Rose Alaimo came home from Russia on Sunday. Well, all of her except several pieces of her heart. They got left behind with several of the Russian orphans she met in orphanages, a hospital and a summer camp in Yaroslavl, Russia.

In her last two e-mails before heading home, Rose sounded happy and sad, energized and tired, and also frustrated.

Happy because she made some children in difficult circumstances laugh and smile, if only for a few short weeks. Like a little boy named Slava, who, she says "just walks around by himself on the outer part of the playground in the high grass, singing his songs softly to himself and playing with everything that comes along." But very sad later when she writes that Slava, whom she always assumed to be three years old, is actually seven. Rose says she learned that he skips his meals, and when he does eat, he just picks. It reminded me so much of my older son, who, at 18 months, was completely indifferent to orphanage food. The first adoption medicine doctor who reviewed his file said he was a classic case of failure to thrive, but he eats just fine now and I have the food bills to prove it.

Rose was also saddened by meeting children who lived at one orphanage while a sibling lived at another, and an older boy whose two younger siblings had been adopted while he was left behind. And frustrated by the thought of all the things that she would have done for all the kids if she had had more time, or had been in one placement for the whole volunteer vacation. "I was hoping to do something more lasting," she writes, "help them learn English, teach them to play the guitar, anything that might help them."

"It's been a very full and tiring 3 weeks," she wrote to thank all those who had supported her trip, "and I'm really happy about how it went. It was a perfect intro to getting involved with working with kids in Russia." I don’t know about you, but I think Rose Alaimo will be back in Russia one day.

Previous posts on Rose Alaimo's volunteer vacation:
Help Rose Alaimo Go To Russia
Rose In Russia
Forbidden Hugs And Far-Away Dreams