Today is Olegs' 12th birthday (fyi, Christina's is on April 7th) so we called the children's home to wish him a happy birthday. We had no idea whether he would take our call or not but we had to at least try. We called and got a really nice woman on the phone (a teacher, I think) who speaks a little English. At first, she said Olegs wasn't around but then she said "wait a minute" and she went to get him. Next thing we knew, he was on the phone. He answered, "Da?" and we immediately launched into our rendition of the happy birthday song. "Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday Dear Olegs, Happy Birthday to you."
Well, halfway through the song a recording came on the line indicating that our call had been disconnected. Immediately, our minds started racing. Was it our singing? Did he just not want to talk to us? We had no way of knowing whether he hung up on us or if it was a glitch with the phone line. We immediately called back and got some child on the phone who just said "Olegs out." We tried to explain that we had just talked to him but got a generic response, "yes, yes." Clearly we were getting nowhere. Then the child hung up on us. We tried calling again later and got the same story, "Olegs out." Then the teacher who knows some English got on the phone again and she also said Olegs wasn't there. We tried to ask her what time we should call and she replied, "yes, it is nice day in Latvia." Clearly she didn't understand what we were saying.
To make a long story short. The only word we heard from Olegs was the "da" we got when he answered the phone. We tried asking for Christina too but she was out playing too. Granted it was about 8:45 p.m. Latvia time so no telling what they were doing outside. They'll be in for a big surprise when they come here to live because they'll be in their PJ's getting ready for bed by 8:45 in America.
Anyway, we're sorry that we didn't get to say more to Olegs but at least he knows we didn't forget his birthday. I'm happy that I was able to give him his presents and celebrate with birthday cake last week when I was in Latvia.
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