A family journal. The notes of a nanny from an Orthodox orphanage

In front of you are some selected notes of a nanny from the Orthodox orphanage in honor of holy martyr Great Princess Elizaveta Feodorovna on our monastery's grounds.

***

I have been substituting for an absent personnel member at the refectory. The children can't quiet down before the prayer, so I decided to help the teacher. I entered the dining room where Masha is already diligently reciting: "...Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven..." In order to give an example of how one should comport oneself at prayer time, I took a stand with the children, lowered my head, half-closed my eyes. One of my hands was immediately grabbed by the new foster child Anya, and the other one by Lena.

Anya was resolved at any cost to explain to me that we are already friends, and she wasn't getting I was so unfriendly to her. She is tugging my hand, saying: "I am Anya, auntie, I am Anya." But there is no way I can answer her during prayer. "I am Anya," – she insists and pulls my hand again. "Be quiet, see, she is sleeping," – Lena is stopping her.

***

The three-year-old Zhenya is sick. To my question: "Little Zhenya, what is hurting you?" – She replies: "The tail." And points to her braid.

***

Taking rest at the sea

We are playing the "Ringlet" game... "Ringlet-ringlet, come out to the porch..." Julia comes out with the ringlet. Lena starts crying right away: "What about me?!" And it happens every time when the ringlet is given to someone else. I would give her all the ringlets on earth as soon as I see those large hailstones of tears on her dear round face, the downcast lips, the wrinkled turned-up little nose. But a game is a game. I never realized what it meant before. Lena showed me that the game teaches one to notice that there are other people with their own interests on the planet. How much we must teach our children and endure so many tears of theirs! The children immediately give up and bring the ringlet to Lena after her sobbing. Again it is my duty to pass over her.

***

We are entering the refectory, in the far end in front of us there is a large icon, and by the entrance, on the right – a washstand, little towels, a small mirror. Zhenya reads the prayer before the meal and crosses herself, but here something has already got her attention, and she makes the bow in the direction of the washstand. Our strict Katya reproaches her in whisper: "Is that how you make a bow? Only the pagans would venerate doors, tables, and all kinds of washstands."

***

Singing the Symbol of Faith all together

In the evening, walking in the corridor to the evening prayer, Katya is carrying a little stool and stops all the time. The teacher, seeing her lazy, slow movement, hurries her up: "Katya, catch up with the girls." But she replies: "Let them walk first, and I want to be the first in the Kingdom of Heaven." That's because she remembered the words of the Gospel: "Those who are last on earth will be first in the Kingdom of Heaven!".

***

The older girls gave the younger ones a "performance" based on Krylov's fables: the stage received the hard-working Ant (Zhenya) in large gauntlets, the flimsy Dragonfly (Lena), the Swan, Lobster, and the Pike who were unwilling to be unharnessed from the carriage, and the simple-minded Crow – Dasha who was quickly outwitted by the insidious Fox... Of course, Katya was reading the author's part. After lunch, like a bright bouquet, they poured out into the street for a walk, merrily crunching the autumn ice on the puddles. They saw a large crow on the branch of an apple tree, watching the children with the black pearls of her eyes. Katya took a pose and started reciting outloud as if in a theater: "Somewhere God had sent a piece of cheese to a crow. Having climbed a fir-tree..." The startled crow froze and attentively listened to Katya's monologue until the end, and then she cawed at the top of her voice [acting according to her role in the fable]! The loud laugh in reply to this – the children are delighted!

***

It is as if I am under fire – the grape-shots of Masha's questions are falling on me: "And what is this? Why? Really? What for?..." I would really have liked to tell her that she totally wore me out with her whims, but one peaceful and gentle word of hers is enough to heal all the little wounds of the heart. My dear girl, when I would make a cross over you before leaving my shift, you would say: "Let me make a cross over you, too." And your crosses would preserve me.

***

Alya is looking at a picture where the judgment over a soul is depicted: here stands the poor soul, the scales are above her; on the one cup the demons put their scrolls, on the other cup – the angels lay down theirs. She is being explained that whichever cup of the scales is heavier, there the soul would go. Alya puzzles the teacher with the question: "And what if they are of equal weight?"

***

Barbara, who is unable to sit quietly in class for two minutes in a row, discovered in herself an "evangelistic gift." She went in to the little ones' bedroom and began a talk about the holy martyr Elisabeth: – Girls, do you know what St. Elisabeth did when the assassin threw a bomb into her husband Sergey? She came to the prison to the murderer Kalyayev, brought a Gospel and said: "I forgive you." Can you imagine what she was able to forgive? But how do we behave when we do not forgive from a pure heart, when we take offence at each other for trifles. The girls are listening to her breathless.

***

I want to be able to say correctly all letters!

The rehearsal for a performance is on. According to the script, the heroine, having repented of her act, must cry, burying her face in her "mom" played by the teacher. The director explains this to the little actress, but in response to all the persuasions, she stubbornly whispers: "You will not see tears from me."

***

Psychologists conduct lessons with the children to see what the latter like, what they are afraid of, how they get adapted among their peers. The girls really like going to the skete to see the sisters. With the nuns, they can take walks, draw, talk about what's important to them. Not to mention the interesting books that the sisters have! And so, the psychologists are pointing to a picture of a crying little boy and ask the girls why he is crying. The girls take a moment to think, and then one of them blurts out: "They didn't take him to skete!".

***

At the cross procession

The girls are coming back from their walk. In the hall, the teacher sends them one by one to their class, saying: "I trust you; you will not let me down and will go up quietly." The loud, boisterous Valerie is not let go by herself, she is fidgeting, making circles around the teacher, and then, unable to wait anymore, she asks: "Please, I trust you, can I go, I won't run."

***

I entered your bedroom when you were taking a walk – how wonderfully it smells here with your smell, and how peaceful it is here. Tranquility, as on the bottom of stagnant water, the recognizable quiet that exists in an empty, well-prayed-in church.

***

We are taking a walk. Masha saw a squirrel who is calmly sitting on a glade, and she says joyfully: "It is as if we live in paradise – it is so good at our place!" And when you say this, my dear, the anxious sleepless nights are forgotten, just as the broken toys and ripped books, your tears and offences... It is, indeed, as if we were in paradise!

The notes of a nanny 2003.