We arrived safely home last night after a long two days of traveling. Misha loved meeting Duncan for the first time and had a big smile on his face! We brought Misha a few photos of Duncan to get him used to a big brother and it looks like it worked! Misha continued to smile when we loaded everything into the van and John started to drive home. It was the most I have seen this little boy smile.
Thank you to everyone who came to DIA. It was great coming out to a group of friends and the big WELCOME banner! Thank you to Heidi and Felix Roge for the great welcome home bags for all three kids! How did you know these kids are cucumber monsters?
Misha woke up screaming/crying around 3:00 am. We had put him in with Mari to keep him comfortable and I think he either had a bad dream or woke up in the dark and was disoriented. Poor little guy. We calmed him down and he slept another hour before his jet-lag took over and he came into our room for "Poppi".
We could not have done this without my Mom who stayed at our house and cared for Duncan. She spent the night last night and woke up and made us all Mickey Mouse waffles for breakfast! Misha's first taste of pancake syrup was a success!
Duncan looks as though he has grown an inch or two in the last 5-6 weeks! We need to measure him to find out. He was a good sport while we were gone and was a really good boy for his Grandma.
Mari will return to school tomorrow - so she had an early evening tonight. Misha will be home with me for at least a few weeks to work on his English, manners, and not hitting, kicking, pinching, or biting. We want to wait until he moves out of his confused "Kid Vicious" stage and has some words to express what he is feeling.
We are now a family of five and we parents will have to work on helping each of our children adjust to the situation and learn to love each other.
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
Saturday, October 18, 2008
Flight Information
Many of you have asked about our flight information.
LOT Poland 752 (Departing Saturday, October 18th)
Depart: KIEV BORISPOL 2:30 PM
Arrive: WARSAW POLAND 3:05 PM
5 hour layover at the Warsaw Airport
WARSAW POLAND to LON / HEATHROW
LOT Poland 285
Depart: WARSAW POLAND 8:05 PM
Arrive: LON / HEATHROW 9:45 PM
Overnight at Marriott Heathrow London Airport
UNITED 939 (Sunday)
Depart: LON / HEATHROW 1:05 PM
Arrive: DENVER 4:14 PM
We will have to go through Imigration in Denver and have the meeting in which the Immigrations Officials take us into a room, open the sealed envelope from the US Embassy in Kyiv with all of the documentation. Once we get the official stamp in both of the kids passports, they will offically become US Citizens. This process can take anywhere from 40-90 minutes depending on how many officers are working at DIA at that time of day. Then we pick up our luggage, transition through US Customs, and finally out the famous glass doors at the north end of the DIA Terminal building.
While we know that many of you want to come out to welcome all of us back, please do not feel that you have to! Your thoughts, love, emails and prayers have been felt throughout our journey!
LOT Poland 752 (Departing Saturday, October 18th)
Depart: KIEV BORISPOL 2:30 PM
Arrive: WARSAW POLAND 3:05 PM
5 hour layover at the Warsaw Airport
WARSAW POLAND to LON / HEATHROW
LOT Poland 285
Depart: WARSAW POLAND 8:05 PM
Arrive: LON / HEATHROW 9:45 PM
Overnight at Marriott Heathrow London Airport
UNITED 939 (Sunday)
Depart: LON / HEATHROW 1:05 PM
Arrive: DENVER 4:14 PM
We will have to go through Imigration in Denver and have the meeting in which the Immigrations Officials take us into a room, open the sealed envelope from the US Embassy in Kyiv with all of the documentation. Once we get the official stamp in both of the kids passports, they will offically become US Citizens. This process can take anywhere from 40-90 minutes depending on how many officers are working at DIA at that time of day. Then we pick up our luggage, transition through US Customs, and finally out the famous glass doors at the north end of the DIA Terminal building.
While we know that many of you want to come out to welcome all of us back, please do not feel that you have to! Your thoughts, love, emails and prayers have been felt throughout our journey!
Received the US Visas for Kids Today - Headed Home!
Yesterday we had the Doctor's appointment in the morning. She gave both children a clean bill of health. Due to Mari's age, 11, she had to received a Hep. B shot (which I felt bad about because I had assured her that she would not need any shots). Mari was a trooper! Both of the children's blood work came back fine also - thank Heaven. Mari was tired and kind of out of it the rest of the afternoon. I don't know if it was the shot, nerves at leaving here, or the excitement of returning to Colorado (or some combination). She asked "no returning Gorodnya" and I told her "no, maybe someday". I think it is sinking in. She has been a sweetheart with translating Misha's needs to us, translating to Misha what we need of him, and helping to get him down for naps and for the night. I hate asking her to take on this "mother" role when I need to impress upon her and Misha that I am the Mother now, but I am guilty of taking the path of least resistance and will work on communicating one-on-one with Misha when I get home.
With our medical paperwork in hand, we headed to the US Embassy yesterday afternoon. It felt a little wierd blowing past the people in line outside - but that is what we were instructed to do by the guard outside after he saw our passports. I held our passports out so that the Ukrainian's in line could see that they were dark blue American passports and they didn't try to lynch us for butting in line. Luckily, I had read Stefanie Krebs' blog and knew that we weren't allowed to take anything into the Embassy except paperwork, passports, $400 cash USD per child (bring extra in case you paperwork is not complete and you need to beg for copies at $1 per page), and in our case because it was a cold day, our coats.
Unfortunately, I did not know to print out the paperwork in advance (before leaving Colorado as we did not have a printer here), available on-line at http://kiev.usembassy.gov/amcit_adoptions_eng.html The forms are also available at the Embassy. It took over an hour to complete just the forms. Completed samples are on the wall if you have any questions. A set of forms will need to be completed for each child as the Embassy will generate a file for each child. The forms include an I-864W (rev. 01/15/06), an I-600 (rev. 11/28/01), an Exemption from Immigration Vaccination Requirements, and a DS-230 Part I and Part II. We only had one copy of the Adoption Decree, so we pleaded with Natasha to make a photocopy. She came back and said it would be $1 per page. We were thankful to have this resolved for $8. Time in the Embassy, read as your child(ren) would be happier somewhere else, would be significantly reduced if you complete the paperwork in advance.
As I was ten minutes into happily completing forms, and John was keeping Misha from dismantling the Embassy (hah, they thought bulletproof glass would keep them safe), Natasha behind the window asked if we knew that our 171-H was for 2 children in the 6-10 year old age range. Althought Frontier Horizon had Mari listed as 9, Mari is 11. The Dossier was submitted before we had met Mari on her hosting trip. We had a long conversation/argument about Mari being just 4 months into her 11th year. Natasha did not care about this technicality, just that Mari was 11. Natasha left us to see how to proceed. I was no longer happily filling out forms, but had a pit in my stomach and could barely concentrate. Great, to get through this whole process, to Ukraine the kids are ours, and to have it hinge on a piece of paper generated by our Government!
If you are in process with competing documents for your Dossier, I would recommend
a.) having your Social Worker, and your employer in the employment letter, downplay your salary as it is open to all to see in the various proceedings and thus an assessment point for how much money you will be asked to forfeit for "expediting fees", and b.) have your Social Worker list the age of child(ren) that you would like to adopt at as wide of range as possible (keeping in mind that there can not be more than 45 years difference in age between the child and either parent, and that there must be 15 years difference between the age of the child and either parent).
Natasha reviewed the rest of our completed paperwork and told us that we would have to discuss the issue concerning Mari's age with the Consular Officer in the morning. We were hoping the Officer would be American and would listen to reason and would wave this technicality. John asks if I can cry if I need to. Trust me, if the Officer says "no" to the Visas, I won't be pretend crying. We should have caught this, we didn't, our Facilitator should have caught this, he didn't. A restless night of sleep. We want to go home desperately, we miss Duncan so, so much!
Allyson offered to pray with us this morning, which we did, and we faced the day ahead covered in God's Armour. We arrived at the Embassy for our 10 am appointment at 9:30. We checked in and went to wait in the Waiting Room, with toys and kid's books and near the Cashier's Window, and were called at 10:05. After 20-25 minutes of being processed we were asked to wait 30 minutes while the Visas would be prepared. No mention of Mari's age at all. We didn't bring it up either.
After receiving our sealed packets of paperwork and the 2 Ukrainian passports with US Visas, we headed to TGI Fridays for a Celebration Lunch with Christina. A cheeseburger, fries, and a Coke - WITH ICE. How much more American can you get?
We are looking forward to being home, but dreading the flight and the 5 hour layover in Warsaw tomorrow. We worry about Misha on the plane and keeping him occupied. He exhibits the typical orphan behavior of no respect for other's property, hitting, kicking, and is a child in need of boundaries and guidance. Hopefully the person sitting in front of him on the flight will be patient and understanding if he kicks the back of the seat. Please pray for us on the flight home, for our safety, for our sanity, and for Misha to relax and sleep.
I will blog when I get home as I have a whirlwind tour of Kyiv to post. Kyiv is 1500+ year old beautiful, bustling, growing city of 5-7M people and a young democracy. It will be interesting to see how the country changes from this visit to our Heritage Trip visit planned several years down the road when Misha is old enough to appreciate seeing his country and learning about his heritage.
Thank you for all of the comments and e-mails. They have kept us going and we looked forward to reading them whenever we could! Hugs to everyone! We will see everyone in Colorado and Dunc buddy, we will give you one BIG KISS (and lots of little kisses)!
Thursday, October 16, 2008
Received the Children's Passports Today!
John drove to Chernihiv today (over 2 hours up and 2 hours back, plus the wait while the passport office staff were at a long lunch) to pick up the children's new passports! They were promised on Friday and didn't materialize. Yesterday they were still in Kyiv, where they are generated (but we are not allowed to pick them up here). They were finally couriered to Chernihiv this morning and received at 11:00. The passports are Ukrainian with their new Barrett names and what we will use to have the US Embassy affix their Visas into. Once we reach the US, we can apply for US passports.
This is a major hurdle and puts us one step closer to being able to leave. Tomorrow is the medical exam for the children, their blood work is already completed, which is required by the US Embassy. We will also go to the US Embassy and apply for the Visas. This gives us a buffer of a day for anything to go wrong. We are saying our prayers that everything runs smoothly.
We miss home so much. The apartment is our oasis of America in this city. Last night we gave into temptation and went to O'Brian's Pub for some comfort food. We both had Chicken Kyiv ... it seemed a shame to miss while in Kyiv! We are so thankful for your comments and e-mails that brighten our day. Yeah! The end is in sight!
This is a major hurdle and puts us one step closer to being able to leave. Tomorrow is the medical exam for the children, their blood work is already completed, which is required by the US Embassy. We will also go to the US Embassy and apply for the Visas. This gives us a buffer of a day for anything to go wrong. We are saying our prayers that everything runs smoothly.
We miss home so much. The apartment is our oasis of America in this city. Last night we gave into temptation and went to O'Brian's Pub for some comfort food. We both had Chicken Kyiv ... it seemed a shame to miss while in Kyiv! We are so thankful for your comments and e-mails that brighten our day. Yeah! The end is in sight!
St. Nicholas Church and CIty Landmarks
We wanted to share a few of the landmarks in Gorodnya. The city was founded in 1550. It was considered a major village during this period. John would say that little has changed other than the addition of electricity, indoor plumbing in some cases, and vehicles. We have included a few old photos that we found on the internet. The poplar trees still line the roads and we are sure that most of the homes in the photos are still standing and in use. We know that the wells are still in use.
We pass St. Nicholas Church every day on our way to the Orphanage. Even if the gates are closed you can reach in and undo the latch and walk around the grounds. We did not try entering as a priest was on the side of the building and he justed looked at us. He looked like he was right out of the 1800’s (including the dark scruffy black beard and long, dark, shoulder-length hair that he was trying to pull a comb through) . He lives on the grounds in a small trailer house. He intently watched us walk around and take pictures. We told him “hello”, “thank you” and “goodbye” in Ukrainian – he just looked at us and never spoke (a vow of silence?). The frescos are of Archangel Michael and Archangel Gabriel.
The Madonna sits in the main town square, right across from the Lenin statue. Lenin stands in front of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism (a big white two story building with a amphitheatre inside) which is where we found the computer classroom that has allowed us to have internet access for 5 grivna per hour ($1 USD). The building is also the unofficial community center and we often passed ballet or dance classes later in the afternoon. The name has been pried off the Lenin statue, but everyone knows who he is and it is just easier to leave him standing there rather than go to the trouble to rent a crane or tip him over and possibly dent the concrete below.
We found a beautiful stained glass window of three women, one bearing a loaf of bread, in the building that houses the Market grocery store that we frequent. A restaurant is upstairs. You are unable to see the window from the outside, which is a shame.
We have found several monuments to fallen soldiers from the area – one for WWI and WWII and one for Afghanistan. We also pass a monument honoring the Soviet Military with an old jet mounted in concrete.
Beyond the poplars that line the roads, there is a beautiful park filled with willow trees surrounding a lake. A mural of a Ukrainian Family (Papa, Mama, and son) is at one of the entrances to the park. The mural reminds me why we are here and once we reach it we are almost at the Orphanage!
Now that we are in bustling Kyiv, we miss our little town and look back at it with fond memories (everything except the bed and the mud)!
We pass St. Nicholas Church every day on our way to the Orphanage. Even if the gates are closed you can reach in and undo the latch and walk around the grounds. We did not try entering as a priest was on the side of the building and he justed looked at us. He looked like he was right out of the 1800’s (including the dark scruffy black beard and long, dark, shoulder-length hair that he was trying to pull a comb through) . He lives on the grounds in a small trailer house. He intently watched us walk around and take pictures. We told him “hello”, “thank you” and “goodbye” in Ukrainian – he just looked at us and never spoke (a vow of silence?). The frescos are of Archangel Michael and Archangel Gabriel.
The Madonna sits in the main town square, right across from the Lenin statue. Lenin stands in front of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism (a big white two story building with a amphitheatre inside) which is where we found the computer classroom that has allowed us to have internet access for 5 grivna per hour ($1 USD). The building is also the unofficial community center and we often passed ballet or dance classes later in the afternoon. The name has been pried off the Lenin statue, but everyone knows who he is and it is just easier to leave him standing there rather than go to the trouble to rent a crane or tip him over and possibly dent the concrete below.
We found a beautiful stained glass window of three women, one bearing a loaf of bread, in the building that houses the Market grocery store that we frequent. A restaurant is upstairs. You are unable to see the window from the outside, which is a shame.
We have found several monuments to fallen soldiers from the area – one for WWI and WWII and one for Afghanistan. We also pass a monument honoring the Soviet Military with an old jet mounted in concrete.
Beyond the poplars that line the roads, there is a beautiful park filled with willow trees surrounding a lake. A mural of a Ukrainian Family (Papa, Mama, and son) is at one of the entrances to the park. The mural reminds me why we are here and once we reach it we are almost at the Orphanage!
Now that we are in bustling Kyiv, we miss our little town and look back at it with fond memories (everything except the bed and the mud)!
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Road Trip to Bahmach and then Chernihiv
I am a full week behind on my blogging! I need to get my you know what in gear and get caught up! If all goes well, we will leave this Saturday for London, overnight at Heathrow, and arrive home at 4:44 pm on Sunday. We miss Duncan so much! He has been such a trooper and such a good boy for Grandma!
Last Tuesday we drove from Gorodnya, where the kids live in the Internot (Boarding School/Orphanage), to the city that they were born in, Bahmach, 3 hours to the southeast to get their new birth certificates processed and picked up. We had to get up at 4:30 am, well one of us did – the one who wears makeup – in order to be ready to be picked up at 5:30 by our Facilitator, Sasha, and our driver, Sergei. For those of you who know me, I am not a morning human. We were up even before the rooster that crows behind the hotel – totally unnatural. We had been at Larissa, Victor, and their daughter Nastiya’s home for dinner the previous night. Victor cooked the mushrooms that we had picked that morning! Dinner was delicious – at least the foods that I knew. I was gracious and took some fish rolled up in aspic … different. I also tried salo (raw bacon fat) to see what the fuss was all about … still no clue and I was sorry I did. When visiting a home for dinner in Ukraine, as most countries for that matter, it is customary to bring a gift. Vodka and chocolates will do. Word to the wise, if you select a nice big bottle of vodka ($12 USD for a large bottle and quality brand) know the Ukrainian custom first that if a bottle is opened it is to be finished. John learned the hard way. Dinner was followed by chai (hot tea) and torta (torte layer cakes) and candy. We had a lovely evening, watching videos of Larissa’s dance recitals and looking through the family photo albums, that ended around midnight. I then spent over an hour on the phone with United trying to get our reservations sorted out to return home.
At 5:30 am, the morning was foggy and drizzly. John put us in the far back of the minivan in the third row – luckily it had seatbelts – in case we hit something in the heavy fog. For the first hour you could barely see 15 ft. in front of the car. Early in the morning is when the Babushkas herd the cows home to be milked or to pasture after being milked, so we had to stop several times for herd crossings. The Babushkas are in no hurry. The cows are in no hurry. We sit. We have moved away from Gorodnya, population around 10K, to tiny villages and miles and miles of farm land. The soil in one area had been plowed, revealing the black soil called Chernozym underneath that Ukraine is so famous for. This is truly the breadbasket of Europe. The joke is that if you leave a shovel out in the field that it will grow branches.
Finally we see Bahmach on one of the mileage markers – we are getting close! We arrive at 9:15 am safely and congratulate Sergei on the drive. John and I have both driven in fog and it is really hard. I had a headache from watching the road so closely so that I could warn Sergei of anything/farm animal that he might not have seen. We find the City Government Offices and Sasha has us wait in the hallway. The wait is not long, less than 1 hour, and we have the new birth certificates in hand! It is official, Mari is Mariya Renee Barrett and Misha is Michael Joseph Barrett – both born to us! Gestation was 18 months and labor will be 5 weeks long – but the good part is that John shared in it! While we were in Bahmach, I wanted to see the home that the children lived in before their mother died. We assume that the residence is being used by the kids’ older siblings, 23 and 24, as the older sister is listed as the contact. We don’t want to knock on the door, we don’t have the children with us for a reunion, we just want a few photos. As we drive to the childhood home, we stop for a train. This is the second time we have stopped for a train. Bahmach is huge rail hub linking Ukraine to Russia. At the crossing, there is no automated arm that comes down. The RR Crossing warning light starts making a weird sound and a person in a booth near the crossing goes out and manually pulls a barricade gate thing in front of the track. After the train has passed, the human moves the gate back. A woman was doing this job the first time, then a man. Crows, birds we have seen a large quantity of the entire time we have been here, drink from a puddle near the track. Crows will always remind me of Ukraine now.
We follow a small car with a warning sticker with a “Y” in the back window. This is a student driver and everyone behind him is forewarned! After finding the home and taking a few pix, we head back to Gorodnya. The fog has lifted and we see the beautiful countryside that we passed, hours earlier, in the fog. We travel through miles and miles of sunflower fields. The flowers are all frozen now and their little heads are bent down, but we can imagine how gorgeous this was in July. Ukrainians, at least in Gorodnya, love sunflower seeds and are constantly spitting the shells out. Plus spitting in general and blowing your nose by holding one nostril and getting the contents to hit the sidewalk – reserved for boys and men!
We return to Gorodnya and Sasha takes the birth certificates to our city office so that tax id numbers (like social security numbers I think) can be issued in a few days (needed for the passports). We grab a picnic lunch (no breakfast and it is now 4) at the grocery store and pick up the children. We now head to Chernihiv, an hour to the south and the capital city of the Chernigov Region, so that the children can be digitally photographed and so that we can apply for Ukrainian passports in the children’s new names. After all of the “business” is taken care of, we return the children, and head back to the motel. I call United again for another 2 hour phone marathon to try to find 4 flights out together and at a fairly reasonable cost. We finally find something that will work, I make the reservations, and I literally fall into bed exhausted. We are happy that we have made this progress and that we have flights out and will see Duncan again!
Last Tuesday we drove from Gorodnya, where the kids live in the Internot (Boarding School/Orphanage), to the city that they were born in, Bahmach, 3 hours to the southeast to get their new birth certificates processed and picked up. We had to get up at 4:30 am, well one of us did – the one who wears makeup – in order to be ready to be picked up at 5:30 by our Facilitator, Sasha, and our driver, Sergei. For those of you who know me, I am not a morning human. We were up even before the rooster that crows behind the hotel – totally unnatural. We had been at Larissa, Victor, and their daughter Nastiya’s home for dinner the previous night. Victor cooked the mushrooms that we had picked that morning! Dinner was delicious – at least the foods that I knew. I was gracious and took some fish rolled up in aspic … different. I also tried salo (raw bacon fat) to see what the fuss was all about … still no clue and I was sorry I did. When visiting a home for dinner in Ukraine, as most countries for that matter, it is customary to bring a gift. Vodka and chocolates will do. Word to the wise, if you select a nice big bottle of vodka ($12 USD for a large bottle and quality brand) know the Ukrainian custom first that if a bottle is opened it is to be finished. John learned the hard way. Dinner was followed by chai (hot tea) and torta (torte layer cakes) and candy. We had a lovely evening, watching videos of Larissa’s dance recitals and looking through the family photo albums, that ended around midnight. I then spent over an hour on the phone with United trying to get our reservations sorted out to return home.
At 5:30 am, the morning was foggy and drizzly. John put us in the far back of the minivan in the third row – luckily it had seatbelts – in case we hit something in the heavy fog. For the first hour you could barely see 15 ft. in front of the car. Early in the morning is when the Babushkas herd the cows home to be milked or to pasture after being milked, so we had to stop several times for herd crossings. The Babushkas are in no hurry. The cows are in no hurry. We sit. We have moved away from Gorodnya, population around 10K, to tiny villages and miles and miles of farm land. The soil in one area had been plowed, revealing the black soil called Chernozym underneath that Ukraine is so famous for. This is truly the breadbasket of Europe. The joke is that if you leave a shovel out in the field that it will grow branches.
Finally we see Bahmach on one of the mileage markers – we are getting close! We arrive at 9:15 am safely and congratulate Sergei on the drive. John and I have both driven in fog and it is really hard. I had a headache from watching the road so closely so that I could warn Sergei of anything/farm animal that he might not have seen. We find the City Government Offices and Sasha has us wait in the hallway. The wait is not long, less than 1 hour, and we have the new birth certificates in hand! It is official, Mari is Mariya Renee Barrett and Misha is Michael Joseph Barrett – both born to us! Gestation was 18 months and labor will be 5 weeks long – but the good part is that John shared in it! While we were in Bahmach, I wanted to see the home that the children lived in before their mother died. We assume that the residence is being used by the kids’ older siblings, 23 and 24, as the older sister is listed as the contact. We don’t want to knock on the door, we don’t have the children with us for a reunion, we just want a few photos. As we drive to the childhood home, we stop for a train. This is the second time we have stopped for a train. Bahmach is huge rail hub linking Ukraine to Russia. At the crossing, there is no automated arm that comes down. The RR Crossing warning light starts making a weird sound and a person in a booth near the crossing goes out and manually pulls a barricade gate thing in front of the track. After the train has passed, the human moves the gate back. A woman was doing this job the first time, then a man. Crows, birds we have seen a large quantity of the entire time we have been here, drink from a puddle near the track. Crows will always remind me of Ukraine now.
We follow a small car with a warning sticker with a “Y” in the back window. This is a student driver and everyone behind him is forewarned! After finding the home and taking a few pix, we head back to Gorodnya. The fog has lifted and we see the beautiful countryside that we passed, hours earlier, in the fog. We travel through miles and miles of sunflower fields. The flowers are all frozen now and their little heads are bent down, but we can imagine how gorgeous this was in July. Ukrainians, at least in Gorodnya, love sunflower seeds and are constantly spitting the shells out. Plus spitting in general and blowing your nose by holding one nostril and getting the contents to hit the sidewalk – reserved for boys and men!
We return to Gorodnya and Sasha takes the birth certificates to our city office so that tax id numbers (like social security numbers I think) can be issued in a few days (needed for the passports). We grab a picnic lunch (no breakfast and it is now 4) at the grocery store and pick up the children. We now head to Chernihiv, an hour to the south and the capital city of the Chernigov Region, so that the children can be digitally photographed and so that we can apply for Ukrainian passports in the children’s new names. After all of the “business” is taken care of, we return the children, and head back to the motel. I call United again for another 2 hour phone marathon to try to find 4 flights out together and at a fairly reasonable cost. We finally find something that will work, I make the reservations, and I literally fall into bed exhausted. We are happy that we have made this progress and that we have flights out and will see Duncan again!
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
Blessings - Full Circle
Blessings
In the morning, after breakfast, I was busy cleaning the hotel room. The staff NEVER enters your room, so you are in charge of changing towels when you feel like you need new ones, changing the sheets, scrubbing the tub and sink, and refilling toilet paper. John is happy with this arrangement as he feels his laptop is more secure. Trash can be left outside your door in the morning – but we usually run it downstairs on our way to breakfast.
As I poked my head into the caf̩ kitchen to exchange towels, I noticed that the cook and the bartender girl and the waitress were busy at a stainless steel table. The cook had rolled out dough and cut circles with a shot glass. A large bowl of uncooked ground pork was nearby with the tiny spoons that we use for tea in it. The ladies were busy, laughing, and making pelmeni. I had never set foot in the kitchen, but after I realized what they were doing, I wanted a closer look! Pelmeni are little pockets of dough filled with ground pork and then boiled. They are traditionally served with butter or in a soup with bits of mushroom here. We have discovered that they taste a lot like ravioli when you leave off the butter and top them with Barilla spaghetti sauce. Only buy Barilla Рthe other brands taste like cocktail sauce.
Rather than asking if I could help, I washed my hands really well, dried them and came over and grabbed a chuck of dough and a spoon. They showed me how much pork to put on the dough disk, and then you fold in half like a small turnover and seal the edges. You then lightly pull the ends of the flat side of the turnover about an inch on each side, touch them together, squeeze to join them and tuck the joined area under (like arms coming around you in a hug). Then you put them on a floured cookie sheet, making sure they do not touch each other, and pop in the freezer. Once they are frozen solid, you can transfer them to a bag.
I had a great time the short time that I helped. I think I was making them nervous as they probably worried the owner would drop by and I would be found in the kitchen. I can see that this would be a great female bonding time and a lot of fun –especially if you understood what everyone was saying! John came down to see where I was, saw what we were doing, went up for the camera and got a few pictures. Hopefully I will be able to make pelmeni for the kids when we get home!
We were having a rather down day, other than the Pelmeni Lesson, as we read some of our paperwork from the Facilitator’s company. I know that some people come over without a Facilitator to help with adoption. I am not sure how they can handle everything, unless they are fluent in Ukrainian or Russian (depending on the region they are adopting from). The trick is to shop around to find a Facilitator that someone else highly recommends. After paying a rather hefty sum in the US for the adoption (Dossier translation and submission), which increased when we added a second child (why when the child is a sibling and residing in the same orphanage is unknown), we paid another even more hefty sum in the Ukraine when we arrived.
We received a $50 credit for our lodging per night during the period before the court hearing. After the court hearing, we were on our own dime (well actually everything is our dimes – only they hold them) for the 10 day wait. We thought that once the hearing was over, we would be back to using the funds given over to pay for the lodging until we went home. Our hotel, the only one in Gorodnya and an hour radius, was $50 per night (outrageous when the average UA blue collar worker makes a hundred to a few hundred a month in salary). This is when we read the paperwork, that we had read at home but didn’t read-read, that said during the wait after the request for passport (up to 20 days per the woman that runs the passport office in Chernihiv had threatened the previous American couple when the US Embassy says the wait should be less than 10) we would also be on our own dime. So basically we pay for the Facilitator and Driver’s lodging when we are not paying for our own lodging. All food is on us. Although Gorodnya was $50 per night, Kyiv is very expensive and we figured it would be over $100 to rent an apartment with two rooms so that the kids would have their own room. Food in Kyiv is also outrageous – TGI Fridays is more expensive here than at home for example. It was in this depressed and broken spirit that we headed over to the Internot to see the kids.
When we arrived, after stopping at the market for the afternoon snack, we couldn’t find Mari. Her entire building was vacant. Unusual on a Saturday. There were also 4-5 cars parked out front, also unusual. We headed over to Misha’s building and started on our normal routine (help the kids get dressed after nap in their multiple layers, prepare snack, clean up after snack, and play for a while). We never have visitors at the building and the doors are kept locked. We were busy with snack preparation when we heard a knock on the door. A local villager and her children were dropping off some cookies, candy, and large bags of fried pork puffs (kind of like cheetohs, but not orange and made from pig fat). Jonna said the kids loved them! Yum! Jonna said this happened every so often. How sweet of the villagers. Then we heard another knock and outside was a large group of people carrying small boxes for the children. They had just come from a program in the school building, for Teacher’s Day, which was the previous day.
The group entered and started speaking Ukrainian to me, I mentioned that I was not their caregiver, that Jonna was. John welcomed them in also. The kids swarmed on the visitors and the boxes. Someone, I don’t remember who, started speaking English and we discovered that one of the visitors was American! She is a Missionary, from North Carolina, named Allyson who currently lives in Kyiv. We told her why we were there and showed her Misha and mentioned adopting his older sister. John pulled out his cell phone to show her Mari and Duncan’s photo and she said “Masha”? Masha is Mari’s diminutive name. We said yes. Apparently she sat next to Mari during the program and hoped that someone would come to adopt her. Talk about prayers being answered!
We gave her a quick tour of the building as we are now experts and know every room and have free reign. I then confess to her our depression over the huge price tag of adopting these kids and how very little of the money is actually given to the Orphanage – where it could do the most good! Beyond giving the Director the sum that he requested for a “donation” we also bought two large electric radiator heaters and a new LG vacuum cleaner (able to be used bagless to save the Orphanage money in the future). We purchased as many DVDs as we could find for the kids at the Bazaar and left them a bunch from our binder that we brought over (in case of rainy days during bonding time). We would have loved to have spent our donation on a new stove for the Baby House and whatever items Mari’s caregiver needed – like coats, hats, and clothing. Instead it goes into a black hole and we pray that it will be used for the kids. It is so nice to speak English to someone, other than my spouse who I have been cloistered with for over three weeks! We explain that we are running out of the funds that we brought and that the stay in Kyiv is a concern. This is when she says “Why don’t you stay with me”. We are thinking sure; you want 4 strangers – one of which is a 5 year old – to stay with you. She stresses yes that she would really like us to. We almost fall over. She mentions that she has a king-sized bed with a pillow top mattress, three bunk beds, a pull-out couch, and a tub. She will give us the bed, she’ll sleep on the couch, and the kids can have the bunk beds. We are thinking no way, but to be honest, she had me at “pillow-top mattress” after weeks of sleeping on what we have affectionately termed “our piece of the rock”.
She then said she was leaving on vacation over the next weekend, so the place would be ours. Okay, we are not the kind of people who stay with someone we don’t know. I hate imposing on my Jr. High school girlfriends when we visit them. Allyson confessed she is not the type to invite strangers to stay with her. Something about it felt right … did I mention “pillow-top mattress”? Really, her sitting by Mari during the presentation, and her being in our building, during the time we always visit Misha every day. We were probably the only Americans in Gorodnya, possible the only Americans in the Chernihiv Region, that afternoon and we all end up in a tiny building at the back of the Orphanage at the same time.
It was then that I noticed the boxes that the group, a Ukrainian church group from Kyiv, brought to the kids. They were full of toys, crayons, stickers, small trucks, and candy. They were shoeboxes. They were labeled “Operation Christmas Child”. I almost fell over. We have assembled boxes for 8 years for OCC, when I heard of the program the first time at my MOPS group at Church. For several years we have volunteered to transport the many boxes given by our church members to another church, further north, that OCC parks a semi-truck trailer at to collect the boxes. We have then joined the Pastor of that church in praying over the entire truckload of boxes for safe transport and to bless the lives of children around the world and to spread the message that they are loved by a wondrous God. I have volunteered at the Distribution Center in Denver pulling out plastic snakes, chocolate, play weapons, money, porcelain dolls, etc. and re-filling the boxes with McDonald’s toys and donated toothbrushes! This is when I knew everything was meant to be. Blessings - full circle – how fortunate are we?
P.S. Thank you Allyson, the pillow-top mattress is the most comfortable bed I have ever slept on!
In the morning, after breakfast, I was busy cleaning the hotel room. The staff NEVER enters your room, so you are in charge of changing towels when you feel like you need new ones, changing the sheets, scrubbing the tub and sink, and refilling toilet paper. John is happy with this arrangement as he feels his laptop is more secure. Trash can be left outside your door in the morning – but we usually run it downstairs on our way to breakfast.
As I poked my head into the caf̩ kitchen to exchange towels, I noticed that the cook and the bartender girl and the waitress were busy at a stainless steel table. The cook had rolled out dough and cut circles with a shot glass. A large bowl of uncooked ground pork was nearby with the tiny spoons that we use for tea in it. The ladies were busy, laughing, and making pelmeni. I had never set foot in the kitchen, but after I realized what they were doing, I wanted a closer look! Pelmeni are little pockets of dough filled with ground pork and then boiled. They are traditionally served with butter or in a soup with bits of mushroom here. We have discovered that they taste a lot like ravioli when you leave off the butter and top them with Barilla spaghetti sauce. Only buy Barilla Рthe other brands taste like cocktail sauce.
Rather than asking if I could help, I washed my hands really well, dried them and came over and grabbed a chuck of dough and a spoon. They showed me how much pork to put on the dough disk, and then you fold in half like a small turnover and seal the edges. You then lightly pull the ends of the flat side of the turnover about an inch on each side, touch them together, squeeze to join them and tuck the joined area under (like arms coming around you in a hug). Then you put them on a floured cookie sheet, making sure they do not touch each other, and pop in the freezer. Once they are frozen solid, you can transfer them to a bag.
I had a great time the short time that I helped. I think I was making them nervous as they probably worried the owner would drop by and I would be found in the kitchen. I can see that this would be a great female bonding time and a lot of fun –especially if you understood what everyone was saying! John came down to see where I was, saw what we were doing, went up for the camera and got a few pictures. Hopefully I will be able to make pelmeni for the kids when we get home!
We were having a rather down day, other than the Pelmeni Lesson, as we read some of our paperwork from the Facilitator’s company. I know that some people come over without a Facilitator to help with adoption. I am not sure how they can handle everything, unless they are fluent in Ukrainian or Russian (depending on the region they are adopting from). The trick is to shop around to find a Facilitator that someone else highly recommends. After paying a rather hefty sum in the US for the adoption (Dossier translation and submission), which increased when we added a second child (why when the child is a sibling and residing in the same orphanage is unknown), we paid another even more hefty sum in the Ukraine when we arrived.
We received a $50 credit for our lodging per night during the period before the court hearing. After the court hearing, we were on our own dime (well actually everything is our dimes – only they hold them) for the 10 day wait. We thought that once the hearing was over, we would be back to using the funds given over to pay for the lodging until we went home. Our hotel, the only one in Gorodnya and an hour radius, was $50 per night (outrageous when the average UA blue collar worker makes a hundred to a few hundred a month in salary). This is when we read the paperwork, that we had read at home but didn’t read-read, that said during the wait after the request for passport (up to 20 days per the woman that runs the passport office in Chernihiv had threatened the previous American couple when the US Embassy says the wait should be less than 10) we would also be on our own dime. So basically we pay for the Facilitator and Driver’s lodging when we are not paying for our own lodging. All food is on us. Although Gorodnya was $50 per night, Kyiv is very expensive and we figured it would be over $100 to rent an apartment with two rooms so that the kids would have their own room. Food in Kyiv is also outrageous – TGI Fridays is more expensive here than at home for example. It was in this depressed and broken spirit that we headed over to the Internot to see the kids.
When we arrived, after stopping at the market for the afternoon snack, we couldn’t find Mari. Her entire building was vacant. Unusual on a Saturday. There were also 4-5 cars parked out front, also unusual. We headed over to Misha’s building and started on our normal routine (help the kids get dressed after nap in their multiple layers, prepare snack, clean up after snack, and play for a while). We never have visitors at the building and the doors are kept locked. We were busy with snack preparation when we heard a knock on the door. A local villager and her children were dropping off some cookies, candy, and large bags of fried pork puffs (kind of like cheetohs, but not orange and made from pig fat). Jonna said the kids loved them! Yum! Jonna said this happened every so often. How sweet of the villagers. Then we heard another knock and outside was a large group of people carrying small boxes for the children. They had just come from a program in the school building, for Teacher’s Day, which was the previous day.
The group entered and started speaking Ukrainian to me, I mentioned that I was not their caregiver, that Jonna was. John welcomed them in also. The kids swarmed on the visitors and the boxes. Someone, I don’t remember who, started speaking English and we discovered that one of the visitors was American! She is a Missionary, from North Carolina, named Allyson who currently lives in Kyiv. We told her why we were there and showed her Misha and mentioned adopting his older sister. John pulled out his cell phone to show her Mari and Duncan’s photo and she said “Masha”? Masha is Mari’s diminutive name. We said yes. Apparently she sat next to Mari during the program and hoped that someone would come to adopt her. Talk about prayers being answered!
We gave her a quick tour of the building as we are now experts and know every room and have free reign. I then confess to her our depression over the huge price tag of adopting these kids and how very little of the money is actually given to the Orphanage – where it could do the most good! Beyond giving the Director the sum that he requested for a “donation” we also bought two large electric radiator heaters and a new LG vacuum cleaner (able to be used bagless to save the Orphanage money in the future). We purchased as many DVDs as we could find for the kids at the Bazaar and left them a bunch from our binder that we brought over (in case of rainy days during bonding time). We would have loved to have spent our donation on a new stove for the Baby House and whatever items Mari’s caregiver needed – like coats, hats, and clothing. Instead it goes into a black hole and we pray that it will be used for the kids. It is so nice to speak English to someone, other than my spouse who I have been cloistered with for over three weeks! We explain that we are running out of the funds that we brought and that the stay in Kyiv is a concern. This is when she says “Why don’t you stay with me”. We are thinking sure; you want 4 strangers – one of which is a 5 year old – to stay with you. She stresses yes that she would really like us to. We almost fall over. She mentions that she has a king-sized bed with a pillow top mattress, three bunk beds, a pull-out couch, and a tub. She will give us the bed, she’ll sleep on the couch, and the kids can have the bunk beds. We are thinking no way, but to be honest, she had me at “pillow-top mattress” after weeks of sleeping on what we have affectionately termed “our piece of the rock”.
She then said she was leaving on vacation over the next weekend, so the place would be ours. Okay, we are not the kind of people who stay with someone we don’t know. I hate imposing on my Jr. High school girlfriends when we visit them. Allyson confessed she is not the type to invite strangers to stay with her. Something about it felt right … did I mention “pillow-top mattress”? Really, her sitting by Mari during the presentation, and her being in our building, during the time we always visit Misha every day. We were probably the only Americans in Gorodnya, possible the only Americans in the Chernihiv Region, that afternoon and we all end up in a tiny building at the back of the Orphanage at the same time.
It was then that I noticed the boxes that the group, a Ukrainian church group from Kyiv, brought to the kids. They were full of toys, crayons, stickers, small trucks, and candy. They were shoeboxes. They were labeled “Operation Christmas Child”. I almost fell over. We have assembled boxes for 8 years for OCC, when I heard of the program the first time at my MOPS group at Church. For several years we have volunteered to transport the many boxes given by our church members to another church, further north, that OCC parks a semi-truck trailer at to collect the boxes. We have then joined the Pastor of that church in praying over the entire truckload of boxes for safe transport and to bless the lives of children around the world and to spread the message that they are loved by a wondrous God. I have volunteered at the Distribution Center in Denver pulling out plastic snakes, chocolate, play weapons, money, porcelain dolls, etc. and re-filling the boxes with McDonald’s toys and donated toothbrushes! This is when I knew everything was meant to be. Blessings - full circle – how fortunate are we?
P.S. Thank you Allyson, the pillow-top mattress is the most comfortable bed I have ever slept on!
Monday, October 13, 2008
Transportation, Turkeys, and "Moo" Says the Cow
We have enjoyed all the various forms of transportation in Gorondya from horse drawn wagons (wagons made out of metal beds with car axles – sometimes of various sized tires from the front of the wagon to the back) to Mercedes Benz SUVs. Most of the population either rides a bike or walks. The people who ride bikes often times pull a little handmade trailer, an old wagon or wheel barrow, or they stack 50 lbs. of potatos or onions (or both) across the bike frame where the peddles are and use the bike to transport the vegetables home (often times the handle bars are used to hold bags of other groceries). There are a few motorcyles, some with side-cars, and scooters. We even saw a scooter with two back wheels spaced a few inches apart.
The ambulance in town is a large dark green VW van looking thing from the 1950s? with a red stripe painted down the side. If this is the ambulance, I would prefer not visiting the hospital at any point during the trip! Tractors are also common and huge trucks rumbling through town laden with large logs. I would pray that the two-by-fours being used as vertical supports would not break and the logs scatter (possibly killing a pedestrian, cyclist, or one of my goats tied roadside for grazing)! A large number of semi-trucks are coming from Russia (27 km to the north) with goods destined for Ukraine. Our motel has rates from 3 hours for a room, to 12 hours, to 24 hours. We had to raise our eyebrows at the 3 hour rate until we realized, after seeing the a large truck parked across the road, with no extended cab for sleeping, that the driver may have pulled over for a 3 hour rest before proceeding south. There are no speed limit signs and the vehicles move too quickly, past pedestrians, bicyclists, stray dogs, and chickens around town.
After we moved to the one room at our motel with the double bed that overlooked the new construction behind the motel, I really missed getting up in the morning and checking the activity at the gas station to see the conglomeration of vehicles that were filling up. It was always interesting! John on the other hand loved the “Rotortiller Car”. A man had built a car, open to the elements and with a small bed in the back for hauling, out of an old garden rotor-tiller. It was slow moving, 5-10 mph, but he putted-putted through town holding his handle bars and making a racket. We were only able to get a few pictures, distant or blurry, of him out of the taxi window. John thinks he is ingeneous as it gets the job done and transports what he needs to transport!
This is a hard life for most of the people. Men have an average lifespan of 63 and we see few older men. We do see older women, babuskas, often sitting by the road near a few pails of apples sitting on a wooden chair, or other vegetables that they have produced in their garden. They sit behind their fence and watch the traffic go by, one had a cat on her lap that she quietly petted every so often. One had brought her goat herd to the town park to mow the grass! The babuskas look at us curiously and sometimes smile. I think they may not have the best eyesite and may not realize we are “Americans”. Possibly they smile because I great each and every one that we pass and don’t ignore them like the other pedestrians passing by. The changes that these women have seen over their lifespans must have been tremendous – far beyond machines and cars and wars and famine. With Ukraine moving from Capitalism to Communism to Capitalism and from being part of the Soviet Union to being a free, independent country!
Every single family home has at least one fruit tree, a small vegetable garden, and often times a grape arbor with the small purple grapes. Turkeys congregate on the fenceline outside of the Baby House. The males stay on the ground – possibly they are too heavy to fly up and roost on the metal fence railing – and spread their beautiful tails and strut their stuff for each other and for any female who happens to be watching. The girls watch me instead as I like to throw the food scraps from snacktime out into the grass for the turkeys and chickens to clean up. I would save the food, but the children have all fingered and nibbled what was on their plates and they are all little germ factories with their runny noses. Better to be safe and give the turkeys the leftovers!
Two babuskas wearing black rubber galoshes, herd the milk cows from pasture (where they were tied – I have yet to see a fenced pasture) past the Orphanage, home to be milked every night at 6 pm. You could set your watch by them. The cows are Holstein and Holstein crosses. The taxi driver whisks us past them at a speed that John and I just flinch at as we are afraid the cows will move from the middle of the road to a little closer to our side. Many are just walking on their own and not being led by a rope on their horn – only the cow knows which way the cow will go – and we worry about hitting one with the car. The driver is unfazed as he treats chickens as traffic cones, and stray dogs and cows as minor obstacles to zig and zag around. The taxi has no seatbelts and the back seat is as soft as a marshmallow – you sink into it. The taxi drivers, 3 men who share one cab and alternate days, are always punctual and friendly. We appreciate their professionalism and the service that they offer!
The ambulance in town is a large dark green VW van looking thing from the 1950s? with a red stripe painted down the side. If this is the ambulance, I would prefer not visiting the hospital at any point during the trip! Tractors are also common and huge trucks rumbling through town laden with large logs. I would pray that the two-by-fours being used as vertical supports would not break and the logs scatter (possibly killing a pedestrian, cyclist, or one of my goats tied roadside for grazing)! A large number of semi-trucks are coming from Russia (27 km to the north) with goods destined for Ukraine. Our motel has rates from 3 hours for a room, to 12 hours, to 24 hours. We had to raise our eyebrows at the 3 hour rate until we realized, after seeing the a large truck parked across the road, with no extended cab for sleeping, that the driver may have pulled over for a 3 hour rest before proceeding south. There are no speed limit signs and the vehicles move too quickly, past pedestrians, bicyclists, stray dogs, and chickens around town.
After we moved to the one room at our motel with the double bed that overlooked the new construction behind the motel, I really missed getting up in the morning and checking the activity at the gas station to see the conglomeration of vehicles that were filling up. It was always interesting! John on the other hand loved the “Rotortiller Car”. A man had built a car, open to the elements and with a small bed in the back for hauling, out of an old garden rotor-tiller. It was slow moving, 5-10 mph, but he putted-putted through town holding his handle bars and making a racket. We were only able to get a few pictures, distant or blurry, of him out of the taxi window. John thinks he is ingeneous as it gets the job done and transports what he needs to transport!
This is a hard life for most of the people. Men have an average lifespan of 63 and we see few older men. We do see older women, babuskas, often sitting by the road near a few pails of apples sitting on a wooden chair, or other vegetables that they have produced in their garden. They sit behind their fence and watch the traffic go by, one had a cat on her lap that she quietly petted every so often. One had brought her goat herd to the town park to mow the grass! The babuskas look at us curiously and sometimes smile. I think they may not have the best eyesite and may not realize we are “Americans”. Possibly they smile because I great each and every one that we pass and don’t ignore them like the other pedestrians passing by. The changes that these women have seen over their lifespans must have been tremendous – far beyond machines and cars and wars and famine. With Ukraine moving from Capitalism to Communism to Capitalism and from being part of the Soviet Union to being a free, independent country!
Every single family home has at least one fruit tree, a small vegetable garden, and often times a grape arbor with the small purple grapes. Turkeys congregate on the fenceline outside of the Baby House. The males stay on the ground – possibly they are too heavy to fly up and roost on the metal fence railing – and spread their beautiful tails and strut their stuff for each other and for any female who happens to be watching. The girls watch me instead as I like to throw the food scraps from snacktime out into the grass for the turkeys and chickens to clean up. I would save the food, but the children have all fingered and nibbled what was on their plates and they are all little germ factories with their runny noses. Better to be safe and give the turkeys the leftovers!
Two babuskas wearing black rubber galoshes, herd the milk cows from pasture (where they were tied – I have yet to see a fenced pasture) past the Orphanage, home to be milked every night at 6 pm. You could set your watch by them. The cows are Holstein and Holstein crosses. The taxi driver whisks us past them at a speed that John and I just flinch at as we are afraid the cows will move from the middle of the road to a little closer to our side. Many are just walking on their own and not being led by a rope on their horn – only the cow knows which way the cow will go – and we worry about hitting one with the car. The driver is unfazed as he treats chickens as traffic cones, and stray dogs and cows as minor obstacles to zig and zag around. The taxi has no seatbelts and the back seat is as soft as a marshmallow – you sink into it. The taxi drivers, 3 men who share one cab and alternate days, are always punctual and friendly. We appreciate their professionalism and the service that they offer!
In Kyiv, Catching Up!
We’re back with and I have so much to catch up on! To start, we are safely in Kyiv, with the children, waiting for their new Ukrainian passports (in their new names) to be issued. We are staying in a lovely apartment and spending the days bonding as a family, with the kids also bonding as siblings (they haven’t slept together under one roof for 3 years), and visiting all of the sights of Kyiv (that we did not get to see at the front end of the trip).
I have several blogs to catch up on and I don’t know where to start. John just got his computer working on-line on the internet connection at the apartment last night. After he finished working, it was too late to blog. Everyone is asleep right now, so “Mama” gets a chance to catch up on things other than laundry!
I had several topics I wanted to cover and just didn’t have the chance, but I have great pictures, so bear with me and I will get everything covered.
I had mentioned the open air market, often called a Reenok, or Bazaar in an earlier blog. In Gorodnya this is the only place to buy many goods. There is a fixed, fenced in area that is open most mornings until 2:00 that sells a variety of items and fresh fruit, vegetables, and meat. On Thursdays, vendors from Belorus (less than 45 km to the north) come in and crowd the streets on both sides of the local Reenok and the bazaar more than quadruples in size. We had planned on returning home for the 10 day after-court-hearing-wait, but our plans changed when we understood that things would move quickly and that we would have our court decree the same day that we were due to fly out the first time. In opting to stay and not change our reservations, we had nothing for the kids to wear – that suitcase is at home as we brought donations over for the “first” trip.
When you adopt from Ukraine, you are handed your child in pretty much the same state that God gives you one … only in this case you may get a free pair of underwear if you are lucky! Armed with a list of what we thought we would need to exist with the kids for 2 weeks, we hit the bazaar! Finding clothes for Misha was far more easy than clothes for Mari. Winter coats and shoes were also easy. Sox and undies were a snap. Pants for Mari was difficult and at this point she still only has two pair. We forgot a hat for Misha and mittens, even though his coat has a hood that we use we were given the evil eye by babuskas and mothers alike (who did not think he was dressed warmly enough for the cold 50’-60’ weather) until I bought him a hat, a scarf, and mittens. I am amazed that he does not fall over from heat exhaustion with how bundled he is at times! The first morning in Kyiv, he dressed himself in the requisite 3 layers of shirts at the Baby House. He doesn’t understand that one shirt will do and was wearing his entire wardrobe! He will learn that he is in a heated environment and moves to a heated car and that he doesn’t need all of his layers! He dresses himself morning and night and would wear his new Spiderman shirt everyday if allowed!
The one photo of the man with the small bathtub is a fishmonger. The bathtub was full of water and large live catfish (about 18-20” long). Once a housewife has selected a fish, the man removes it from the tub, sets it wriggling on a tray of fishheads, bonks it in the head with the side of his wooden cutting board and cuts its head off. I was sorry that I peaked over the shoulders of the crowd to see what was going on. We eat fish, even trout when camping, but I was not totally sure the fish was dead from the bonk – it definitely was with no head. There was a man in a small wheelchair that looked modified and low to the ground who was selling coffee from a box mounted on the front of his wheelchair. He had no legs. He was doing a brisk business. I could not bring myself to take a picture – he is making his way through life with grace.
We pretty much found everything we needed. We looked and looked for DVDs for the kids at the Baby House, but only found a few expensive (45 grivna each) DVDs for children in Russian that we picked up for them. Aimee was gracious enough to pick up 3 (15 grivna each, with 12 movies in Russian on each one) for our kids for home at her Bazaar in Mariupol, but we did not find anything like that at ours unfortunately. Thirty six movies would have kept the kids busy during the long winter. I will keep looking here in Kyiv and possibly mail them some videos from here. The fruits and the vegetables at the market are the least expensive and freshest in town. We loved the watermelon as it tasted better than ours. Something about the way we genetically engineer fruits and veggies so that they ripen quickly, are disease resistant, and produce a larger harvest has lost the concept that fruit and veggies should actually taste good. John loved the tomatos. I loved the peaches and watermelon.
It was a great opportunity to see how people live in another part of the world and they have to plan ahead for market day, rather than just running to the store to get something the way we do.
Thank you for hanging in there with us!
I have several blogs to catch up on and I don’t know where to start. John just got his computer working on-line on the internet connection at the apartment last night. After he finished working, it was too late to blog. Everyone is asleep right now, so “Mama” gets a chance to catch up on things other than laundry!
I had several topics I wanted to cover and just didn’t have the chance, but I have great pictures, so bear with me and I will get everything covered.
I had mentioned the open air market, often called a Reenok, or Bazaar in an earlier blog. In Gorodnya this is the only place to buy many goods. There is a fixed, fenced in area that is open most mornings until 2:00 that sells a variety of items and fresh fruit, vegetables, and meat. On Thursdays, vendors from Belorus (less than 45 km to the north) come in and crowd the streets on both sides of the local Reenok and the bazaar more than quadruples in size. We had planned on returning home for the 10 day after-court-hearing-wait, but our plans changed when we understood that things would move quickly and that we would have our court decree the same day that we were due to fly out the first time. In opting to stay and not change our reservations, we had nothing for the kids to wear – that suitcase is at home as we brought donations over for the “first” trip.
When you adopt from Ukraine, you are handed your child in pretty much the same state that God gives you one … only in this case you may get a free pair of underwear if you are lucky! Armed with a list of what we thought we would need to exist with the kids for 2 weeks, we hit the bazaar! Finding clothes for Misha was far more easy than clothes for Mari. Winter coats and shoes were also easy. Sox and undies were a snap. Pants for Mari was difficult and at this point she still only has two pair. We forgot a hat for Misha and mittens, even though his coat has a hood that we use we were given the evil eye by babuskas and mothers alike (who did not think he was dressed warmly enough for the cold 50’-60’ weather) until I bought him a hat, a scarf, and mittens. I am amazed that he does not fall over from heat exhaustion with how bundled he is at times! The first morning in Kyiv, he dressed himself in the requisite 3 layers of shirts at the Baby House. He doesn’t understand that one shirt will do and was wearing his entire wardrobe! He will learn that he is in a heated environment and moves to a heated car and that he doesn’t need all of his layers! He dresses himself morning and night and would wear his new Spiderman shirt everyday if allowed!
The one photo of the man with the small bathtub is a fishmonger. The bathtub was full of water and large live catfish (about 18-20” long). Once a housewife has selected a fish, the man removes it from the tub, sets it wriggling on a tray of fishheads, bonks it in the head with the side of his wooden cutting board and cuts its head off. I was sorry that I peaked over the shoulders of the crowd to see what was going on. We eat fish, even trout when camping, but I was not totally sure the fish was dead from the bonk – it definitely was with no head. There was a man in a small wheelchair that looked modified and low to the ground who was selling coffee from a box mounted on the front of his wheelchair. He had no legs. He was doing a brisk business. I could not bring myself to take a picture – he is making his way through life with grace.
We pretty much found everything we needed. We looked and looked for DVDs for the kids at the Baby House, but only found a few expensive (45 grivna each) DVDs for children in Russian that we picked up for them. Aimee was gracious enough to pick up 3 (15 grivna each, with 12 movies in Russian on each one) for our kids for home at her Bazaar in Mariupol, but we did not find anything like that at ours unfortunately. Thirty six movies would have kept the kids busy during the long winter. I will keep looking here in Kyiv and possibly mail them some videos from here. The fruits and the vegetables at the market are the least expensive and freshest in town. We loved the watermelon as it tasted better than ours. Something about the way we genetically engineer fruits and veggies so that they ripen quickly, are disease resistant, and produce a larger harvest has lost the concept that fruit and veggies should actually taste good. John loved the tomatos. I loved the peaches and watermelon.
It was a great opportunity to see how people live in another part of the world and they have to plan ahead for market day, rather than just running to the store to get something the way we do.
Thank you for hanging in there with us!
Monday, October 6, 2008
We're Alive, Wild Party, Mushroom Hunting
After several days without the internet, we are back! We received our court documents today - hurray! Tomorrow morning we are leaving for Bachmach - several hours in the car (adults only, we are not allowed to take the kids yet) - to pick up the two birth certificates. We are going to ask if we can bring the kids back to the hotel tomorrow evening, after the adults return from Bachmach, to have them spend the night with us and then possibly leave Wednesday morning. The main purpose is to throw them in the shower and scrub them really clean! The bottom part of the shower can hold water (I have used this for laundry) and would make an ideal small bathtub (6-8" of water) for Misha to just soak in! This would be ideal - but nothing ever goes as planned here, so we may not be able to leave until Thursday.
We have the option of waiting here in Gorodnya for the Ukrainian passports (in the children's new names) to be issued down in Chernihiv (may take up to 20 days) or heading for Kyiv for the wait. Although we love our little town, we are more than stir-crazy and tired of the same food morning, noon, and night! Kyiv will be much more expensive but there is so much to do and so much Ukrainian history there to show the kids! Misha may be too young, but Mari is not.
Yesterday we spent several hours with Mari's group and played cards in her room. "Go Fish" is a new game to many and I lost as what I had in my hand was verbalized in Ukrainian to other children who would ask for something, even without one of that kind in their own hand! Mari's roommates Alina and Marina played as did Alina's brother Sasha and another boy named Sasha. The other roommates Christina and Ina (home from the hospital) played with Barbies.
Last night when we came down for dinner, a huge party was going on in the dining room to celebrate Teacher's Day. We realized, after 20 some days here, that we recognized several of the participants and when they saw us, they added two chairs and sat us down for a feast! We tried to beg off, but they would not hear of it! The tables were groaning under all the weight of the food! You eat some, dance some, eat some, toast, eat more, toast, dance, go outside and talk, eat more, toast, dance, and toast! My neighbor gentleman made sure my plate was always full, often times with stuff I would have never selected or knew what it was, and that my glass stayed full. I tried everything and pushed the things I didn't like around on my plate alot to be polite! The evening finished with fresh fruit added to the table (huge green grapes from Turkey, small purple grapes from the Crimea in Ukraine, and watermelon - where is Duncan?) and several cakes (tortas).
What a night and what a headache this morning! Vodka is drunk by the shot and sipping is considered rude - finish it in one gulp and then chase it with juice or water. After several obligatory toasts, I had John hide my little shot glass and then told our host that I don't drink. They tried to switch me to wine or beer ... no luck. They then poured what I thought was grape juice from a soft-sided box ... I took one gulp and yup ... wine! John was fine and held his own. Dancing is one-on-one or in a group circle. There was no folk dancing, which I hoped would occur, but you just sway and move your feet in place while facing forward into the circle and talk to your neighbors. Very convivial!
We finished up the evening showing pictures, to our end of the table, of life at home on John's computer and they asked questions such as how much money John makes, how much gas costs, how much our house is worth, how much our mortgage is. All fairly private questions in the US - but par for the course here. We had read that these questions are normal and just a way to level set their understanding. They often ask each other these same questions. We answered as honestly as possible and I think they understood the salaries are comensurate with the cost of living after hearing how much our mortgage is a month.
Before the evening ended, our host, Victor, invited us to come mushroom picking (more like cutting) in the morning. After breakfast, they arrived to pick us up and drive us to the forest several miles outside of town. The woods are very thick with pine, oak, birch, and other trees. The leaves are turning in earnest now and the oranges, golds, greens, and browns were beautiful! Victor brought his daughter Nastiya (11) along. She is learning English and we were very touched that she missed school to come with us on this outing! She did a very good job with her mushroom picking English lesson - she taught me all about the mushrooms and we spoke entirely in English! Victor is a champion mushroom spotter and Nastiya came in second. There were around 20 varieties of mushrooms in the forest around us. We were shown which one single variety was edible and how to cut it away from the ground. There are several "imposters" that look very much like the edible one and Victor was very careful at the end to inspect our bags to be sure we had only safe mushrooms.
Nastiya spotted a little grey-green snake with orange cheeks and called me over. I saw a woolly-caterpillar and some black beetles. There are no bears left here, very few deer, a few foxes, some wild boar, and some beavers. Heavy hunting over several hundred years or more has pretty much decimated the edible wildlife. Except for the chirp of a few birds the forest was quiet and beautiful. The moss is so thick and cushiony under your feet it was like walking on pillows most of the time. The mushrooms peek their heads just up through the top of the moss and look like little brown nuts poking out! It was an experience we will never forget and a very special memory of the motherland of two of our children!
Tonight we are invited over to Victor, Larusa, and Nastiya's home for you guessed it, mushrooms! We will have to find out what is appropriate to bring to such an occasion and pick something up!
We will blog again as soon as we can. We hope everyone at home is healthy and safe. We miss you all and look forward to coming home! I get to call Aimee once a day on our Ukraine phone and hear what is up in Mariupol and that helps keep me sane!
PS Misha is being treated daily for lice and he still has his hair!
We have the option of waiting here in Gorodnya for the Ukrainian passports (in the children's new names) to be issued down in Chernihiv (may take up to 20 days) or heading for Kyiv for the wait. Although we love our little town, we are more than stir-crazy and tired of the same food morning, noon, and night! Kyiv will be much more expensive but there is so much to do and so much Ukrainian history there to show the kids! Misha may be too young, but Mari is not.
Yesterday we spent several hours with Mari's group and played cards in her room. "Go Fish" is a new game to many and I lost as what I had in my hand was verbalized in Ukrainian to other children who would ask for something, even without one of that kind in their own hand! Mari's roommates Alina and Marina played as did Alina's brother Sasha and another boy named Sasha. The other roommates Christina and Ina (home from the hospital) played with Barbies.
Last night when we came down for dinner, a huge party was going on in the dining room to celebrate Teacher's Day. We realized, after 20 some days here, that we recognized several of the participants and when they saw us, they added two chairs and sat us down for a feast! We tried to beg off, but they would not hear of it! The tables were groaning under all the weight of the food! You eat some, dance some, eat some, toast, eat more, toast, dance, go outside and talk, eat more, toast, dance, and toast! My neighbor gentleman made sure my plate was always full, often times with stuff I would have never selected or knew what it was, and that my glass stayed full. I tried everything and pushed the things I didn't like around on my plate alot to be polite! The evening finished with fresh fruit added to the table (huge green grapes from Turkey, small purple grapes from the Crimea in Ukraine, and watermelon - where is Duncan?) and several cakes (tortas).
What a night and what a headache this morning! Vodka is drunk by the shot and sipping is considered rude - finish it in one gulp and then chase it with juice or water. After several obligatory toasts, I had John hide my little shot glass and then told our host that I don't drink. They tried to switch me to wine or beer ... no luck. They then poured what I thought was grape juice from a soft-sided box ... I took one gulp and yup ... wine! John was fine and held his own. Dancing is one-on-one or in a group circle. There was no folk dancing, which I hoped would occur, but you just sway and move your feet in place while facing forward into the circle and talk to your neighbors. Very convivial!
We finished up the evening showing pictures, to our end of the table, of life at home on John's computer and they asked questions such as how much money John makes, how much gas costs, how much our house is worth, how much our mortgage is. All fairly private questions in the US - but par for the course here. We had read that these questions are normal and just a way to level set their understanding. They often ask each other these same questions. We answered as honestly as possible and I think they understood the salaries are comensurate with the cost of living after hearing how much our mortgage is a month.
Before the evening ended, our host, Victor, invited us to come mushroom picking (more like cutting) in the morning. After breakfast, they arrived to pick us up and drive us to the forest several miles outside of town. The woods are very thick with pine, oak, birch, and other trees. The leaves are turning in earnest now and the oranges, golds, greens, and browns were beautiful! Victor brought his daughter Nastiya (11) along. She is learning English and we were very touched that she missed school to come with us on this outing! She did a very good job with her mushroom picking English lesson - she taught me all about the mushrooms and we spoke entirely in English! Victor is a champion mushroom spotter and Nastiya came in second. There were around 20 varieties of mushrooms in the forest around us. We were shown which one single variety was edible and how to cut it away from the ground. There are several "imposters" that look very much like the edible one and Victor was very careful at the end to inspect our bags to be sure we had only safe mushrooms.
Nastiya spotted a little grey-green snake with orange cheeks and called me over. I saw a woolly-caterpillar and some black beetles. There are no bears left here, very few deer, a few foxes, some wild boar, and some beavers. Heavy hunting over several hundred years or more has pretty much decimated the edible wildlife. Except for the chirp of a few birds the forest was quiet and beautiful. The moss is so thick and cushiony under your feet it was like walking on pillows most of the time. The mushrooms peek their heads just up through the top of the moss and look like little brown nuts poking out! It was an experience we will never forget and a very special memory of the motherland of two of our children!
Tonight we are invited over to Victor, Larusa, and Nastiya's home for you guessed it, mushrooms! We will have to find out what is appropriate to bring to such an occasion and pick something up!
We will blog again as soon as we can. We hope everyone at home is healthy and safe. We miss you all and look forward to coming home! I get to call Aimee once a day on our Ukraine phone and hear what is up in Mariupol and that helps keep me sane!
PS Misha is being treated daily for lice and he still has his hair!
Friday, October 3, 2008
Misha’s Building
Sorry for not blogging yesterday, the “Bazaar”/Huge Open Air Market only comes on Thursdays and we needed the day to find clothing, coats, shoes, undergarments, jamies, etc. to get the kids home in. None of the stores here sell these items and we had one chance – beyond taking naked kids from the Orphanage! We were planning on returning home during our wait and I have Mari’s bed piled with stuff for Trip #2 – including all of their clothes! I will write a Market blog for you next week, but this is Friday and we won’t be able to get back to you until Monday as the Computer Center will be closed.
The little green building at the far back corner of the Orphanage grounds is Misha’s building. We also call it the “Baby House” even though the children are all over 2. The children sleep, eat, have “classes”, and play here. The building, and the playground outside, is their entire world. Sometimes, some of the older children (mainly girls) will knock on the door, when they are out of classes and the children are up from naps, and ask if they can play with the small children. It gives the caretaker, always only one on duty, a break! The caretakers are wonderful women: Jonna (also teaches the children art and has painted murals from Ukrainian fairy tales all around the dining room – see photo through the kitchen window), Luda (teaches the children music – the “General” as we like to call her), and Luba (their teacher in the morning for history of Ukraine, alphabet, etc.). They are all very loving in their own way and the children call them all “Mama”!
The building has hot water 2 hours in the morning and from 7-9 at night. We come and play and bring food and drinks/prepare/clean up after afternoon snack and then play outside if the weather permits. We purchased a blue plastic drain rack to help the dishes get dry. John is wonderful and always takes care of the dishes – just like his Dad! Not sure how clean the cold water gets the dishes/silverware and this just adds to the germs that are passed from child to child while they are surviving in 57’ temperatures in the building. Almost every child has a runny nose and no Kleenex – hands and sleeves will do! The kids all have three layers on while in the building. When they go outside, even on warm days (we have had one or two lately where the sun has blessed us with an appearance), they are bundled in two coats and a hat! A sweater that was on Misha one day is on Aloosha the next day – and where Misha wiped his nose is the next spot for Aloosha! A true germ factory! The first thing we do when we get to the hotel is to wash up really well, hot – hot water and lots of soap!
One of the saddest moments I have had while here, the middle new brother came up to me after snack time and said “Mama, I am cold”. They/we are not allowed to wear shoes inside and most the building is either painted concrete floors or linoleum. The cold just permeates the place from the floor on up. There are a few large rugs in the play area and the bedroom. I put the little guy’s hands on the skin of my stomach to help warm him quickly and just held him. It broke my heart that these kids have so little, and then to be cold on top of it! The next day, John and I looked at portable large radiators at the Sony Store (stores are called Magazines). We purchased two along with extension cords – one for the cavernous bedroom and one for the dining room. We were going to get one for the playroom when the caregivers approached us and asked us instead to buy them a new compact vacuum cleaner – theirs had quit working (we figured out the universal inhaling while holding your hand to your lips and then not inhaling!). Who needs language to communicate? I tried to see if they wanted John to look at the broken one first, he is very handy, but we couldn’t communicate this (he is going to look at it this weekend anyway). We bought a new one day and you would’ve thought we showed up with electricity! It was during the time when one Luba was leaving and Luda was coming … they are amazed and very excited and very thankful! The first thing Luba did was vacuum the entire rug in the playroom. All the kids were in on the excitement and running around with the attachments – which I very meanly had to collect and place in the laundry room so that they weren’t lost or destroyed! Although our Facilitator has given the Director a donation, it is nice to impact their world in an immediate way and one that we can see their appreciation.
The other photos are of the kids playing with the pink play tunnels we bought that pop up and down and store easily – they turned them into “tube people” and proceeded to knock each other down. They play very rough and this is one thing we will have to watch with Misha when he gets home. We also brought pirate eye patches, hats, and earrings for Pirate Day – they lasted a little while. You have to know what a pirate is and where he wears his eye patch to figure things out! Target had a great portable 101 Dalmatians Play House that we brought over … now John knows what was in those four 50.7 lb (23 KG) suitcases – ladies, fight for your .7 lb per bag with your airline – it is worth it to bring more stuff over for the kids! The fish, “River fish” the ladies explained, used to eating bread crumbs and not needing their tank cleaned, live in a huge tank in the corner. Two hamsters live in their cage nearby. One day they were getting their cage cleaned, so I snapped their photo in a bucket.
One day after snack, John played the “Tower of Terror” Game. It started because they have swing set structures outside, but no swings. John put Misha on a chair in the dining room and was swinging him forward and backwards using John’s legs. Then he pulled the chair up and slowly let the chair down again. Misha was giggling up a storm and I warned John that if he started this carnival ride, he was going to have 7 customers in line! By the time they were done with “Papa”, he was exhausted! The kids eat John up as they don’t usually see men – especially a loving man if their father was otherwise!
The area where they brush teeth and wash up before meals is also in the dining room. I wondered where the new toothpaste was that we picked up in Kyiv – not by their brushes … and Jonna showed me a little pocket up on the opposite wall – full of the toothpaste that we brought! Apparently Misha eats the toothpaste if they leave it down – “All the children” I asked motioning eating toothpaste? “No, just Misha”! We have a toothpaste eater! Reminded me of the old commercial for Life Cereal – ok, I am dating myself here and you younger generation won’t understand – “Let’s see if Mikey will eat it”, “No, not Mikey, he’d eat anything!”, “But he likes it”!
Thank you for all of the comments and well wishes. We are going nuts here with boredom and from BBC World News it looks as if things are “going to hell in a hand basket” as my Grandma would say back home!
Lots of love from Twyla, John, Mari, and Mikey (The Toothpasteinator)
The little green building at the far back corner of the Orphanage grounds is Misha’s building. We also call it the “Baby House” even though the children are all over 2. The children sleep, eat, have “classes”, and play here. The building, and the playground outside, is their entire world. Sometimes, some of the older children (mainly girls) will knock on the door, when they are out of classes and the children are up from naps, and ask if they can play with the small children. It gives the caretaker, always only one on duty, a break! The caretakers are wonderful women: Jonna (also teaches the children art and has painted murals from Ukrainian fairy tales all around the dining room – see photo through the kitchen window), Luda (teaches the children music – the “General” as we like to call her), and Luba (their teacher in the morning for history of Ukraine, alphabet, etc.). They are all very loving in their own way and the children call them all “Mama”!
The building has hot water 2 hours in the morning and from 7-9 at night. We come and play and bring food and drinks/prepare/clean up after afternoon snack and then play outside if the weather permits. We purchased a blue plastic drain rack to help the dishes get dry. John is wonderful and always takes care of the dishes – just like his Dad! Not sure how clean the cold water gets the dishes/silverware and this just adds to the germs that are passed from child to child while they are surviving in 57’ temperatures in the building. Almost every child has a runny nose and no Kleenex – hands and sleeves will do! The kids all have three layers on while in the building. When they go outside, even on warm days (we have had one or two lately where the sun has blessed us with an appearance), they are bundled in two coats and a hat! A sweater that was on Misha one day is on Aloosha the next day – and where Misha wiped his nose is the next spot for Aloosha! A true germ factory! The first thing we do when we get to the hotel is to wash up really well, hot – hot water and lots of soap!
One of the saddest moments I have had while here, the middle new brother came up to me after snack time and said “Mama, I am cold”. They/we are not allowed to wear shoes inside and most the building is either painted concrete floors or linoleum. The cold just permeates the place from the floor on up. There are a few large rugs in the play area and the bedroom. I put the little guy’s hands on the skin of my stomach to help warm him quickly and just held him. It broke my heart that these kids have so little, and then to be cold on top of it! The next day, John and I looked at portable large radiators at the Sony Store (stores are called Magazines). We purchased two along with extension cords – one for the cavernous bedroom and one for the dining room. We were going to get one for the playroom when the caregivers approached us and asked us instead to buy them a new compact vacuum cleaner – theirs had quit working (we figured out the universal inhaling while holding your hand to your lips and then not inhaling!). Who needs language to communicate? I tried to see if they wanted John to look at the broken one first, he is very handy, but we couldn’t communicate this (he is going to look at it this weekend anyway). We bought a new one day and you would’ve thought we showed up with electricity! It was during the time when one Luba was leaving and Luda was coming … they are amazed and very excited and very thankful! The first thing Luba did was vacuum the entire rug in the playroom. All the kids were in on the excitement and running around with the attachments – which I very meanly had to collect and place in the laundry room so that they weren’t lost or destroyed! Although our Facilitator has given the Director a donation, it is nice to impact their world in an immediate way and one that we can see their appreciation.
The other photos are of the kids playing with the pink play tunnels we bought that pop up and down and store easily – they turned them into “tube people” and proceeded to knock each other down. They play very rough and this is one thing we will have to watch with Misha when he gets home. We also brought pirate eye patches, hats, and earrings for Pirate Day – they lasted a little while. You have to know what a pirate is and where he wears his eye patch to figure things out! Target had a great portable 101 Dalmatians Play House that we brought over … now John knows what was in those four 50.7 lb (23 KG) suitcases – ladies, fight for your .7 lb per bag with your airline – it is worth it to bring more stuff over for the kids! The fish, “River fish” the ladies explained, used to eating bread crumbs and not needing their tank cleaned, live in a huge tank in the corner. Two hamsters live in their cage nearby. One day they were getting their cage cleaned, so I snapped their photo in a bucket.
One day after snack, John played the “Tower of Terror” Game. It started because they have swing set structures outside, but no swings. John put Misha on a chair in the dining room and was swinging him forward and backwards using John’s legs. Then he pulled the chair up and slowly let the chair down again. Misha was giggling up a storm and I warned John that if he started this carnival ride, he was going to have 7 customers in line! By the time they were done with “Papa”, he was exhausted! The kids eat John up as they don’t usually see men – especially a loving man if their father was otherwise!
The area where they brush teeth and wash up before meals is also in the dining room. I wondered where the new toothpaste was that we picked up in Kyiv – not by their brushes … and Jonna showed me a little pocket up on the opposite wall – full of the toothpaste that we brought! Apparently Misha eats the toothpaste if they leave it down – “All the children” I asked motioning eating toothpaste? “No, just Misha”! We have a toothpaste eater! Reminded me of the old commercial for Life Cereal – ok, I am dating myself here and you younger generation won’t understand – “Let’s see if Mikey will eat it”, “No, not Mikey, he’d eat anything!”, “But he likes it”!
Thank you for all of the comments and well wishes. We are going nuts here with boredom and from BBC World News it looks as if things are “going to hell in a hand basket” as my Grandma would say back home!
Lots of love from Twyla, John, Mari, and Mikey (The Toothpasteinator)
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
Mari's Buildings
Although we spend the majority of our time bonding with Misha, we do spend part of each visit with Mari. She lives on the third floor of the large building across from the main Administration/School Building. She shares a room with Christina, Marina (visited the US with a host family with Mari’s program), Ina (sick in bed our first few days and now at the Hospital), and Alina (also visited the US with a host family on same trip).
Her Caregivers/Teachers, Svetlana and Julia (one is on duty at all times), are responsible for Ð… of a floor of her building. The kids are around the same age, and include boys and girls. This may not quite be a problem at this age, but apparently there is some bed hopping in the older kids. We would rather see the girls on one side of the wing or all on one floor and the boys on another. There is several couches and a TV, with DVD player, in one room and a large closet system in another room, the kids share a bathroom with three toilets (no seats) with a sink outside the restroom door for handwashing.
Next to the toilet room is a shower room with two large showers. When Mari saw that we were bringing Misha’s group shampoo, bath soap bars, and toothpaste, she asked “What about me?”. None of the kids in her area had any toiletries. Teeth are brushed with water, hands are washed with cold water (hot water is not available in town except for 8-10 am and 7-9 pm), and no shampoo. We are now toiletry fairies and leave the kids soap and toothpaste under their pillows (where they “hide” all of their personal things). The shower room floor was flooded and clothing was thrown into the water the first day I was there.
The hallway was a mess. Unknown to me, Svetlana was busy painting the room that had yet to receive the new closet system. Baseboards had been pulled out and wallpaper stripped. A broken dresser, without drawers, was at the end of the hallway. I though this was the normal state of existance. In one room, all of the suitcases from the kids who had been in the hosting programs over the summer were piled onto one side, about 8 feet deep – and they were still full. One smart boy, sitting on the floor in a foot deep of new clothes, was busy opening zippers to pillage the contents within the suitcases (looking for candy and other goodies). It sickened me to see this pile as I knew how hard I worked to wash and iron and make matching outfits for Mari for her return. I also packed presents for her teachers, school supplies, wall-mount pencil sharpeners (the metal ones, $15 a pop at Staples), and a bunch of toys for Misha’s group (which I have still not seen).
The first day, the Caregiver – who I had not me yet – accosted the little boy, Mari and myself and yelled at us for being in the room. She then locked the door behind us. We didn’t know what to think of the room of suitcases and the mess. As the week wore on, we saw the hallway slowly get cleaner and realized that Svetlana had been busy preparing the room across the hall for a new bunch of cupboards with doors (floor to ceiling) which have been installed. The “suitcase room” is now half-empty, the floor swept, and the remaining suitcases that have yet to be unpacked are stacked on the opposite wall. The room is kept locked unless Svetlana is working on it. We were very releaved to see that the clothing is being used for the children and that it was just an organization project!
Mari attends school, at the Internot, right on the grounds from 9 am until 12:30 pm. She then walks to the Cafeteria Building for lunch. After lunch the kids have a few hours of free time, then they may have a class (sewing was this afternoon), and homework time (everyone back in the classroom at 5:00 with Svetlana helping them with any questions). At 6:00, she is usually done with homework and at 7:00 is dinner time.
When in school, the outhouse is used outside. The only indoor restrooms are in the dorm buildings. Sorry about the graphic photo of one of the outhouse holes. The bench is 1 ft. off the ground, to accomadate the littlest ones probably, although I would never sit on the bench after realizing it probably hasn’t been dry since it was built. The contents of the outhouse are about a foot from the holes – about time to dig a new pit and move the outhouse! There is no toilet paper outside and after helping Misha, who pulled his undies up after doing a no. 2 (I had to stop him and have him bend over for me), I doubt that the larger kids worry about this. Mix this with a shower once a week, without soap, and I am so thankful that I was born a middle-class American!
Thank you for your comments! They are our only bright spot, besides the kids, and the farm animals that we encounter every day! Our Facilitator is not with us as families usually return for the 10 day wait. After he met with the Regional Inspector and the Director and the Notary, he left us early in the trip. After almost a week he returned for the preliminary court hearing and the court hearing, to leave again. We are here without a driver also, our choice as we would rather pay the local taxi daily then for the driver’s lodgings.
It is hard enough to communicate with the taxi driver on daily needs let alone sightseeing. I have been writing it out for clarity, that we want to be picked up and taken to the computer lab, where John works for a few hours, and then we shop for fruit (bananas, watermelon, grapes, or peaches), snack foods (cookies, crackers, chips, or cereal), milk or juice. We then carry everything about a mile to the Orphanage.
John is my pack mule and I always feel bad as he has his computer in his backpack on his back also. The taxi driver then picks us up at 6 pm every evening at the Orphanage Gates. Without Stefanie and Bill at the onset of the trip, we would be lost as to how to navigate in this community. We are now braver and just walk up to a building we are curious about and open the doors! So far, we have found a ballet class, a large auditorium, a store than sells yarn and embroidery floss, several 7-11 type stores, a store that sells womens clothes, and a hardware store.
Everyone looks at us and we are known as “the Americans”. We are even referred to as this at the Hotel – where we have lived for two weeks now and know each of them by name. We are strangers in a strange land, and viewed with suspicion rather than curiousity (remnants of the Cold War). Very few people return our smiles, although everyone returns our “Hello” in Ukrainian. A few of the very old babuskas, who are gardening or sitting by their gates, are the only ones who eye us with curiousity.
The younger generation thinks Americans are rich and have Ferraris – we were told this at dinner one night by one of the locals who was kind enough to try to talk to us in English. I know we keep our two parked in the garage. Mine is a very special Honda Odyssey Minivan/Ferrari that I just love! They must have us confused with the Italians (or the residents of Kyiv, where there are more Mercedes than in Stuttgardt where they are manufactured)! Not sure what they are watching on TV to give them this idea - other than music videos!
Lots of love from “The Americans”!
Her Caregivers/Teachers, Svetlana and Julia (one is on duty at all times), are responsible for Ð… of a floor of her building. The kids are around the same age, and include boys and girls. This may not quite be a problem at this age, but apparently there is some bed hopping in the older kids. We would rather see the girls on one side of the wing or all on one floor and the boys on another. There is several couches and a TV, with DVD player, in one room and a large closet system in another room, the kids share a bathroom with three toilets (no seats) with a sink outside the restroom door for handwashing.
Next to the toilet room is a shower room with two large showers. When Mari saw that we were bringing Misha’s group shampoo, bath soap bars, and toothpaste, she asked “What about me?”. None of the kids in her area had any toiletries. Teeth are brushed with water, hands are washed with cold water (hot water is not available in town except for 8-10 am and 7-9 pm), and no shampoo. We are now toiletry fairies and leave the kids soap and toothpaste under their pillows (where they “hide” all of their personal things). The shower room floor was flooded and clothing was thrown into the water the first day I was there.
The hallway was a mess. Unknown to me, Svetlana was busy painting the room that had yet to receive the new closet system. Baseboards had been pulled out and wallpaper stripped. A broken dresser, without drawers, was at the end of the hallway. I though this was the normal state of existance. In one room, all of the suitcases from the kids who had been in the hosting programs over the summer were piled onto one side, about 8 feet deep – and they were still full. One smart boy, sitting on the floor in a foot deep of new clothes, was busy opening zippers to pillage the contents within the suitcases (looking for candy and other goodies). It sickened me to see this pile as I knew how hard I worked to wash and iron and make matching outfits for Mari for her return. I also packed presents for her teachers, school supplies, wall-mount pencil sharpeners (the metal ones, $15 a pop at Staples), and a bunch of toys for Misha’s group (which I have still not seen).
The first day, the Caregiver – who I had not me yet – accosted the little boy, Mari and myself and yelled at us for being in the room. She then locked the door behind us. We didn’t know what to think of the room of suitcases and the mess. As the week wore on, we saw the hallway slowly get cleaner and realized that Svetlana had been busy preparing the room across the hall for a new bunch of cupboards with doors (floor to ceiling) which have been installed. The “suitcase room” is now half-empty, the floor swept, and the remaining suitcases that have yet to be unpacked are stacked on the opposite wall. The room is kept locked unless Svetlana is working on it. We were very releaved to see that the clothing is being used for the children and that it was just an organization project!
Mari attends school, at the Internot, right on the grounds from 9 am until 12:30 pm. She then walks to the Cafeteria Building for lunch. After lunch the kids have a few hours of free time, then they may have a class (sewing was this afternoon), and homework time (everyone back in the classroom at 5:00 with Svetlana helping them with any questions). At 6:00, she is usually done with homework and at 7:00 is dinner time.
When in school, the outhouse is used outside. The only indoor restrooms are in the dorm buildings. Sorry about the graphic photo of one of the outhouse holes. The bench is 1 ft. off the ground, to accomadate the littlest ones probably, although I would never sit on the bench after realizing it probably hasn’t been dry since it was built. The contents of the outhouse are about a foot from the holes – about time to dig a new pit and move the outhouse! There is no toilet paper outside and after helping Misha, who pulled his undies up after doing a no. 2 (I had to stop him and have him bend over for me), I doubt that the larger kids worry about this. Mix this with a shower once a week, without soap, and I am so thankful that I was born a middle-class American!
Thank you for your comments! They are our only bright spot, besides the kids, and the farm animals that we encounter every day! Our Facilitator is not with us as families usually return for the 10 day wait. After he met with the Regional Inspector and the Director and the Notary, he left us early in the trip. After almost a week he returned for the preliminary court hearing and the court hearing, to leave again. We are here without a driver also, our choice as we would rather pay the local taxi daily then for the driver’s lodgings.
It is hard enough to communicate with the taxi driver on daily needs let alone sightseeing. I have been writing it out for clarity, that we want to be picked up and taken to the computer lab, where John works for a few hours, and then we shop for fruit (bananas, watermelon, grapes, or peaches), snack foods (cookies, crackers, chips, or cereal), milk or juice. We then carry everything about a mile to the Orphanage.
John is my pack mule and I always feel bad as he has his computer in his backpack on his back also. The taxi driver then picks us up at 6 pm every evening at the Orphanage Gates. Without Stefanie and Bill at the onset of the trip, we would be lost as to how to navigate in this community. We are now braver and just walk up to a building we are curious about and open the doors! So far, we have found a ballet class, a large auditorium, a store than sells yarn and embroidery floss, several 7-11 type stores, a store that sells womens clothes, and a hardware store.
Everyone looks at us and we are known as “the Americans”. We are even referred to as this at the Hotel – where we have lived for two weeks now and know each of them by name. We are strangers in a strange land, and viewed with suspicion rather than curiousity (remnants of the Cold War). Very few people return our smiles, although everyone returns our “Hello” in Ukrainian. A few of the very old babuskas, who are gardening or sitting by their gates, are the only ones who eye us with curiousity.
The younger generation thinks Americans are rich and have Ferraris – we were told this at dinner one night by one of the locals who was kind enough to try to talk to us in English. I know we keep our two parked in the garage. Mine is a very special Honda Odyssey Minivan/Ferrari that I just love! They must have us confused with the Italians (or the residents of Kyiv, where there are more Mercedes than in Stuttgardt where they are manufactured)! Not sure what they are watching on TV to give them this idea - other than music videos!
Lots of love from “The Americans”!
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Attack of the Killer Lice!
We were worried last week, that with the departure of Ruslan (Patrick Krebs) and Misha, that the “Baby House” as we have come to call the building for the 4,5,6 year olds would be down to 4 children. Sweet, polite, sharing Olya (the only little girl, who will not be registered because her Grandma visits her regularly –shortsighted we feel on Grandma’s part as Olya will be placed with the bigger kids in a year or two and out of the Baby House – which is the best facility at the Orphanage), Piotr (also sweet and an underdog when it comes to getting the best toys), Nazar (largest of the boys and one of the “alphas”), and Alyosha (the little boy with his hair cut out in patches because he had gum stuck in it – no peanut butter or ice cubes = haircut!).
Last Wednesday, however, three new brothers were dropped off. We are not sure of their situation or if they are adoptable – but they are cute. The littlest one, around 2-1/2, is still in diapers. We are sure that they wanted to keep him with his siblings and that is why he is not in another orphanage for younger children. Where the building is safe for the pre-schoolers, it has not been baby proofed, and I spent Wednesday, putting the smaller potted plants up higher in the window sills as he was pulling on them, moving the hamster cage (with 2 small male Siberian hamsters) out of reach, etc.
What we didn’t know about the three new boys is that they brought more visitors with them – lice! Within a few days one of the new boys was shaved and a lice comb and lice medicine appeared up on top of their lockers. The next day, the oldest new boy was shaved … and finally the baby. Yesterday, Nazar appeared shaved. Misha sits with the three new boys during meals and sleeps next to one of them. We so worry that any day when we show up that he will be a cue ball! Misha has a big head and a knot on his forehead – hair helps soften his looks! We hope we can get him out before this becomes a necessity for him or any of us!
Our ten day wait will be over Monday, 10/6, and we count the days down. We heard in the last few days that one major hold-up may be the woman who runs the Ukrainian passport office for our district (Chernihiv). Just when there was light at the end of tunnel! The US Embassy website for Ukraine says to allow up to 10 days for Ukrainian passport issuance (you must have one of these, with a Visa issued by the US Embassy inside, to get the children out of Ukraine and into the US). This woman is threatening a 20 day wait unless an expediting fee comes her way – a hefty expediting fee. Even after paying the hefty fee, the wait was only taken down to 7 days, for the last American family who darkened her door.
We will jump this hurdle when the time comes. We knew this process was rocky. We have heard that China has the process down to 10 days. It would be nice if Ukraine figured out a way to do this – although it would only benefit the children and the adoptive families (and not the National GNP) so why bother?
Yesterday, we found a coat to take Mari home in – we were planning to return home, but with the pace of things, we have opted to stay (we may re-think this if the passport wait if truly 20 days), and some bouncy, smushy, spikey ball people (like yo-yos) that light up! (see photos) The kids loved them, but with how rough the kids are, the lights should be out soon! When nothing truly belongs to you, and you have not been taught the pride of ownership, you don’t take care of your toys.
We moved to the larger room in the hotel, the one with the double bed and a couch! We don't know how Bill slept on the couch as even to sit on it is hard! The extra space, 3'x 5' as John says, is a welcome addition and we are not so on top of each other!
We hope everyone is doing great - we appreciate all of your prayers and comments!
Last Wednesday, however, three new brothers were dropped off. We are not sure of their situation or if they are adoptable – but they are cute. The littlest one, around 2-1/2, is still in diapers. We are sure that they wanted to keep him with his siblings and that is why he is not in another orphanage for younger children. Where the building is safe for the pre-schoolers, it has not been baby proofed, and I spent Wednesday, putting the smaller potted plants up higher in the window sills as he was pulling on them, moving the hamster cage (with 2 small male Siberian hamsters) out of reach, etc.
What we didn’t know about the three new boys is that they brought more visitors with them – lice! Within a few days one of the new boys was shaved and a lice comb and lice medicine appeared up on top of their lockers. The next day, the oldest new boy was shaved … and finally the baby. Yesterday, Nazar appeared shaved. Misha sits with the three new boys during meals and sleeps next to one of them. We so worry that any day when we show up that he will be a cue ball! Misha has a big head and a knot on his forehead – hair helps soften his looks! We hope we can get him out before this becomes a necessity for him or any of us!
Our ten day wait will be over Monday, 10/6, and we count the days down. We heard in the last few days that one major hold-up may be the woman who runs the Ukrainian passport office for our district (Chernihiv). Just when there was light at the end of tunnel! The US Embassy website for Ukraine says to allow up to 10 days for Ukrainian passport issuance (you must have one of these, with a Visa issued by the US Embassy inside, to get the children out of Ukraine and into the US). This woman is threatening a 20 day wait unless an expediting fee comes her way – a hefty expediting fee. Even after paying the hefty fee, the wait was only taken down to 7 days, for the last American family who darkened her door.
We will jump this hurdle when the time comes. We knew this process was rocky. We have heard that China has the process down to 10 days. It would be nice if Ukraine figured out a way to do this – although it would only benefit the children and the adoptive families (and not the National GNP) so why bother?
Yesterday, we found a coat to take Mari home in – we were planning to return home, but with the pace of things, we have opted to stay (we may re-think this if the passport wait if truly 20 days), and some bouncy, smushy, spikey ball people (like yo-yos) that light up! (see photos) The kids loved them, but with how rough the kids are, the lights should be out soon! When nothing truly belongs to you, and you have not been taught the pride of ownership, you don’t take care of your toys.
We moved to the larger room in the hotel, the one with the double bed and a couch! We don't know how Bill slept on the couch as even to sit on it is hard! The extra space, 3'x 5' as John says, is a welcome addition and we are not so on top of each other!
We hope everyone is doing great - we appreciate all of your prayers and comments!
Monday, September 29, 2008
Court Hearing Went Great
The Court Hearing was at 4:00 on Thursday. Instead of just the Judge, there were two jurors (local upstanding residents who were nominated and approved by the populace), a young female prosecutor, the Regional Inspector for Children's Rights, a Representative for the Orphanage, the Court Reporter who was recording everything on a microphone and typing, and Mari!
We again gave our names, address, we were both asked if we work, we were read our rights for the court hearing, and they got down to business. The Regional Inspector spoke for a while about Mari's time in Colorado during the hosting program. John was asked what his job is and where he works and how much he makes per year. He was also asked to confirm that the children will be each given their own room. John was asked why we selected Ukraine when choosing where to adopt a child from. I was asked if I knew how much extra work this is going to entail ... as I imagined teaching Misha about the entire household rules, and sharing, and being gentle to the pets, and the extra laundry and ironing ... I said yes!
The local Prosecutor had a few questions - we did not expect her and did our best to answer. The Representative from the Orphanage then spoke about how much fun Mari had in Colorado and the photo albums that she shared with her friends upon her return. She said that Mari wanted to be adopted by us and cared for us. She also mentioned how Misha spoke to his caregivers just a few days before we arrived, during one of the visits with the Kreb's Family, and told them that he wanted a Mommy and Daddy like Ruslan was getting. Then we showed up ... Heavenly Father heard one little guy's prayers and answered quite quickly apparently! Mari was then asked by the Judge to approach the bench, stated her name, and that she would like to be adopted.
The Judge then asked us to officially make our request to the court. We asked to have the children's names formally changed, and to have their patronymics removed (their father's first name which is their middle name Mikailovich in Misha's case and Mikailovna in Mari's), to have passports issued, and not to change their birthdates. The Judge then proceeded to read how the children's mother is deceased, and that their father had lost his parental rights, that no relative has had any contact, and that no one in Ukraine wants these children. It was hard for me to hear and I know it must have been really hard for Mari to listen to ... I reached back and held her hand as she sat in the bench behind us with the Attorney for the Orphanage. The Judge then went through every page of our Dossier and the titles of each document ... this part was painfully slow and the Regional Inspector was doing all she could to not drift off (I can imagine how many hearings she has sat through). The Judge and the Jurors then adjourned to discuss the case.
They returned in less than 10 minutes and approved our request ... now the 10 consecutive days of waiting! We took pictures at the end, including one of the jail cell within the courtroom, and of the blonde Regional Inspector and the brunette Atty. for the Orphanage. Our Facilitator said the Judge would not appreciate a photo - but he was blonde, around 40, in blue robes with a beautiful thick blue and yellow gold ribbon (the colors of the Ukrainian flag) with a medallion on it (he reminded me of my little brother Wally). He was serious the entire time and honorable - just what one would want in a judge! The entire hearing took an hour and 10 minutes and we were pretty emotionally exhausted - so we returned Mari and did not visit Misha.
That evening, after our successful court hearing, we decided to celebrate by going out for pizza (we had heard of a restaurant) with the Kreb's Family. They had little Joseph (2) already and were picking up William and Patrick early in the morning and heading out with all 4 boys back to Kyiv to wait for their Tax ID’s and their passports to be processed. At the "Pizza Bistro", we had a hard time explaining that we wanted tomato sauce on all of our pizzas (it was offered only on one or two of the ten types of pizza) and NO mayonnaise. She tried to get us to put just a little bit on. "No, thank you, tomato sauce".
The waitress was dumbfounded that we would want pizza without mayo ... what would it be like? "Good" John muttered under his breath! The guys enjoyed the local beer, the girls Pepsi and Coke, and Peter a Sprite! I had the Hawaiian ... complete with pineapple, just like home! It was a fun, relaxing evening and our last hurrah (for now) with the Krebs' Family! Looking forward to sharing some real NY pizza with them sometime in the future when all the little ones are speaking English!
We hope everyone is fine. We have kept up on the financial news as this is primarily what we get. After I drew a picture for one of the locals at the pizza restaurant, we confirmed Joe and Lisa's careful research that the instrument is a bandura! Thanks for the research - I don't realize how much I rely on the computer until I haven't had it.
Stay tuned ... "Attack of the Lice" tomorrow...
We again gave our names, address, we were both asked if we work, we were read our rights for the court hearing, and they got down to business. The Regional Inspector spoke for a while about Mari's time in Colorado during the hosting program. John was asked what his job is and where he works and how much he makes per year. He was also asked to confirm that the children will be each given their own room. John was asked why we selected Ukraine when choosing where to adopt a child from. I was asked if I knew how much extra work this is going to entail ... as I imagined teaching Misha about the entire household rules, and sharing, and being gentle to the pets, and the extra laundry and ironing ... I said yes!
The local Prosecutor had a few questions - we did not expect her and did our best to answer. The Representative from the Orphanage then spoke about how much fun Mari had in Colorado and the photo albums that she shared with her friends upon her return. She said that Mari wanted to be adopted by us and cared for us. She also mentioned how Misha spoke to his caregivers just a few days before we arrived, during one of the visits with the Kreb's Family, and told them that he wanted a Mommy and Daddy like Ruslan was getting. Then we showed up ... Heavenly Father heard one little guy's prayers and answered quite quickly apparently! Mari was then asked by the Judge to approach the bench, stated her name, and that she would like to be adopted.
The Judge then asked us to officially make our request to the court. We asked to have the children's names formally changed, and to have their patronymics removed (their father's first name which is their middle name Mikailovich in Misha's case and Mikailovna in Mari's), to have passports issued, and not to change their birthdates. The Judge then proceeded to read how the children's mother is deceased, and that their father had lost his parental rights, that no relative has had any contact, and that no one in Ukraine wants these children. It was hard for me to hear and I know it must have been really hard for Mari to listen to ... I reached back and held her hand as she sat in the bench behind us with the Attorney for the Orphanage. The Judge then went through every page of our Dossier and the titles of each document ... this part was painfully slow and the Regional Inspector was doing all she could to not drift off (I can imagine how many hearings she has sat through). The Judge and the Jurors then adjourned to discuss the case.
They returned in less than 10 minutes and approved our request ... now the 10 consecutive days of waiting! We took pictures at the end, including one of the jail cell within the courtroom, and of the blonde Regional Inspector and the brunette Atty. for the Orphanage. Our Facilitator said the Judge would not appreciate a photo - but he was blonde, around 40, in blue robes with a beautiful thick blue and yellow gold ribbon (the colors of the Ukrainian flag) with a medallion on it (he reminded me of my little brother Wally). He was serious the entire time and honorable - just what one would want in a judge! The entire hearing took an hour and 10 minutes and we were pretty emotionally exhausted - so we returned Mari and did not visit Misha.
That evening, after our successful court hearing, we decided to celebrate by going out for pizza (we had heard of a restaurant) with the Kreb's Family. They had little Joseph (2) already and were picking up William and Patrick early in the morning and heading out with all 4 boys back to Kyiv to wait for their Tax ID’s and their passports to be processed. At the "Pizza Bistro", we had a hard time explaining that we wanted tomato sauce on all of our pizzas (it was offered only on one or two of the ten types of pizza) and NO mayonnaise. She tried to get us to put just a little bit on. "No, thank you, tomato sauce".
The waitress was dumbfounded that we would want pizza without mayo ... what would it be like? "Good" John muttered under his breath! The guys enjoyed the local beer, the girls Pepsi and Coke, and Peter a Sprite! I had the Hawaiian ... complete with pineapple, just like home! It was a fun, relaxing evening and our last hurrah (for now) with the Krebs' Family! Looking forward to sharing some real NY pizza with them sometime in the future when all the little ones are speaking English!
We hope everyone is fine. We have kept up on the financial news as this is primarily what we get. After I drew a picture for one of the locals at the pizza restaurant, we confirmed Joe and Lisa's careful research that the instrument is a bandura! Thanks for the research - I don't realize how much I rely on the computer until I haven't had it.
Stay tuned ... "Attack of the Lice" tomorrow...
Thursday, September 25, 2008
The sun is shining today + no Internet until next week...
Just a quick note to say that the sun is shining today, first time since we have been here. Court is at 4PM, should be a non-event today. We will be going dark until next week on the Internet as I could not get time on Friday and the lab is closed on the weekend to allow the modem to cool down from all the words and pictures that have been uploaded. (just kidding, there is no high school on the weekend!).
We will honker down for the next ten days...trying not to go nuts around here. I am happy that the other families that have been have not had to be in such a small town, however it has been a positive experience!
We will honker down for the next ten days...trying not to go nuts around here. I am happy that the other families that have been have not had to be in such a small town, however it has been a positive experience!
Court Hearing Tomorrow Afternoon + Kyiv Road Trip
We have heard through the grapevine that various regions have different practices, some have preliminary court hearings and others do not. This region has preliminary court hearings, which we attended this morning. The judge asked us several questions, our names, address, whether we worked, and if we wanted to withdraw our request. He also read to us our rights in the Ukrainian court system - all of which our Facilitator quickly translated for us. I only had to dress up a little bit for this hearing - tomorrow will be more dressy. The Regional Inspector for Children's Rights attended, as did the Legal Advocat for the Orphange. The courtroom has a jail cage welded from rebar in it, common from what we have read on blogs - I will try to get a photo tomorrow. Only Mari will be attending court tomorrow - we all agreed that Michael is too young and would just be confused and possibly frightened.
After the court hearing tomorow at 4:00 pm, our ten business day wait begins on Friday to allow for any family member to contest our request. We think this is the process after the wait is completed: we will travel to the children's birthplace, Bachtmach (sp?), to pick up their birth certificates, return to Gorodnya to take possession of the kids, apply for tax id's (like social security numbers) and wait for them a few days, apply for passports and wait for them for up to ten days, and then head to Kyiv to finish up with the medical exam and application for the U.S. Visa in their Ukrainian passports. We have not seen the sun since we have been here - over 12 days. We long for some sunshine! I talked to Mom today and she said Denver will be around 90' tomorrow - we are so jealous! It was wonderful talking to her, although Duncan was in school and we couldn't hear his chipper little voice. He did ask Mom a few days ago if we would be home tomorrow. He has no sense of how long we are going to be gone! We have several pictures of him up in the room, but we miss him so much!
After the hearing today, we "ran" to Kyiv (3 hours down and 3 hours back) to pick up permission from the SDA for the court hearing to be held tomorrow and several other errands. There was a lovely older man with grey hair and grey handle-bar moustache, dressed in the twisted wool grey tall hat and overcoat, playing a stringed instrument in front of the SDA. I listened for a while and enjoyed his beautiful music. It was not a triangular balalaika, but oval shaped with a large number of strings. I will not be able to look this up until we get home, so if someone could look it up and write to us that would be great! John tends to hog the internet time as he has to do something as frivoulous as work! John now has me blogging on his offline computer, then copying everything on to the High School's Computer Lab's computer via a memory stick. (did I mention that John is a geek?) We have to do it this way as his computer does not have the special software required to interchange with the DSL Modem.
We visited a huge grocery store, inside a mall, on the outskirts of Kyiv (on the way back northeast to Chernihiv) called Mega Market. It was about the 1/2 the size of one of our grocery stores (huge for here) and also had clothing and some housewares. We picked up new toothbrushes for the "Baby House" - where Misha eats, sleeps, plays, and bathes - and toothpaste (the kids did not have any). We bought bath sponges for the kids, shampoo (again, no shampoo - only bar soap), laundry detergent (none in sight, we already picked up dishwashing liquid), coloring books, construction paper, M&Ms, and Pringles for Mari. I forgot to pick up carrots as a snack - in Gorodnya we have fruits, cookies, cereal, milk, chocolate mix (reminds me of ovaltine) to make hot chocolate with their microwave (stove/oven doesn't work in the Baby House and there is no fridge), and juice. The carrots, in our small town grocery stores (called magazeens or gastronomes), are huge softball-sized monsters that look very old and tough!
The kids love potato chips, but the "drill sergeant caregiver who also plays the piano and has the kids dance" (we have named them) balled us out last night for bringing two small packages for them. She said no more chips and cookies! Is life worth living without a few pieces of contraband every now and then over the next 15 days? Last night was the first night we met her. She wouldn't let us in at 4:00 (4:00-6:00 is our night visit time, but the kids don't wake from nap until 4:30 so she didn't want us in until 5:00, so we sat outside in the cold and made friends with the little white cat (not named, so we are going to give her one). She loved eating the bread that I brought from the hotel with our leftover butter smeared on it and afterward climbed up into John's lap! I told him he had made a friend, he probably more correctly noted that as it was 50' outside she was sitting on him for his heat! When Misha saw John today he cried "Poppi" in a really happy voice! He is smiling more and the Krebs family say he is a different child now that we are here and he has someone who cares for him and him alone. He has to be reminded to share the new toys that we have brought as he thinks they should only be for him (we told the caregiver about the scene in Finding Nemo where the seagulls are all fighting over the fish and saying "Mine, mine, mine"! They remind me of Misha and his pals! The thermometer inside read 14' C, around 56'-57' F, a degree colder than yesterday! The kids wear two shirts and a sweater, long underwear and pants. Some keep their hats on. We are asked to remove our shoes at the door, a common practice here, so my feet are frozen by the time we get back to the hotel!
We also picked up a few necessities for us at the store today - Barilla Pasta Sauce (apparently the Ukrainian pasta sauce tastes like canned Campbell's tomato soup) to have the Cafe downstairs heat and top pelmeni with (they are little meatballs covered in pasta shells). After eating pelmeni topped with butter, we decided this would be a huge improvement. We also picked up tea (Ahmad Brand - we bought some years ago in the UK and it is ithe same kind they brew for us downstairs). We have yet to find the great Ukrainian pastries/baked goods in this small town. If you love Italian, they have tons of pasta products on the shelves, but no decent spaghetti sauce, I would bring some tomato paste (we can't find) and some packets of dried spaghetti sauce mix. We were longing for pizza, but ran out of time today so we went to McDonald's instead in Kyiv.
Sidenote: McDonald's is the only business in Ukraine from the US, and it is not a franchise, rather a corporate owned stores. Have counted three in Kyiv.
Our Facilitator showed us a pizza place tonight when we returned. We walk right past it, but we had missed as it is closed during the day and doesn't say "pizza" anywhere on it. We don't go out at night (unless John has an internet slot and the driver takes him) as they are crazy drivers enough during the day! Maybe we will celebrate with pizza tomorrow night!
We have been watching BBC World News when we can. What a mess back home - $700B to shore up the mortgage banks - what a huge amount of debt to saddle our children with. Hopefully heads will roll! John spent part of last night scrolling through 1400 channels on our Satellite TV - he found 3-4 channels in English (BBC, Bloomberg, a kids channel, and a Christian music channel). We are going to go nuts when the Krebs family leaves in the next few days and we only have each other to talk to, watching the few DVDs we brought (the HBO miniseries on John Adams was excellent), and reading.
We hope everyone at home is happy and healthy!
After the court hearing tomorow at 4:00 pm, our ten business day wait begins on Friday to allow for any family member to contest our request. We think this is the process after the wait is completed: we will travel to the children's birthplace, Bachtmach (sp?), to pick up their birth certificates, return to Gorodnya to take possession of the kids, apply for tax id's (like social security numbers) and wait for them a few days, apply for passports and wait for them for up to ten days, and then head to Kyiv to finish up with the medical exam and application for the U.S. Visa in their Ukrainian passports. We have not seen the sun since we have been here - over 12 days. We long for some sunshine! I talked to Mom today and she said Denver will be around 90' tomorrow - we are so jealous! It was wonderful talking to her, although Duncan was in school and we couldn't hear his chipper little voice. He did ask Mom a few days ago if we would be home tomorrow. He has no sense of how long we are going to be gone! We have several pictures of him up in the room, but we miss him so much!
After the hearing today, we "ran" to Kyiv (3 hours down and 3 hours back) to pick up permission from the SDA for the court hearing to be held tomorrow and several other errands. There was a lovely older man with grey hair and grey handle-bar moustache, dressed in the twisted wool grey tall hat and overcoat, playing a stringed instrument in front of the SDA. I listened for a while and enjoyed his beautiful music. It was not a triangular balalaika, but oval shaped with a large number of strings. I will not be able to look this up until we get home, so if someone could look it up and write to us that would be great! John tends to hog the internet time as he has to do something as frivoulous as work! John now has me blogging on his offline computer, then copying everything on to the High School's Computer Lab's computer via a memory stick. (did I mention that John is a geek?) We have to do it this way as his computer does not have the special software required to interchange with the DSL Modem.
We visited a huge grocery store, inside a mall, on the outskirts of Kyiv (on the way back northeast to Chernihiv) called Mega Market. It was about the 1/2 the size of one of our grocery stores (huge for here) and also had clothing and some housewares. We picked up new toothbrushes for the "Baby House" - where Misha eats, sleeps, plays, and bathes - and toothpaste (the kids did not have any). We bought bath sponges for the kids, shampoo (again, no shampoo - only bar soap), laundry detergent (none in sight, we already picked up dishwashing liquid), coloring books, construction paper, M&Ms, and Pringles for Mari. I forgot to pick up carrots as a snack - in Gorodnya we have fruits, cookies, cereal, milk, chocolate mix (reminds me of ovaltine) to make hot chocolate with their microwave (stove/oven doesn't work in the Baby House and there is no fridge), and juice. The carrots, in our small town grocery stores (called magazeens or gastronomes), are huge softball-sized monsters that look very old and tough!
The kids love potato chips, but the "drill sergeant caregiver who also plays the piano and has the kids dance" (we have named them) balled us out last night for bringing two small packages for them. She said no more chips and cookies! Is life worth living without a few pieces of contraband every now and then over the next 15 days? Last night was the first night we met her. She wouldn't let us in at 4:00 (4:00-6:00 is our night visit time, but the kids don't wake from nap until 4:30 so she didn't want us in until 5:00, so we sat outside in the cold and made friends with the little white cat (not named, so we are going to give her one). She loved eating the bread that I brought from the hotel with our leftover butter smeared on it and afterward climbed up into John's lap! I told him he had made a friend, he probably more correctly noted that as it was 50' outside she was sitting on him for his heat! When Misha saw John today he cried "Poppi" in a really happy voice! He is smiling more and the Krebs family say he is a different child now that we are here and he has someone who cares for him and him alone. He has to be reminded to share the new toys that we have brought as he thinks they should only be for him (we told the caregiver about the scene in Finding Nemo where the seagulls are all fighting over the fish and saying "Mine, mine, mine"! They remind me of Misha and his pals! The thermometer inside read 14' C, around 56'-57' F, a degree colder than yesterday! The kids wear two shirts and a sweater, long underwear and pants. Some keep their hats on. We are asked to remove our shoes at the door, a common practice here, so my feet are frozen by the time we get back to the hotel!
We also picked up a few necessities for us at the store today - Barilla Pasta Sauce (apparently the Ukrainian pasta sauce tastes like canned Campbell's tomato soup) to have the Cafe downstairs heat and top pelmeni with (they are little meatballs covered in pasta shells). After eating pelmeni topped with butter, we decided this would be a huge improvement. We also picked up tea (Ahmad Brand - we bought some years ago in the UK and it is ithe same kind they brew for us downstairs). We have yet to find the great Ukrainian pastries/baked goods in this small town. If you love Italian, they have tons of pasta products on the shelves, but no decent spaghetti sauce, I would bring some tomato paste (we can't find) and some packets of dried spaghetti sauce mix. We were longing for pizza, but ran out of time today so we went to McDonald's instead in Kyiv.
Sidenote: McDonald's is the only business in Ukraine from the US, and it is not a franchise, rather a corporate owned stores. Have counted three in Kyiv.
Our Facilitator showed us a pizza place tonight when we returned. We walk right past it, but we had missed as it is closed during the day and doesn't say "pizza" anywhere on it. We don't go out at night (unless John has an internet slot and the driver takes him) as they are crazy drivers enough during the day! Maybe we will celebrate with pizza tomorrow night!
We have been watching BBC World News when we can. What a mess back home - $700B to shore up the mortgage banks - what a huge amount of debt to saddle our children with. Hopefully heads will roll! John spent part of last night scrolling through 1400 channels on our Satellite TV - he found 3-4 channels in English (BBC, Bloomberg, a kids channel, and a Christian music channel). We are going to go nuts when the Krebs family leaves in the next few days and we only have each other to talk to, watching the few DVDs we brought (the HBO miniseries on John Adams was excellent), and reading.
We hope everyone at home is happy and healthy!
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Please Stand By – Experiencing Technical Difficulties
Sorry for not blogging the last few days, but we have lost our internet connection cards capabilities on John's laptop. You could hear the keening for miles when John realized he was in a boat without a paddle! Luckily the American family staying at The Pooh Hotel (as in Winnie apparently) with us, Stefanie, Bill, and Peter Krebs showed us where they have found an internet connection at the computer lab of the local Ministry of Culture and Tourism. There is no internet cafe as we are in Mayberry. The high school students in town also use the computer lab, so you have to reserve time on one of the four computers in hour-and-a half slots, during the times that the lab is open. John was going nuts until yesterday when he could get in and get several hours of work done. Living in a “non-techno” area for a geek is going to be a real challenge.
It has been overcast and rainy since we arrived in Ukraine over a week ago. Rain in the city is manageable, but in the countryside we are bogged down in mud when we walk to the Orphanage. It is about a forty-five minute walk each way. We walk facing traffic, which travels far too fast, so that we can hopefully anticipate anyone driving off the road at us. We have a local driver, named Viktor, who drives us every day in the afternoon and picks us up – but it is nice to head over in the morning also. This morning Misha’s group was at speech therapy working on phonetics. You have to learn to trill those “r’s” somewhere! He was excited that we were inside when he arrived, instead of him being inside. He promptly ran to me to have me undo his coat and help him off with his boots. They quickly learn the advantages of having a Mommy! I helped him wash his hands yesterday, before lunch, by pulling his sleeves up soaping up in the freezing cold water myself and then taking his little hands. I could tell that he has no memory of anyone doing this for him and his little body relaxed into mine behind him. He is very possessive when he sits on my lap. When little Olya, the only girl in the group, wanted to snuggle next to me on the couch and have some attention - he pushed her away. He is learning to share ... a quality our household will be working on in the new few months!
The heat, for both residences and businesses, is not turned on by the Ukraine Government/Heating Company until 15 October here – so people use electric heaters to keep warm. That is one of the reasons we chose a hotel instead of an apartment – we have an excellent electric heater and hot water all day (in town it is turned on 2 hours in the morning and 2 hours in the afternoon). John checked the thermostat in Misha’s building today and it was 15' C (59' F). No wonder all of the kids are sick and have runny, goopey, noses! The caregiver has a small electric heater for their bedroom (30 ft. x 20 ft.) that chugs away valiantly trying to heat the cavernous space during their naps and at night. With 6 children in the “Baby House” as we affectionately call it, we are unsure why they don’t put curtains up, divide the space, keep 6 or 8 beds in one area and heat just that area.
This morning, I walked over with the Kreb’s family, who are adopting two boys from Gorodnya and their younger brother from Prylouki (sp?). Roma (William) is 7, Ruslan (Patrick) is 5 and in Misha’s group, and baby Joseph is 2. Their blog is http://www.krebskids.blogspot.com They are just finishing their ten day wait after court and are looking forward to finishing up and heading home. They have been a tremendous blessing to us on a daily basis. They have given us a detailed tour of town and all of the stores, restaurants (including the infamous Vega Disko-Bar that we have yet to visit), and the fruit market. Often stores and unmarked other than a name outside, so you have to peek your head in to see what they sell!
The Krebs have become good friends and someone to talk with other than each other. They have remembered to pack things that we have forgotten and are happy to share! Bill has given us a list of his favorites on the menu and the translations so that we have something familiar to eat. It doesn’t hurt that he is an Irish-American New Yorker – so he and John are like two peas in a pod. Their son Peter (4) is a sweetheart and wonderful to have around. He has taken the trip in stride and is a real trooper when it comes to food and slogging through the process. He is Ukrainian and was adopted when he was 2 from Dnipropetrovsk. At home, he is blessed with a Ukrainian babysitter – Baba Leysha (sp?), who is like a grandmother and only speaks Ukrainian to him. After visiting the Orphanage in the afternoon, Peter walks in from market and plops his bag of macaroni on the counter and asks the waitresses to please boil it, put butter on it, and top it with cheese – all in Ukrainian! The waitresses, all in their 20’s, dote on him. He definitely rules the roost around here and we will miss them all when they leave in a day or two!
Today as we walked to town we passed several of the many town wells. Most of the houses are now plumbed, but the wells remain. Peter fed the white nanny goat a wormy apple from a nearby tree, some old concord grapes on a stem that someone had dropped onto the path from their garden, and a piece of bread from the hotel. The goat loved everything, stems and all! We passed under a huge oak tree (my Grandmother’s tree is 20 years old and I know its size, this one is huge and has to be 100 years old or more) and a walnut tree the same size by the beautiful Eastern Orthodox Church.
We stopped at the outdoor market and admired the meat sitting unwrapped on the side of the steps under an umbrella to keep the heat off. We spotted the roll of raw pig fat that Ukrainian men apparently love to snack on! Yum! Stefanie bought a small watermelon for the kids. It was a beautiful red inside and one of the best tasting watermelons I have ever eaten! The fruit here still tastes like fruit. It may be smaller, and have seeds, but it actually has taste – much like my strawberries outside my kitchen door at home. By the time we returned for the afternoon visit, after the little ones' nap, most of the watermelon was devoured!
We have enjoyed living here in the village the past week. The food is excellent, although the choices are limited, and we have a routine. Our room is 10x12, separate beds (smaller than twin size). We eat downstairs everyday, the same few food choices, we have heat and hot water 24/7 which is a luxury, and it is safe. In the evenings, the local Police like to frequent the "Kafe" downstairs and they are not hesitant to try their rudimentary English on us and ask us to join them for a shot of vodka, which leads to more shots of vodka. I was able to fake a group out the other night by filling my glass with water, shooting it down (sipping is an insult), making a face, and chasing it with a drink of juice. I then beg off and head up to bed, leaving John and Bill to defend American male masculinity. This has happened twice and now John says if he sees the police, or the ambulance driver, or even the firemen coming in, he is headed up to bed!
Yesterday, we heard from our Facilitator, that our “preliminary” court hearing is early Wednesday morning and then we are headed to Kyiv, with the children, for the rest of the day (3 hours down and 3 hours back) to have the children’s medical exam and blood tested. I did not bring Dramamine on this trip (it is in the pile for now non-existant trip no. 2) for Misha, and I worry that he will be carsick!
We should know when our real court hearing is by Friday and then we start the ten business day waiting period (to allow any family member time to contest the adoption). After the waiting period is over, we will travel several hours south-east to where the children were born, Bakhmakhti, to pick up their birth certificates, change names, and get a tax id for each child (similar to our Social Security Number). After we have these in hand, we will apply for Ukrainian passports in region (which could take another 10 days), and then off to Kyiv to finish things up with the US Embassy to get the kids their official US Visa pasted into their new passports!
We were happy to hear that our friends from Colorado, Aimee and Matt, have arrived in Kyiv (pronounced "Keeve" by the locals) safely and are starting the process. They will travel to the deep south of this country, near the Azov Sea, and should run into warmer weather. We are so far north, 30 minutes from the Russian border, we are worried that as the nights get colder the rain will turn to snow.
We were planning on coming home for the ten day waiting period after court, but the pace has quickened and we padded our airline reservations to allow for difficulties (which we are still waiting for with bated breath) so we are now staying here. We will try to write as often as possible!
It has been overcast and rainy since we arrived in Ukraine over a week ago. Rain in the city is manageable, but in the countryside we are bogged down in mud when we walk to the Orphanage. It is about a forty-five minute walk each way. We walk facing traffic, which travels far too fast, so that we can hopefully anticipate anyone driving off the road at us. We have a local driver, named Viktor, who drives us every day in the afternoon and picks us up – but it is nice to head over in the morning also. This morning Misha’s group was at speech therapy working on phonetics. You have to learn to trill those “r’s” somewhere! He was excited that we were inside when he arrived, instead of him being inside. He promptly ran to me to have me undo his coat and help him off with his boots. They quickly learn the advantages of having a Mommy! I helped him wash his hands yesterday, before lunch, by pulling his sleeves up soaping up in the freezing cold water myself and then taking his little hands. I could tell that he has no memory of anyone doing this for him and his little body relaxed into mine behind him. He is very possessive when he sits on my lap. When little Olya, the only girl in the group, wanted to snuggle next to me on the couch and have some attention - he pushed her away. He is learning to share ... a quality our household will be working on in the new few months!
The heat, for both residences and businesses, is not turned on by the Ukraine Government/Heating Company until 15 October here – so people use electric heaters to keep warm. That is one of the reasons we chose a hotel instead of an apartment – we have an excellent electric heater and hot water all day (in town it is turned on 2 hours in the morning and 2 hours in the afternoon). John checked the thermostat in Misha’s building today and it was 15' C (59' F). No wonder all of the kids are sick and have runny, goopey, noses! The caregiver has a small electric heater for their bedroom (30 ft. x 20 ft.) that chugs away valiantly trying to heat the cavernous space during their naps and at night. With 6 children in the “Baby House” as we affectionately call it, we are unsure why they don’t put curtains up, divide the space, keep 6 or 8 beds in one area and heat just that area.
This morning, I walked over with the Kreb’s family, who are adopting two boys from Gorodnya and their younger brother from Prylouki (sp?). Roma (William) is 7, Ruslan (Patrick) is 5 and in Misha’s group, and baby Joseph is 2. Their blog is http://www.krebskids.blogspot.com They are just finishing their ten day wait after court and are looking forward to finishing up and heading home. They have been a tremendous blessing to us on a daily basis. They have given us a detailed tour of town and all of the stores, restaurants (including the infamous Vega Disko-Bar that we have yet to visit), and the fruit market. Often stores and unmarked other than a name outside, so you have to peek your head in to see what they sell!
The Krebs have become good friends and someone to talk with other than each other. They have remembered to pack things that we have forgotten and are happy to share! Bill has given us a list of his favorites on the menu and the translations so that we have something familiar to eat. It doesn’t hurt that he is an Irish-American New Yorker – so he and John are like two peas in a pod. Their son Peter (4) is a sweetheart and wonderful to have around. He has taken the trip in stride and is a real trooper when it comes to food and slogging through the process. He is Ukrainian and was adopted when he was 2 from Dnipropetrovsk. At home, he is blessed with a Ukrainian babysitter – Baba Leysha (sp?), who is like a grandmother and only speaks Ukrainian to him. After visiting the Orphanage in the afternoon, Peter walks in from market and plops his bag of macaroni on the counter and asks the waitresses to please boil it, put butter on it, and top it with cheese – all in Ukrainian! The waitresses, all in their 20’s, dote on him. He definitely rules the roost around here and we will miss them all when they leave in a day or two!
Today as we walked to town we passed several of the many town wells. Most of the houses are now plumbed, but the wells remain. Peter fed the white nanny goat a wormy apple from a nearby tree, some old concord grapes on a stem that someone had dropped onto the path from their garden, and a piece of bread from the hotel. The goat loved everything, stems and all! We passed under a huge oak tree (my Grandmother’s tree is 20 years old and I know its size, this one is huge and has to be 100 years old or more) and a walnut tree the same size by the beautiful Eastern Orthodox Church.
We stopped at the outdoor market and admired the meat sitting unwrapped on the side of the steps under an umbrella to keep the heat off. We spotted the roll of raw pig fat that Ukrainian men apparently love to snack on! Yum! Stefanie bought a small watermelon for the kids. It was a beautiful red inside and one of the best tasting watermelons I have ever eaten! The fruit here still tastes like fruit. It may be smaller, and have seeds, but it actually has taste – much like my strawberries outside my kitchen door at home. By the time we returned for the afternoon visit, after the little ones' nap, most of the watermelon was devoured!
We have enjoyed living here in the village the past week. The food is excellent, although the choices are limited, and we have a routine. Our room is 10x12, separate beds (smaller than twin size). We eat downstairs everyday, the same few food choices, we have heat and hot water 24/7 which is a luxury, and it is safe. In the evenings, the local Police like to frequent the "Kafe" downstairs and they are not hesitant to try their rudimentary English on us and ask us to join them for a shot of vodka, which leads to more shots of vodka. I was able to fake a group out the other night by filling my glass with water, shooting it down (sipping is an insult), making a face, and chasing it with a drink of juice. I then beg off and head up to bed, leaving John and Bill to defend American male masculinity. This has happened twice and now John says if he sees the police, or the ambulance driver, or even the firemen coming in, he is headed up to bed!
Yesterday, we heard from our Facilitator, that our “preliminary” court hearing is early Wednesday morning and then we are headed to Kyiv, with the children, for the rest of the day (3 hours down and 3 hours back) to have the children’s medical exam and blood tested. I did not bring Dramamine on this trip (it is in the pile for now non-existant trip no. 2) for Misha, and I worry that he will be carsick!
We should know when our real court hearing is by Friday and then we start the ten business day waiting period (to allow any family member time to contest the adoption). After the waiting period is over, we will travel several hours south-east to where the children were born, Bakhmakhti, to pick up their birth certificates, change names, and get a tax id for each child (similar to our Social Security Number). After we have these in hand, we will apply for Ukrainian passports in region (which could take another 10 days), and then off to Kyiv to finish things up with the US Embassy to get the kids their official US Visa pasted into their new passports!
We were happy to hear that our friends from Colorado, Aimee and Matt, have arrived in Kyiv (pronounced "Keeve" by the locals) safely and are starting the process. They will travel to the deep south of this country, near the Azov Sea, and should run into warmer weather. We are so far north, 30 minutes from the Russian border, we are worried that as the nights get colder the rain will turn to snow.
We were planning on coming home for the ten day waiting period after court, but the pace has quickened and we padded our airline reservations to allow for difficulties (which we are still waiting for with bated breath) so we are now staying here. We will try to write as often as possible!
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