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!