Alena is an eighteen-year-old girl from Russia and she has seen her fair share of hardships. Being born and raised in one of the poorest areas in the country she recounts how her family made a way. They didn’t have much but they had a plan than that worked until her mother got ill. Living in poverty they could not afford a doctor so she was forced to watch her mother die as she became the woman of the house. Shortly after the death of her mother her father also died leaving her and her siblings homeless and forced to enter into an orphanage. Within the time that she is at the orphanage all she wants is to be reunited with her family until she is adopted by an American family. But it is the custom of making a wish on your birthday that continues to give Alena hope. She holds onto a picture of her family and as she blows out her birthday candles she closes her eyes…hoping her wish comes true. (*Actress must speak some Russian within the piece.)