Ira and Igor

On Monday we met with Ira (pronounced ee ra) and her husband Igor (pronounced ee gor) Ira is Vika's (Alexa's) half sister and only known relative in this country. Vika's parents are both deceased and she has no aunts, uncles or grandparents. We wanted to spend some time with Ira to learn more about her little half sister Alexa. Ira is a computer science and physics teacher for 11th graders in a small village about 20 miles outside Sumy. Igor is a taxi driver here in the city.

Ira has the same mother but a different father than Alexa. She only spent a few days a month with Alexa growing up because Vika was sent to the orphanage at approx. age 8. Ira described the situation that she and her grandmother were the people who rasied Alexa until she was sent to the orphanage. Her father died long ago of an unknown cause and her mother was found unfit and eventually died of what sounds like alcohol poisoning about 4 years ago.

We asked if we could see any pictures of Alexa growing up at home but Ira said there are only a couple. Most of Vika's pictures were thrown away by her mother! That was sad news to hear. We do know there are several pictures taken of Vika growing up in the orphanage that we are going to take to a local store to have them scanned and put on a CD to take home. We are going to do our best to preserve what memories exist of her first 16 years of life.

Ira wanted to know if she would ever see Alexa again after we take her home. That was difficult to answer but we helped her understand that we have traveled quite a bit and that it's quite likely Alexa would have an opportunity to return in the future if she chose to do that. Ira was happy that Alexa had found a family and a new home in America. There is no future here for Alexa and Ira is happy that her sister will have a better future.