the little girl for her recitation.
A fish tank with some live fish and some fake fish.
It looks like Kym and Olga are having a very serious discussion. :) The mural in the background was very neat.
Finishing up.
And packing up again. You can see that the speechies are still working in the background. :)
And I finally got to get my hands on these CUTE little guys!
Another playground.
Loading back on the bus.
The woman hugging me in this picture is one of the speech therapists from the school. She was genuinely interested and involved with most of the assessments Amy and I did that day.
After leaving the school, we made a stop at the office of the organization that took us to Slavyansk. We worked hard to get our scrub colors alternated in this picture. Haha!
The whole group. There were also several people from our home orphanage who accompanied us to Slavyansk. It was nice to have them with us to observe even more work with the children.
Amy, Kati, and I are apparently discussing something quite funny. By this time, everything was funny. We could barely talk in complete sentences after the full day of listening to translations while assessing AND doing therapy with all those sweet children.
As you can see on the bus ride back, everything was still funny.
Gregg worked all day building standers and corner chairs with Vova. He was exhausted! A funny story: After the bus dropped some of us off at the hotel, some of the very important-looking "headset men" helped us into the hotel rooms with our luggage. Not too long after they left (but long enough for them to be good and gone), one of them came back into the hotel room in which we were unpacking and arranging things for the next day. The door was open, and he walked right in speaking Russian to us. When we indicated we didn't understand him (which I'm sure he already knew), he began talking louder and faster. We yelled for Dr. Jim (who speaks Russian as he's living in Kiev), who just happened to be a couple of rooms down, apparently close enough to hear us. By the time Dr. Jim got to the room, the "headset man" already had someone on his cellphone who could translate for us and was trying to hand the phone to one of us. Ha! Jim translated that the man wanted us to know we would be picked up at 9:30 am the next morning, and that he had just walked over to tell us because he lived very close to the hotel. Whew! We had thought we were in trouble and couldn't figure out why! This same man was incredibly entertaining on the following day, and we ended up really enjoying his company. More to come on that..... :)
This picture makes me LAUGH! That night, Vova took us to a nice Ukrainian restaurant in Slavyansk. We fit TEN people into his van! Kati, Christie, Amanda, and I squeezed into the trunk/hatch part. When Vova was driving, the back of the van kept hitting the tires, so the 4 of us tried to squeeze to the middle of the vehicle. It was a comical trip!
The Ukrainian restaurant. We had good food - cheese-encrusted salads and potato cakes! We had lots of other things, but those 2 were my favorite. We sat at the same table we sat at on the previous trip, and Kym and I had our picture taken calling the hogs underneath a metal hog on a shelf in the room. I can't find that picture right now, but it's something we have to do every trip now. Ha! 
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