Rose Alaimo has only been in Russia a few days, but her experience is already proving an eye-opener.

You might remember that, back in late May, I introduced you to a Cornell University veterinary student who decided to go to Russia for what some people call a "volunteer vacation". Rose is doing a lot of volunteering, but she clearly isn't getting a lot of time for rest. And it doesn't seem to bother her one bit.

Rose arrived in Yaroslavl on July 23 after a long plane ride, a five-hour wait in Moscow and a seven-hour car ride, she says. Her assignments include a kindergarten for deaf children, a summer camp for orphans, an orphanage that can't afford to send the kids to the outdoor camp and a shelter for elderly women. She doesn't say which of Yaroslavl's orphanages it is, but, reading her e-mails, it doesn't sound like a very well-tended place. She describes the caregivers as well-meaning but overwhelmed. It made me wish there were a way to get the University of Pittsburgh professors who have been turning around some St. Petersburg orphanages out to Yaroslavl to change things there.

But more than the physical appearance of the orphanage, the hardest thing for Rose seems to be discovering how much the kids there need--and want--to be held, noticed and praised.

The kids, she writes "kept coming up to me asking me to do something to them, but I didn't know the verb. Eventually I figured out that they were saying 'hold me.' They wanted to be held so badly, especially the younger ones. They would just sit all over us and play." Rose told one little girl she had beautiful eyes, and the child was so flattered that she ran around in a circle saying "I have nice eyes!"

Most touching was the rapport she made at the summer camp with one little boy. It was a quiet one, forged by a few toy cars and a bracelet Rose crafted from the materials at hand. But those small gestures gave him respite from some bullies at the camp. Rose calls him "a flower growing in a war zone."

For all the dislocation and emotional overload, Rose seems uplifted by her experience, which lasts until early August. "I am so happy to be here," she writes. "Seriously, there is no place else I would rather be. I really feel like I'm making them a bit happier when I'm there with them, and that's all I expected to be able to do."