Here I´m again

It´s a long time since I havn´t wrote anything in my blog. Was it just laziness,  shortage of time, .... ? Anyway, here I´m again. I the meantime we had Christemas and New Yaer´s Eve, meetings with dear friends, presents and good wishes..... I presented my freinds with  self made gifts.

We relaxed in January. I read a lot and  Nina spent the first two weeks with  her  foster parents.  After she had returned to Zagreb, we saw together some ballets on my DVD recorder. She likes ballet very much but Nutcracker is her favorite.

And then the cold and the snow in February. For joung people it was a shock - they coudn´t remember the low temparatures and the bounty of snow we had in my youth. I was delighted by the winter of my joung years and out of joy I built  a masked snowman in  our  garden.

And the next day I made a new one - this time with flowers on it´s hat as anticipation of the soon coming spring!

Nina visited me yesterday and  added her little chap to my snowmen. I her sign language she said. "Mam, dad and baby".  In this way she expresed what she realy misses - her own  family. It made me sad.

Nina´s Birthday

 Nina was eleven end of Novebver but preparations for her birthday took place some weeks before. We did it together, Nina and I. 

  It made me happy looking at her smilig face as she  wrote the invitations for her teachers. As you already know Nina has no real home and we celebrated in her classroom at her school.

Just before the  party we decorated the classrom and the table for her classmates ( there are only five pupils in her class),  for other friends and her teachers.

 Finaly  it was time for the the birthday cake! Look at her face! How happy she is!

And the gifts.

 We all had  a happy time filled with many good wishes and tears of joy.

Ninas Horsback Riding

 Last wekk I spent a wonderful afternoon - I accompanied Nina and her friends to a therapeutic riding lesson with KRILA.

KRILA is a non-governmental, non-profit humanitarian organization located in Zagreb, which offers therapeutic riding to people with physical disabilities. KRILA -- meaning 'wings' in Croatian -- makes this stimulating, safe and effective therapy available, to people with various disabilities from the greater Zagreb area. Their riding significantly improves their physical and psychological condition and enables them to participate in activities otherwise inaccessible to them.


The girls feel at home there and here they are preparing themself  for riding

Nina has chosen her favorite horse

It had to be prepared as well.

 

At last on the horseback.

Matea was frightend and the trainer tried in vain to persuade her to mount the horse.

But no chance, at last a substitute had to be found.

And after riding Ninas favorit  animal - the cat!

Ninas Jacket

It was a boy jacket with huge red lettering on the back bougth in a second hand store. Nothing for my sweet Nina! - It ought to be redone! After I replaced the lettering with a scene of a sleepy olt town, put a nice girl face on the front  Ninas "new" winter jacket is just perfect!

 

  That´s not my creation - I copied it from a fashion journal.

But this scene is absolutelly mine. Look at the fierce cat looking out for mice!

We Went to an Exhibition

Nina and myself  visited the exhibition "College Puppets" at The Zagreb City Museum. Twenty puppets, made by students of Pre-School Education at the Faculty of Teacher Education were exposed in one of the shaw rooms.
Each of us saw them with different criteria. While I chose the group of figures as my favorite,

Nina liked the stork and the frog,

the crocodile and the wolf,

the princess

and her prince,

but the cat was her favorite by far.

Nina is Back to School

We had a long, hot summer.  Nina spent it at her foster family in the contry. I sent her letters and phoned her, but we havn´t met for about two months - a long time - and I could not wait to see her again.
I visited her the first school day. Good God, what a joy it was when I sew her running twords me on her schools playground.

Promptly dressed we went to my place, because we had a lot to do. Ninas two years old friend, Zara, had her birthday the next day. We were about to make a birthday cake.

 

and to write a birthday card. 

Nina attends a school for handicapped children. She is in the fourth grade, but writing is still a problem for her. So she merely copied what I had wrote.

At the birthday party Nina and Zara are together blowing at the candels. There is Zaras mam, Azra, in the background. Azra is a exceptional person and merits a special blogpost.

The party was over and the streretcar brings us home. Altogether it was  was a delightful experiece.
Maybe it will be saved in Ninas memory and will brighten one of her future rany days.

Love Letters for Nina

Here are envelopes I made for Nina  following a tutrial. I can´t remember whose tutorial it was, but anyway, thanks to the author. Nina has already recived two of them and, so far her foster mothr told me, she was delighted.

News from Nina

It´s sommer and we have school vacations in Croatia. Before parting for holidays Nina has as usual spent one week with her school mates on the Adria. Here I must allow the Croatian state realy takes care of socially and otherwise hadicapped children. 

As Nina´s special boarding school is closed during the  vacations she is supposed to spend the sommer at her foster familiy in the country - about 100 Km from Zagreb. I met  the family last sommer and was deeply moved by the  warmth I felt visiting them. They give a home to three  foster girls during the vacations.

 

It is a modest working man´s houshold. However the girls are well supplied with all they need and the most important is the kindness, generosity and love they get from their sommer foster parents.

During the sommer months I´ll send Nina post cards to let her know I care. Should I visit her once or twice? I haven´t made my mind yet. She was the happiness itself when I visited her last year and the miserablest child when we had to part ...

(All pictures in this post were taken last sommer)

Have you ever ....

felt the urge to kiss a book you are just reading? To kiss the book as expression of gratitude to the writer who had the wit and talent to put into words your vague ideas about a subject.  

 It happened to me reading on my Kindle  Margaret Atwood´s collection of short stories The Tent. In a concise way she speaks about live and lifes, this and that - and in eleven sketches about orphans - the topic that concerns me very much because of my orphan friend Nina

 ... is blank.
M. Atwood opens our eyes telling her stories with wit, witticism, irony and dark humor here some exemples:

....... they´re so easily broken.
Or:

and further:

and

The longer I ponder the condition of orphanhood the more I´m worrying about Ninas future. What will her life be like? What will happen one day when she sets sail  and heads to the open sea  without advice and help of a generous benefector ?

Easter holydays with Nina

We had a wonderful time, Nina and me, at the seaside in Klenovica. She was so happy stroling along the beach, baking, cooking, playing with her new doll, ...