Sumy resident Olha Nenia who adopted twelve dark-skinned children often finds a lack of understanding in her community

“It’s because of the hot sun here,” Olha Nenia says jokingly, explaining the color of skin of her twelve dark-skinned sons and daughters whom she adopted from the Kyiv orphanage for babies. Her close-knit family is really a team of friends.

Finding this family children’s home run by Olha was not difficult. A local said we couldn’t miss it because it is painted blue. My last doubts were dispelled when, after a cautious knock on the door followed by the loud barking of dogs, several curly haired heads appeared in the windows, eyeing me with curiosity.

In a moment, the door opened and the hostess invited us in. We went up to the living room on the second floor where the introductions were made. “Children, please, say hello to our visitors,” Nenka (Ukrainian for mother) Nenia reminded them.

The children were sitting on their crossed legs on a carpet in front of a television, their eyes spelling curiosity. “Oh, God,” I said to myself in puzzlement, “they are far more than I thought, and I’ll be short of mandarin oranges.” But my fears were in vain as the fruit that I brought were distributed effectively and fairly, and I was treated to candy.

“Children, out for a walk, quick,” came the command from Olha, which set a covey of kids running happily downstairs. The older ones were supposed to help the younger children with their garments before going on sleds in the yard. Suddenly, the door opened, and we heard an offended half-crying tike say, “Nobody wants to dress me.”

“Come over here, little one,” Olha pressed the dark-skinned Karina to her breast, and the girl calmed down covered by her Mom’s warm cardigan. She was in no sledding mood today, and it was so comfortable to stay in her mom’s hug.

THEY ALL LOOK LIKE HER

“I hate empty words, I hate the kind of charity where one just pities a child abandoned by its parents, gives a pat on the back and a sigh of sympathy, and goes away,” Olha continued. “Some of these showoff children projects are simply repulsive. Once in Kyiv I was at a photo exhibition focusing on the life of children. One of the photos showed a wooden fence resembling a cage with the slots so narrow you can hardly see who was behind it. Upon a closer look, you suddenly see a tiny child’s hand thrust through the slot into God’s world.”

“It pained me so much to see this picture. Then I learned that this was how children were kept in one Zakarpattia children’s home, presumably, to keep them out of trouble. I was asked by the organizers about my opinion of the exhibition, but I first insisted to know its goal. To awaken the feelings of charity and sympathy in people, they responded. OK, I said, I have such feelings and if you tell me where that children’s home is located I’m ready to go there and take the kid from the cage for good. ‘Why another one, you have so many of the children,’ they asked. ‘Yes, I do,’ I answered. ‘Why not adopt some of my children,’ I then asked, only to hear an awkward silence. ‘Then what’s the goal of all this, just to have another show, another cry, and call it a day?’

Olha Nenia who brings up twelve Black children often meets with lack of understanding not only on behalf of her neighbors (“Look, your children have torn away the grass near our homes!”), but also male and female officials whose official duty is to help such families.

On the other hand, there is complete understanding by the children for whom Olha is their nearest and dearest, a referee settling their childish conflicts, and a reliable guardian against the hardships of life. And, upon my word, they all look like her, regardless of the color of their skin.

I failed to remember their names, despite some mental effort. Some had put on his buddy’s trousers, some had a grudge against his playmate, some needed another piece of candy — it confounds me how one can survive the noise from morning till night, managing to keep order and make one’s love and care equally available to all of the children, plus answering questions that keep flooding Olha from all sides. How, for instance, can she buy clothes if there is a meager 12 hryvnia monthly allowance perchild? There is no way she can use money from the food allowance, as the children consume a sack of sugar a week alone. The family has become so large the table won’t seat all of the children at once.

In Belarus, Olha Nenia says, the child’s allowance is not changed when a child from the orphanage is adopted. By contrast, in Ukraine the allowance has been cut. As a result, Olha has to stick rigorously to her budget in order to make ends meet.

Olha’s present large family was started with the adoption from the Sumy orphanage of her first child, 8- year old Katia. Then Katia began to beg Olha to adopt her brother Vova living in the same orphanage. 4-year old Vova was also adopted. Next, the two children began to ask Olha to adopt their sister Tanya, and this got the ball rolling.

At first Olha’s own senior children were jealous but then got down to caring for their new younger siblings. They are grownups now, some having their own children. Olha’s oldest daughter Yuliya is a medical doctor. Very often her professional skills come in handy because the adopted children are typically weak, with many born prematurely. Childhood diseases are a frequent challenge, especially when Karina contracted the measles causing so much worry for her mom. Mute until she turned three, Karina is now fine as her health improved. She is wrapped up so much with her mom, whispering her secrets into Olha’s ear.

“CHEAPER BY THE DOZEN” IS A COMMENT SHE HEARS OFTEN

Olha Nenia well remembers the time when her first colored girl, a two and a half year old Snizhana, appeared in her family. Snizhana was adopted after a telephone conversation between Olha and another foster mother, Nina Cherniavska, who told Olha that she had adopted a Black boy, Venka. At his adoption this two and a half year old boy weighed a mere six kilos. Originally, Nina even had doubts that he would survive but now he is quite a robust boy. I also became enthusiastic about adopting a Black child, so I asked Nina to show me the orphanage. Nina’s answer was short, “Come on, there are many such children in Kyiv.” “That’s how Gabriel appeared in my home,” she picks up the story, “followed by many more from the same children’s home, Berizka. Look how many we are now!”

Olha Nenia gives all her time to the children, a tremendous effort unregulated by the existing labor laws, with no vacation or pension envisioned for foster mothers like her. Luckily, she is retired and earned her pension from the local Khimprom chemical plant as hazardous production worker. But her present job is by no means any easier.

The worst period was when the family lived in an apartment building. Then the local Baptist community helped them to buy a house on the city’s outskirts. Now, thanks to the Hope and Abode for Children Foundation they own a two-story home near Sumy, although the property is still too small for such a menagerie. But now they could start their own household, breeding goats, chickens, ducks, and turkeys to supplement their diet. It had never occurred to Olha, she admitted, that having been born in the city and spent all her life there she would wind up in the countryside and learn rustic ways. Life is a good teacher, and her children give her a hand with the orchard and cooking. Olia, 14, has a knack for milking goats, doing it in a very elegant and easy way. It was the children who insisted on buying a goat, first as a pet. Now the goat gives milk, the children’s favorite, and there are several kid goats. However, some neighbors keep grumbling that the children tear grass for the goats near their fences. “How much grass can this hand tear?” Olha asks, showing Karina’s little hand.

“She brings them by the dozen” is a comment she frequently hears. This calls for much courage not to give up and persist almost daily, almost every hour in asserting her right to be a mother. “I love them all and it really does not matter that some of them have lighter or darker skin, they are all my children,” she states.

“YOU DON’T HAVE ENOUGH MONEY” WAS HER ANSWER TO A PROPOSAL TO SELL A CHILD

A frequent visitor to Kyiv’s Berizka Children’s Home, she is well known to the staff, and no one is surprised when she asks to adopt another child. Once, when leaving Berizka after one of her visits, she felt someone’s gaze in the yard that almost burned her. Looking back she saw a pair of large childish eyes turned toward her, and she was unable to go on. She stopped in her tracks, then approached the child, asking who she was. Next she was asking the staff to give Olia to her, and now Olia is her new daughter.

Berizka is staffed with exceptionally dedicated people, Olha says about the capital’s children’s home. She speaks especially highly of its head physician, Oleksandr Tavolzhan, “He is always happy when one of his children is adopted by a family.”

Understandably, not many dark-skinned children are adopted by Ukrainians, because they want healthy children bearing at least some resemblance to themselves. Even Gypsies give the young Blacks a wide berth, saying, yes, they are dark, beautiful, but still not gypsies. Many of the foundlings have been adopted by foreigners, although under law they can adopt only such children who have not been adopted by Ukrainian nationals for a specified period of time. But in many cases the offer of big money does the trick.

For instance, Olha was long turned down in her efforts to adopt the dazzling beauty Silviya. But Olha had her eyes on her as soon as she saw Silviya and decided to push on. She had to wait several years. The girl had a special status in Berizka. Her parents were Egyptian students who could not marry for religious reasons. For some time they continued seeing the girl in Berizka. Olha is sure the girl was slated to be adopted by foreigners. But Olha won the day, and Silviya is now hers. Silviya is a future model, she hopes, and she already has her own portfolio. But modeling is a costly occupation, and Olha simply lacks the means to help her daughter.

Olha recounts another incident. Once a well-heeled lady accompanied by a translator came from Germany. She showed Olha photographs of her nine children. “The Frau wants to have ten children. If you give her one, she is ready to pay you any money you ask,” the translator said. “You don’t have enough money,” came Olha’s resolute response. She was alarmed and put on her guard by the German woman mentioning that her youngest daughter needed urgent surgery.

FAMILY CHILDREN’S HOMES: MEN CAN’T STAND IT

Every child has its unique character, vision of life, and dreams. Take any of the children: either small Karina often called daughter because she is always looking for a place in her mom’s lap, or Sasha who dreams of becoming no less a boxer than the world-famous Klychko brothers, or Kyrylko who is too smart for his age. Back in the orphanage, when called Black, he would seriously answer, “You just cannot tell the colors. The tutor’s skirt is black. I’m not, I’m chocolate!”

Unfortunately, these chocolate Ukrainians have to learn the hard way from their early days how to deal with the manifestations of such vulgar racism making even a six-year old child withdraw its hand, saying, no, I will not go with this boy because he’s Black. Not in Olha’s home, however; she does everything to make sure that all the children treat one another as equals. It is much more of a challenge to oppose the crass character of locals or those officials she has to see to solve some elementary problems. They seem to all have the same answer, “No one made you adopt so many children.” At the state dispensary for dairy products for babies she has been told more than once, “We don’t have enough products for the normal children.”

But Ukraine also has its share of charitable people. In addition to the Hope and Abodes for Children Foundation another sponsor has emerged, the Khimprom plant headed by Yevhen Lapin. Its recent donation included a television set and stationery, just what they badly needed. Yevhen Lapin is also one godfather who seems to take this status seriously.

On that clear winter’s day, with the sun majestically streaming its rays on the city, Olha Nenia’s fourteen children were baptized in the Sumy Saint Resurrection Cathedral of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kyiv Patriarchate. Twelve of them are, to use Olha’s own word, curly-haired but this does not prevent them from being baptized. The children behaved in church as any children would, eyeing the icons, bursting into laughter when splashed with water by priests. Every child was given a Christian name, with Karina becoming Lyzaveta, Gabriel Havriusha, Snizhana Solomiya, and Karolina Anastasiya. From now on every child will have its godparents and a patron. The godparents include city Mayor Oleksandr Andronov, his deputies Kostiantyn Pomazan and Alla Kovtun, Sumy Rukh head Kateryna Biloliubska, and medical doctor brothers Vasyl and Stepan Pak. And next day, Olha’s children home was blessed by the priest.

Olha Nenia’s children are very beautiful, and a comparison with porcelain dolls springs to mind at once. I wonder what their real parents now must be feeling: for example, the eleventh grade mother who walked out on Karolina or Gabriel’s American father. Do they ever remember their children?

Looking at Olha Nenia, one cannot help being struck with her spirituality, as well as energy and dedication to stand by her hapless children. Where is all that willpower and daily commitment that helps Olha not become discouraged and betray her new children even after her husband left her? He just could not stand the pressure, just like three other husbands in Sumy’s six family children’s homes.

“Instead, our women proved stronger,” says Olha Nenia in sad comment. “Probably, to go into this kind of business one has to be somehow abnormal. Ideally, I would like to come to an orphanage or children’s home to see that they are empty, that there are no children to be adopted by the state. Something is wrong in the world: why should children of alcoholic parents be taken to such orphanages, with their parents continuing their drinking bouts and giving birth to new offspring. It would be better to isolate such parents in reservations where they can be treated, while their children could remain in their homes looked over by guardians.”

Our time at Olha’s children home fled unnoticed. Her children finished their walk in the yard and feeding the chickens. Back in the house, the stir again broke loose. The children showed me their toys and fresh photographs taken during their vacations abroad. Then some head was thrust through the door, announcing happily that mom’s lost cosmetics had been found in the washing machine.

Before I left, the children also showed me their winter orchard where they grow greens, making me compare them with young shoots that will blossom some day. With so much sun coming from their mother, it cannot be otherwise.