The “Baseball Kids”
I have been asked some questions about the “Baseball Kids”, so I thought I had better spend a little time explaining the situation.
I have known them for about four years now … Although they live on the outskirts of town, some of them used to hang around the city center, (around Beta Stores, the Russia Cinema and the Philharmonia), where a large number of young people gather. These are all within one block of the office, so we saw them quite frequently in the neighbourhood.
They were always well dressed and polite. Maxim, who is sometimes a bit of a typical rebellious teenager, always spoke softly in a high pitched voice and I once asked him if he had a normal voice to which he responded loudly in a much deeper voice, “Yes, of course!”
Once I saw them and they said that they were going home from the Church, and asked if they could use the telephone. Normally we would have said no, but for some reason, (probably because it was late), we agreed.
To be honest, we weren’t sure what to make of them … but from a number of conversations we learned a little about them and their situation. When they told me that there were ten children in the family I was well and truly gobsmacked. In the days of the Soviet Union, that would have earned mother the title of Matt Geroina – a Hero Mother of the Soviet Union. In the con temporary system of awards in Kyrgyzstan, the equivalent would be Ene Danke – Honourable Mother of the Kyrgyz Republic.
They rattled the list off for me: Roman, Genia, Inna, Katya, Julia, Maxim, Andrei, Sveta, Edik and Alicia. Then, of course, there is Mum. Dad’s disappeared, and they don’t know where he is … apparently, he just walked out one day and never came back.
They didn’t all live together – for example, Roman, the oldest, is in his twenties, is now married and has a family of his own, but at that time there were nine of them living in a small house on the outskirts of the city. As I understood it, it was a small house, with just two rooms
Because I knew that they had been at church, I asked one of our staff who goes regularly to make enquiries about the family. Nobody seemed to know anything about them. As a result, I asked a couple of other staff to go and see if they could find the house. At the time we wondered if they were telling the truth – and it turned out that they were.
The house was small, (smaller than my two room apartment and smaller than the office), but compact clean and well kept. There was a small kitchen area, but not enough room to “swing a cat”, (although I can’t imagine why anyone would want to do so!), no bathroom and only an outside toilet. Some of the older children had found work, but like most large families they struggled to survive but they were all lively and friendly. There had been some problems over school, but three of them were now attending regularly and the youngest were about to start.
That’s really how it all started, almost four years ago.
We, sort of, “adopted” the family. I went and watched them play baseball, for example, and we took them on a number of trips – to Issyk Kul, to Naryn, to a golf tournament, the Sabantui festival, to a Ski resort and to play ten pin bowling.
One evening, earlier this year, the ceiling fell in on three of the girls in the house and it was in bad need of repair. Like most house repairs, once it got underway it became obvious that it was going to be a much bigger job. I suggested that we take the opportunity to enlarge the kitchen, and install a shower and inside toilet.
Lots of people here seem to assume that they are my children … once, they even got stopped by the police who demanded to see their passports and asked about their visas. I take a keen interest in how they are getting on at school – I suppose that is out of a professional interest, having been a schoolteacher. I can help them with their Maths homework, but others have to help them with other subjects – especially Russian and Kyrgyz.
Bishkek