Dana L. Yeoman, DDS
Dentures and Implants
The Power of a Smile to Transcend Borders Part 15
Site last published: 08/28/10
The Power of a Smile to Transcend Borders Part 15
One day Coshka (the Russian word for cat) showed up at the Ukrainian orphanage. Coshka was neither kitten nor cat, but was in that lanky awkward adolescent stage that is so amusing. It was impossible to tell whether the orphans had adopted Coshka, or if Coshka had adopted the entire orphanage for herself. Though feral, Coshka seemed to crave the attention the children were happy to give her. This little white kitty was the first lesson in love that some of the orphans had ever experienced.
This day while I was visiting Katya’s orphanage I had a new project. My mission was to take portraits of all the children in order to encourage people back in the States to send Christmas presents and support the orphanage. We call them “Christmas Tree Angels” at church. People choose a child’s ornament off the Christmas tree and listed on the back is their age, clothing size, favorite color, and favorite hobby. The photographs were a fun way to help people identify with their child and to spark their imaginations for sending a Christmas present.
This got me to reminiscing about my own childhood. When I was a little girl, my mother would dress me up in my favorite spring dress every year and take me to the Kinderfoto in the Valley Plaza. My birthday seemed to be synonymous with portraits of me holding a toy bunny or a basket. It is hard to picture my childhood without this tradition.
If the orphanage couldn’t afford dental care, the administration most certainly wouldn’t pay for kids to be photographed. I decided my portraits of the orphans were going to also be my gift to the children. I got to be their own personal Kinderfoto studio for a day. This was one special little thing I could do for these beautiful kids.
Little Katya was my biggest photographic challenge. She had turned five years old now but was still feisty, though she had become slightly more civil. As you have seen in previous articles, nobody could get her to pose nicely for a camera on our earlier visit. I certainly didn’t know how I was going to convince her to let me take her photo this time with her tongue inside her head... if she were going to let me take it at all.
It took some coaxing and some wheedling. Katya cautiously watched the other children being photographed in the garden. She understood her compliance was connected to a Christmas present, which was a very powerful incentive. Finally she made up her mind. Katya marched away, but in a moment came back dragging along the white cat. I was sternly instructed to take a portrait of Coshka. I did as I was told.
Katya and Coshka had very similar temperaments and it was funny how the portrait captured their personalities so perfectly. Both were edgy, both were feral, and no one was ever sure who was going to bolt first... the cat or the girl.
Because of her volatile past, Katya had trouble loving another person, but she certainly could love this cat. The girl and the kitty seemed to need each other and it was easy to see they would end up being best friends. I would hazard a guess that Coshka was a special cat “sent” to help a little girl learn to trust, love, and care for another being. Hopefully this therapy kitty could be the key to teaching Katya to love people someday, too, and soften the hardened heart that an ugly world had already created in a child so small.
After such a demanding day, our dental team decided to go unwind in downtown Kiev. I particularly needed some down time after photographing thirty-three active children, but little did I know that our shopping excursion would turn out to be so challenging.