Party Animal
THE JOY AND STRESS OF CELEBRATING

By Christina Ianzito
Sunday, August 27, 2006

Russian orphans leap into the pool -- and into their host families' hearts

"Mama, mama!" shouts Kristina, a 6-year-old with a button nose and a blue bathing suit. She has climbed out of the pool at the Woodley Gardens Swim Club in Rockville to talk excitedly to Beatriz McNamara, 48, who smiles and nods her head, then accepts a quick hug and watches as Kristina jumps back into the pool. "What did she say?" McNamara asks a woman standing next to her. "I cannot understand her!"

Kristina speaks Russian; McNamara doesn't. Yet this communication roadblock doesn't seem to diminish the emotional bond that's already evident on this sticky Sunday afternoon, just three weeks into their relationship. They and about 60 other adults and kids are at a pool party sponsored by Bridge of Hope, a Silver Spring-based summer program that brings Russian orphans ages 6 to 11 here to spend a month with an American family. The hope is that, as with Kristina and McNamara, the connections made will be strong enough to inspire adoptions. About 90 percent of the children eventually do find a "forever family."

This year there are seven orphans staying in the Washington area with six families (two siblings are together). Most seem to manage the communication gap with the help of Russian-language cheat sheets, lots of pointing, exaggerated facial expressions and, in a few cases, bewildered calls to volunteer translators. The children are all here -- chatting to one another in Russian, swimming, eating fruit salad and frosted cookies and sipping lemonade -- along with their host families, some former host families returning with their now-adopted Russian children, and a few couples curious about the program.

Two girls are standing side-by-side by the pool wrapped in matching green-striped towels, each stitched with a name in hot-pink letters: "VICTORIA" and "VALERIE." Victoria is Cheryl and Joe Haviland's 10-year-old daughter. Valerie is a 7-year-old orphan with long brown hair, a round angelic face, impish sense of humor and startling sea-green eyes. Cheryl Haviland says that when the family picked Valerie up from Dulles International Airport, the two girls were already holding hands in the back seat and that she and her husband "knew immediately" they wanted to start adoption proceedings. As she says this, goose bumps pop up on her arms despite the day's withering heat. "I get chills," she smiles, thinking about that day.

McNamara, a Spanish teacher in Annapolis, watches her five biological children, 9 to 15, playing in the water with Kristina. One of her sons sweetly kisses the little girl's head, and McNamara smiles. She and her husband, Ronald, have begun scraping together money to pay for Kristina's adoption, which she estimates will cost more than $35,000.

Kristina and the other children are required to return to their orphanages at the end of their month here. Then, typically, the adopting family heads to Russia in late fall or early winter for a court date and, if all goes well, takes a new child home.

Not every match is perfect. Program director Patrice Gancie notes that one boy, a non-swimmer who seems about to leap off the diving board until a lifeguard calls him down, has had some behavior problems; his adoption prospects look weaker.

Nobody likes to dwell on the less-happy stories, but much of the talk at the pool today, at least among the parents, is about their trepidation over next week's departures. "What do we tell her?" Cheryl Haviland asks a translator.

He shakes his head, and shrugs: "Just tell her you'll come see her in a few months in Russia."

Haviland sighs, chews on a piece of watermelon, then looks down to find Valerie tugging on her arm. The little girl shows off a new temporary tattoo one of the volunteers has applied to her arm -- a mermaid -- then runs back for another. "She's a doll," says Haviland, softly. "She's an angel. I love her, I love her."

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