I've heard from Rose Alaimo again, the graduate school student who is volunteering in Yaroslavl, Russia this summer.

Her e-mails are helping me to see how easy it would be to improve the lives of the children in Russia's orphanages, and how hard it can be to do what should be the easy things in life.

Easy things, like helping kids to laugh and sing when the only song the multinational corps of volunteers has in common is "Row, Row, Row Your Boat".

Easy things, like helping kids brighten the hospital in which they live by making fish out of paper and glitter glue. All one little boy wanted was for Rose to put her name--in English--on his fish. But the request sparked imitators and, by the time Rose left the hospital, there was a whole school of Rosefish hanging.

But some easy things, like reassuring hugs, are problematic in a Russian orphanage. Rose and her fellow volunteers were told when they first went to the baby home that they must not hug the babies because they would get accustomed to it. Rose understands that the request is not malicious: The caregivers are simply outnumbered and feel they would not be able to keep up with the hugs when the volunteers leave. But it has proved hard for the volunteers abide by the rule.

Rose relates that one of the volunteers has been hugging the babies in secret and that the secret was blown when the babies started crying when the volunteer in question left the room for a second. "Just from that simple action," Rose writes, "the women who work there knew she had been holding them, so they went up to [her] and gave her a look and said 'no more'."

Of course, there are things that Rose is experiencing that are even harder, like helping one little girl cope when her mother fails to show up at the orphanage for her weekly visit. Remember, while Russia's orphanages are full-time homes to legal orphans, they also serve as a place for respite or foster care for the country's "social orphans" while their parents try to get their lives together. "It was horrible," Rose writes, "and none of us wanted to leave after that."

I'll end with one easy word--hope--that is also proving hard to live by. Rose tells of meeting a teenage girl at the summer camp who is full of dreams for the future. But when Rose begins to brainstorm with her about how to make those dreams come true, the girl hesitates. "It was very sad--she has so much potential but really had it in her head that her dream was impossible because of so many factors."

Maybe what this girl needs is a Rosefish of her own. "I tend to be a strong believer that anyone has the ability to change their situation (to an extent)," Rose writes. "… I hope that talking to her about the possibilities today may get her thinking that it's quite within her reach."