Day 17 – Tuesday, 29 December
If a candlelight dinner is romantic, what do you call a shower by the flame of a tankless waterheater?? One thing that we had noticed this trip was the improved availability of public utilities…we hadn’t had a single power or water outage on this trip, except for on the train. Around 9:30, as I finished writing, Mark showered and shaved; as I opened the bathroom door and flipped on the light, the light flipped back off again. Checked the switch, it was on. Checked the next room, no light. On our very last day, when we need to get ready for court and finish the last-minute packing, the power went out.
Thankfully, the sun returned to us today, and our apartment had a lot of windows, so we finished getting ready in natural light. Our translator was running errands this morning to prepare for the congratulations party at the orphanage later that afternoon, and around 11, we began pacing and waiting for him to call.
The phone finally rang, our driver arrived, and drove the few blocks to the courthouse. We showed our passports and followed our translator upstairs, where Lena and a representative of the orphanage were waiting on a bench in the hallway. We hugged Lena and sat on either side of her to wait for our 12:00 hearing.
About noon, a court clerk opened the door to the courtroom, and we all entered and found our seats. The local Inspector greeted us; the orphanage psychologist had brought several photos of Masha, and gave the local inspector an update on how she was doing. Everyone chatted in low tones while we waited for the judge. And waited. And waited. At about 12:40, Lena started to get very worried that something was wrong. The orphanage psychologist was sitting next to her, and reassured her that everything was fine, and that the judge probably was just running late.
The judge finally entered the courtroom at about 1:20, and from there on, the hearing went smoothly. He read the documentation, and Mark and I answered a few simple questions. We were quickly ushered back out and the other family, whose appointment was scheduled for 1:00, traded places with us. Once both hearings were done, we waited outside the judge’s office while he finished the official decree. He then invited us in, read the full decision to us, and we were done.
We thought the original plan had been for us to go back to the apartment during the other family’s hearing, get a bite to eat, change clothes, and finish our last-minute packing before heading to the orphanage for the party. The wait…wait…wait…HURRY UP of the afternoon blew that plan out of the water, and following court, we rushed to the orphanage, trying to make it there in time for the dance/singing concert that was scheduled for the afternoon.
Typically, when a child is adopted from the orphanage, the kids put on a nice little program with singing and dancing followed by a party with fruit and juices for all the kids (a rare treat!). Both times we’ve adopted, we have coincided with major programs that were already scheduled, and we’ve kind of “piggy-backed.” This time, though, the show went on without us. We were able to spend some time with Lena and the Director shared some kind congratulatory words with us, and then we whisked off to change, load our luggage, and get to the train station ON TIME!
We also stopped briefly at a grocery store to grab some water, bread, and summer sausage for the train (we were starving, and nearly out of Ukrainian money with no time to exchange more!) The store the driver stopped at was new to us, and we discovered it was a two-story grocery, with moving sidewalks that shoppers could “ride” with their carts between the two levels. I do wish we hadn’t been in such a hurry!
We got back to the apartment and changed in record time, crammed our last minute things into the suitcases, and quickly cut up the summer sausage and some cheese for the train snack bag. As we began hauling our luggage down to the car, we again regretted the amount of stuff we brought to Ukraine and the amount of new stuff we’re bringing home….our bags are really heavy!!
We got to the train station in plenty of time, and the drivers helped us haul all our luggage up to the platform where we waited for the train to arrive. The air was much warmer than for our last voyage (it felt about 40), and the wait was pleasant. In time, the train pulled in, and our translator helped us lug all our bags through the train and get them stowed in our cabins.
We lucked out…the only tickets available were in first class compartments. While they are the same size as the second-class compartment we rode in last time, there are only two bunks, so Mark and I had the compartment to ourselves. We were next door to the other couple, and our translator was in the compartment on the other side of us.
Just as the train got underway, our translator walked up the corridor of the train with a bottle of champagne to celebrate. That kicked off an evening of drinking and snacking and general fun; our translator almost had us all talked into changing our flights and going to Egypt for the 10-day wait! We eventually called it a night and tried to get a bit of sleep before the train arrived back in Kyiv at 8:30AM.
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
Your Order Is In The Cooking
Day 16 – Monday, 28 December
5:50 AM: THUNK THUNK......THUNK THUNK THUNK..............THUNK THUNK.....THUNK......rattle rattle......THUNK THUNK.....THUNKTHUNK!
The neighbor apparently decided today was the ideal day to break through the concrete wall of his apartment with a sledgehammer to run a new electrical outlet or some other such nonsense. Yes, before 6 in the morning. Yes, it’s still dark out. This is crazy even by Ukrainian standards.
I got back to sleep long enough to have some disturbing but now forgotten dream about operational process related to equipment delivery, and woke up in a cold sweat. Am I really hardwired to dream about work on Sunday night?
After the refreshing joy of a sunny day, the gloomy cloud cover returned this morning and rain is in the forecast for what we hope is our last full day in town. I got up around 7:00, made coffee, and wrote for about two hours, the time punctuated by random noises from the neighboring apartment.
We left for the orphanage about 10:00, and began the morning’s Blokus tournament with a tie between Mark and Lena. During Game Two, a girl summoned Lena to dance rehearsal; Lena replied with a rapid-fire string of angry Russian that could only be interpreted as “how dare you interrupt me when I’m with my FAMILY!” OK, so maybe that’s a little bit of an overstatement, but she clearly chose hanging out with us over rehearsing for tomorrow’s recital. When the game was over, though, she dutifully ran upstairs for the remainder of the short rehearsal and then returned.
Also, because of the break-neck pace of paperwork upon our arrival and because we arrived on a Saturday, we had skipped the usual “background information” meetings that families typically have on the first or second day. Today, we met with the medical and psychological staff at the Center to be sure that we had all the information we needed before returning to the States with Lena.
We were not surprised to discover that she’s very healthy and well-adjusted. The psychologist shared Lena’s strengths with us, and also helped us understand where she will need encouragement and guidance. Most importantly, since she also remembered Masha and had known the two of them together, she was able to share some insights into their interactions. We had made similar observations, and it was really comforting to get that professional confirmation from her.
We also asked for special permission to take Lena out to lunch. With the quarantine, we didn’t expect this to be approved, but we were pleasantly surprised when our translator popped his head into the room and asked where we wanted to take her. He recommended a place called Pasta Project. It was a newer restaurant, and each table was equipped with an interactive touchscreen menu with descriptions and photos of all the dishes on the expansive menu. Each time you added a dish to the order and told it to send the order to the kitchen, the computer confirmed “Your order is in the cooking.” :-)
The other couple joined us as well, and we were having a blast browsing the menus and submitting orders; I was a little scared of what the final bill would be. Even in what is probably one of the more expensive restaurants in town, though, we got out of there for just under $100 for six people…and we were STUFFED!
After lunch, we returned Lena to the Center and headed back to our apartment in the driving rain. We met up with the husband of the matroshka doll artist that we met last time we were in Ukraine, and he drove us to their home, with the translator and the other couple following us. She greeted us like old friends, and we admired some of her private collection of matroshkas (nesting dolls)…there were a couple of beautiful large dolls that we asked about, but she replied “Oh, those are not for sale, they’re mine!” She explained that they were both some of her earlier work, and were very special to her. We can see why! We still bought a lot of stuff, including an 11-pice set telling the story of Cinderella, and then her husband returned us to our apartment through nearly flooded streets; it’s been raining hard for two days straight….again.
Our last big purchases made, we began to pack our massive amounts of stuff into four suitcases. We held out everything we would need for traveling over the next two or three days, and then carefully wrapped vodka, chocolates, and matroshkas in our clothes. We are leaving with more stuff than we brought…and that says a lot, since we brought a lot of stuff for other people!! I am resolved to travel much lighter for Trip 2!
After we were all packed up, we invited our translator and the other family over for a drink and to prepare for court. We shared stories about kids, movies, language, and culture before they walked back to pack up.
A final note, as we were packing, we received confirmation that our last document had come through and was on its way here. We are all cleared for court at noon tomorrow (5:00 AM Eastern time for those of you awake and inclined to think about us at that god-awful time of day!), then back to the apartment for a quick change into travelling clothes, pile ALL the luggage into the car, then off to the orphanage for a dance recital/concert to celebrate the adoptions of both Lena and the other family.
5:50 AM: THUNK THUNK......THUNK THUNK THUNK..............THUNK THUNK.....THUNK......rattle rattle......THUNK THUNK.....THUNKTHUNK!
The neighbor apparently decided today was the ideal day to break through the concrete wall of his apartment with a sledgehammer to run a new electrical outlet or some other such nonsense. Yes, before 6 in the morning. Yes, it’s still dark out. This is crazy even by Ukrainian standards.
I got back to sleep long enough to have some disturbing but now forgotten dream about operational process related to equipment delivery, and woke up in a cold sweat. Am I really hardwired to dream about work on Sunday night?
After the refreshing joy of a sunny day, the gloomy cloud cover returned this morning and rain is in the forecast for what we hope is our last full day in town. I got up around 7:00, made coffee, and wrote for about two hours, the time punctuated by random noises from the neighboring apartment.
We left for the orphanage about 10:00, and began the morning’s Blokus tournament with a tie between Mark and Lena. During Game Two, a girl summoned Lena to dance rehearsal; Lena replied with a rapid-fire string of angry Russian that could only be interpreted as “how dare you interrupt me when I’m with my FAMILY!” OK, so maybe that’s a little bit of an overstatement, but she clearly chose hanging out with us over rehearsing for tomorrow’s recital. When the game was over, though, she dutifully ran upstairs for the remainder of the short rehearsal and then returned.
Also, because of the break-neck pace of paperwork upon our arrival and because we arrived on a Saturday, we had skipped the usual “background information” meetings that families typically have on the first or second day. Today, we met with the medical and psychological staff at the Center to be sure that we had all the information we needed before returning to the States with Lena.
We were not surprised to discover that she’s very healthy and well-adjusted. The psychologist shared Lena’s strengths with us, and also helped us understand where she will need encouragement and guidance. Most importantly, since she also remembered Masha and had known the two of them together, she was able to share some insights into their interactions. We had made similar observations, and it was really comforting to get that professional confirmation from her.
We also asked for special permission to take Lena out to lunch. With the quarantine, we didn’t expect this to be approved, but we were pleasantly surprised when our translator popped his head into the room and asked where we wanted to take her. He recommended a place called Pasta Project. It was a newer restaurant, and each table was equipped with an interactive touchscreen menu with descriptions and photos of all the dishes on the expansive menu. Each time you added a dish to the order and told it to send the order to the kitchen, the computer confirmed “Your order is in the cooking.” :-)
The other couple joined us as well, and we were having a blast browsing the menus and submitting orders; I was a little scared of what the final bill would be. Even in what is probably one of the more expensive restaurants in town, though, we got out of there for just under $100 for six people…and we were STUFFED!
After lunch, we returned Lena to the Center and headed back to our apartment in the driving rain. We met up with the husband of the matroshka doll artist that we met last time we were in Ukraine, and he drove us to their home, with the translator and the other couple following us. She greeted us like old friends, and we admired some of her private collection of matroshkas (nesting dolls)…there were a couple of beautiful large dolls that we asked about, but she replied “Oh, those are not for sale, they’re mine!” She explained that they were both some of her earlier work, and were very special to her. We can see why! We still bought a lot of stuff, including an 11-pice set telling the story of Cinderella, and then her husband returned us to our apartment through nearly flooded streets; it’s been raining hard for two days straight….again.
Our last big purchases made, we began to pack our massive amounts of stuff into four suitcases. We held out everything we would need for traveling over the next two or three days, and then carefully wrapped vodka, chocolates, and matroshkas in our clothes. We are leaving with more stuff than we brought…and that says a lot, since we brought a lot of stuff for other people!! I am resolved to travel much lighter for Trip 2!
After we were all packed up, we invited our translator and the other family over for a drink and to prepare for court. We shared stories about kids, movies, language, and culture before they walked back to pack up.
A final note, as we were packing, we received confirmation that our last document had come through and was on its way here. We are all cleared for court at noon tomorrow (5:00 AM Eastern time for those of you awake and inclined to think about us at that god-awful time of day!), then back to the apartment for a quick change into travelling clothes, pile ALL the luggage into the car, then off to the orphanage for a dance recital/concert to celebrate the adoptions of both Lena and the other family.
Monday, December 28, 2009
Here Comes the Sun!
Day 15 – Sunday, 27 December
Finally, a bright blue sky and sunshine bathed the courtyard behind our apartment! Neighborhood animals surveyed their territories, sniffing the trees, leaping from stairwell to windowsill.
We went downstairs a couple minutes early to wait for our driver in the crisp air. I discussed world politics with a pretty healthy-looking stray cat who alternately rubbed against me, attacked my head, and then rubbed again…clearly, I had violated etiquette by failing to present an offering of tuna to the King of the Alley.
We had been waiting about 15 minutes when Mark decided to call our translator to be sure we hadn’t been confused about our pick-up time; our translator was surprised to hear that we were still waiting and made a couple calls. There had been a communication mix-up with our driver, and a car arrived for us about 10 minutes later. These are the things you just take in stride…
Lena ran down to greet us when we arrived, returning New Moon and telling us how she and her friends enjoyed watching it. We pulled out Travel Blokus, and Lena quickly remembered how to play. She and Mark played a couple games with me helping both of them where I could. After a few minutes, we heard a bit of commotion upstairs, and kids started streaming out the front door; with the nice weather, it was time for the older kids’ groups to get some fresh air. Lena ran upstairs and reappeared with just her face peeking out of her coat, hat, and scarf.
We donned our coats as well, and followed her outside. The girls from her groupa quickly gathered around us and started practicing their English. We took many pictures, learned many of their names, and giggled as they played, sliding around on the ice, stomping in the mud, and generally enjoying the clear air and sunshine.
Too soon, the caretakers herded the kids back toward the front door. All of a sudden, all the girls ran over to a quickly-melting snowpile and started stomping around on it. We looked at them curiously until we realized that they were all cleaning the mud off the bottoms of their boots! We followed suit, and then everyone returned inside.
We had about an hour left of our visit with Lena, and we spent most of it watching her get better at Blokus. While she wasn’t winning yet, each game grew closer until the last game against Mark ended in a tie. She kept the game to play with her friends, and I suspect by tomorrow, she’ll be killing both of us.
When our time was complete, our driver took us to a restaurant by the Sea; we had heard about it, but in our 4 weeks here last time, never ate there! It was a beautiful day to sit by the window and look out over the sea; the ice gave way to soft waves about 100 yards off the coast. People took advantage of the great weather; couples walked along the coast, parents pushed strollers, people walked dogs on leashes (we were surprised by that one…you really don’t see a lot of leashes here!)
We enjoyed a couple of salads, including Herring Under a Fur Coat (which I found on the menu without the benefit of an English title!), a meatball soup, and a couple of kebabs. Add to that three beers between the two of us and we were stuffed for about $25.
We returned to the apartment with about an hour of daylight left; Mark couldn’t let it go to waste, so he asked our driver to take him up to the Ренок, the open air market, for a couple of hours while I stayed at the apartment. He picked up several souvenirs and had a great time; arriving back home safe and sound at about 5:00.
We puttered around the rest of the evening, finishing up a movie we had started earlier in the day, reading, and watching a Ukrainian music contest on TV—similar to American Idol—while riveted to NFL.com watching the Steelers finally pull off a win. Unfortunately, the Colts game started at 11:15PM local time, and we logged off and crashed just before kickoff (and, as I’m writing the following morning, I’m really glad I didn’t stay up for it!!)
Tomorrow is a pivotal day for us; we need one more document to be completed by the SDA in Kyiv in order for us to continue with our court hearing on Tuesday. It typically takes 5 days for them to produce this document, but everyone is trying get it done much more quickly so we can complete court before the holidays, and return home on the 31st as scheduled. Stay tuned, and pray hard for us?
Finally, a bright blue sky and sunshine bathed the courtyard behind our apartment! Neighborhood animals surveyed their territories, sniffing the trees, leaping from stairwell to windowsill.
We went downstairs a couple minutes early to wait for our driver in the crisp air. I discussed world politics with a pretty healthy-looking stray cat who alternately rubbed against me, attacked my head, and then rubbed again…clearly, I had violated etiquette by failing to present an offering of tuna to the King of the Alley.
We had been waiting about 15 minutes when Mark decided to call our translator to be sure we hadn’t been confused about our pick-up time; our translator was surprised to hear that we were still waiting and made a couple calls. There had been a communication mix-up with our driver, and a car arrived for us about 10 minutes later. These are the things you just take in stride…
Lena ran down to greet us when we arrived, returning New Moon and telling us how she and her friends enjoyed watching it. We pulled out Travel Blokus, and Lena quickly remembered how to play. She and Mark played a couple games with me helping both of them where I could. After a few minutes, we heard a bit of commotion upstairs, and kids started streaming out the front door; with the nice weather, it was time for the older kids’ groups to get some fresh air. Lena ran upstairs and reappeared with just her face peeking out of her coat, hat, and scarf.
We donned our coats as well, and followed her outside. The girls from her groupa quickly gathered around us and started practicing their English. We took many pictures, learned many of their names, and giggled as they played, sliding around on the ice, stomping in the mud, and generally enjoying the clear air and sunshine.
Too soon, the caretakers herded the kids back toward the front door. All of a sudden, all the girls ran over to a quickly-melting snowpile and started stomping around on it. We looked at them curiously until we realized that they were all cleaning the mud off the bottoms of their boots! We followed suit, and then everyone returned inside.
We had about an hour left of our visit with Lena, and we spent most of it watching her get better at Blokus. While she wasn’t winning yet, each game grew closer until the last game against Mark ended in a tie. She kept the game to play with her friends, and I suspect by tomorrow, she’ll be killing both of us.
When our time was complete, our driver took us to a restaurant by the Sea; we had heard about it, but in our 4 weeks here last time, never ate there! It was a beautiful day to sit by the window and look out over the sea; the ice gave way to soft waves about 100 yards off the coast. People took advantage of the great weather; couples walked along the coast, parents pushed strollers, people walked dogs on leashes (we were surprised by that one…you really don’t see a lot of leashes here!)
We enjoyed a couple of salads, including Herring Under a Fur Coat (which I found on the menu without the benefit of an English title!), a meatball soup, and a couple of kebabs. Add to that three beers between the two of us and we were stuffed for about $25.
We returned to the apartment with about an hour of daylight left; Mark couldn’t let it go to waste, so he asked our driver to take him up to the Ренок, the open air market, for a couple of hours while I stayed at the apartment. He picked up several souvenirs and had a great time; arriving back home safe and sound at about 5:00.
We puttered around the rest of the evening, finishing up a movie we had started earlier in the day, reading, and watching a Ukrainian music contest on TV—similar to American Idol—while riveted to NFL.com watching the Steelers finally pull off a win. Unfortunately, the Colts game started at 11:15PM local time, and we logged off and crashed just before kickoff (and, as I’m writing the following morning, I’m really glad I didn’t stay up for it!!)
Tomorrow is a pivotal day for us; we need one more document to be completed by the SDA in Kyiv in order for us to continue with our court hearing on Tuesday. It typically takes 5 days for them to produce this document, but everyone is trying get it done much more quickly so we can complete court before the holidays, and return home on the 31st as scheduled. Stay tuned, and pray hard for us?
Sleepy Saturday
Day 14 – Saturday, 26 December
Call us boring, but we just didn’t do that much today. The weather was awful; cold and rainy and gloomy. We went to the orphanage at about 10:40 and had a good visit with Lena. We gave her the DVD copy of New Moon and then played games—Uno is a big favorite, and we also played several rounds of Set, with Lena trouncing us each time.
After our visit, we returned to our apartment, grabbed a bit of lunch. Our driver returned around 2:30 to take us to the “upscale” mall in town. We are still amazed by the contrasts; in a town where the average income is well under $500 US per month, we see women dressed amazingly well in fur coats and hats, high heeled boots, and fashionable handbags. Yet the prices on these items at the mall are beyond even what I would be willing to pay…I saw a cute gray sweater on a mannequin and peeked at the price tag: 1,500 hrivna, or almost $200 US. ACK! Now, the prices at the other mall were a little bit lower, but I’ve been looking for a knit hat and can’t seem to find one for under $20. Where’s Wal-Mart when you need it??
We browsed the mall for about an hour, found the free wi-fi spot that the other family told us about, checked headlines and learned of the foiled terrorist attempt on the same route we will be flying on Thursday (Amsterdam to Detroit). Now there’s no way we can slip through even the small vodka bottles in our carryons…We’ll be watching the news a little more closely now to see if we need to change our packing strategy!
We stopped into an adjacent grocery store, picked up some Coke and a bottle of water, and then met our driver in front of the giant Santa outside the mall for a ride back home through the cold rain. Back home, we snacked and watched a couple of movies, and then headed for bed.
Call us boring, but we just didn’t do that much today. The weather was awful; cold and rainy and gloomy. We went to the orphanage at about 10:40 and had a good visit with Lena. We gave her the DVD copy of New Moon and then played games—Uno is a big favorite, and we also played several rounds of Set, with Lena trouncing us each time.
After our visit, we returned to our apartment, grabbed a bit of lunch. Our driver returned around 2:30 to take us to the “upscale” mall in town. We are still amazed by the contrasts; in a town where the average income is well under $500 US per month, we see women dressed amazingly well in fur coats and hats, high heeled boots, and fashionable handbags. Yet the prices on these items at the mall are beyond even what I would be willing to pay…I saw a cute gray sweater on a mannequin and peeked at the price tag: 1,500 hrivna, or almost $200 US. ACK! Now, the prices at the other mall were a little bit lower, but I’ve been looking for a knit hat and can’t seem to find one for under $20. Where’s Wal-Mart when you need it??
We browsed the mall for about an hour, found the free wi-fi spot that the other family told us about, checked headlines and learned of the foiled terrorist attempt on the same route we will be flying on Thursday (Amsterdam to Detroit). Now there’s no way we can slip through even the small vodka bottles in our carryons…We’ll be watching the news a little more closely now to see if we need to change our packing strategy!
We stopped into an adjacent grocery store, picked up some Coke and a bottle of water, and then met our driver in front of the giant Santa outside the mall for a ride back home through the cold rain. Back home, we snacked and watched a couple of movies, and then headed for bed.
Saturday, December 26, 2009
Merry Christmas
Day 13 – Friday, 25 December
In our dreams, Christmas dawns still and clear, sunshine glinting off freshly fallen snow, reindeer tracks on the roofs of every small child. In Ukraine…not so much.
We have figured out how Santa manages…he distributes his workload in Europe across the month of December, visiting Ukraine (and probably many other places) over New Year’s; he’s not due here for another week. He did a fly-by for us, though, and dropped off some warmer temperatures.
As our translator left the apartment around 9:30, she winked and instructed me to look at the window—she thought she heard Дед Морошь (Santa) during the night. In my morning haze, however, my brain processed her command as “Look OUT the window.” I spent the next 20-30 minutes intently staring out the window while I tried to get my laptop online. I have no idea at all what I was supposed to see, but I was sure I was supposed to be looking out the window.
When our translator called again to let us know when our driver would arrive, she asked if we had found it.
Mark: Found what??
Translator: Look on the windowsill behind the blind.
“Santa” had been there, and had brought us a couple of small souvenirs from the town we are staying in! Our translator is so thoughtful!! It’s so wonderful when you meet someone halfway around the world, and things just click so quickly that you can move beyond the professional arrangement and into a real friendship, and we really look forward to staying in touch with her after we get back home.
Lena had asked us to wear warm clothes today so that we could go outside and walk around, maybe slide down the small hill on the orphanage grounds a few times, and get some fresh air. Looking outside, I was skeptical, but we bundled up with thermals and extra layers anyway.
On the way to the orphanage, we stopped at a bookstore to pick up a Christmas gift for Lena. The plan had been to give her the first Twilight book. We needed to get a new copy….the ones we bought in Kyiv were in Ukrainian, and she told us a few days ago that she doesn’t read Ukrainian all that well; she prefers Russian. Ooops. We walked into the bookstore, and the first thing we saw was a beautiful boxed set of all four books in Russian. It was a little bit more than we had planned to spend, but it was less than I spent on my English set. We paid, and then Mark remembered that we needed a gift bag. We returned, and selected a cute pink gift bag with butterflies. After a short but intense discussion regarding the need (or not) for tissue paper (I didn’t see any and have no clue how to ask for it, so my position was that we didn’t need it…), we purchased the gift bag and left.
We arrived at the orphanage during dance rehearsal, so we waited patiently. Soon enough, Lena appeared. She presented each of us with a gift; mine was a pretty folded-paper vase with six flowers, and Mark’s was a small swan. She told us that she had learned about half of the English words that I wrote down for her yesterday, but she’s still pretty self-conscious and she refused to tell us which ones. We all decided that the weather was too grim to walk outside, so we just hung out for a while, Lena taunting the fish in the aquarium with a plastic shark at regular intervals.
Near the end of our visit, our translator finished with the family she was helping, and we presented her Christmas gifts…the book set, a Russian copy of the Twilight DVD, and a new wristwatch. Lena was overjoyed; she decided that we should take the books back in our luggage on this trip, and then she could read them when she arrived in the US.
Our translator asked her to make a list of any other Russian books, DVDs, or music that she wanted, and after we left the orphanage, she took us shopping. Shopping in Ukraine is an interesting prospect…the economy here is growing, and you can find modern malls with specialty shops as well as open air markets and street vendors. Mall shops tend to be pretty expensive and carry somewhat higher quality merchandise—the street vendors are where the deals are.
Our translator and driver shuttled us through the foggy streets to find the best prices. Each vendor was happy to show us his selection of CDs and DVDs, and we quickly discovered that some of them might not be of entirely legitimate origin, considering that we found DVDs for movies like Avatar, 2012, and New Moon…still in theaters! We returned from our shopping expedition with several books and a few movies and DVDs for Lena to watch as she settles in, and also to help keep both girls exposed to the Russian language over time.
Shopping works up an appetite, so we popped into a pizza restaurant for a final meal with our translator before she returned on tonight’s train to Kyiv. As we returned to our apartment, we passed through the center of town and noticed a big holiday celebration getting underway. As we live only a couple blocks away, we quickly returned to the apartment, organized our purchases, and then set off into the early evening.
As we walked toward the city center, we browsed through a few shops, enjoying the walk through the balmy 40-degree evening. We visited a pet shop and saw Chinchillas, miniature guinea pigs, and even piranhas! We also stopped into a couple of watch shops, and browsed through one of the local malls. The highlight of the evening, though, was the outdoor program to kick off the holiday season. A crowd of people gathered in front of the town’s auditorium; families with small children, small groups of high school friends, and older people. A huge Christmas tree was set up next to a small stage, where the town was treated to skits with St. Nicholas and the Snow Princess and performances from what appeared to be local high school kids.
All in all, a unique and memorable Christmas day!
In our dreams, Christmas dawns still and clear, sunshine glinting off freshly fallen snow, reindeer tracks on the roofs of every small child. In Ukraine…not so much.
We have figured out how Santa manages…he distributes his workload in Europe across the month of December, visiting Ukraine (and probably many other places) over New Year’s; he’s not due here for another week. He did a fly-by for us, though, and dropped off some warmer temperatures.
As our translator left the apartment around 9:30, she winked and instructed me to look at the window—she thought she heard Дед Морошь (Santa) during the night. In my morning haze, however, my brain processed her command as “Look OUT the window.” I spent the next 20-30 minutes intently staring out the window while I tried to get my laptop online. I have no idea at all what I was supposed to see, but I was sure I was supposed to be looking out the window.
When our translator called again to let us know when our driver would arrive, she asked if we had found it.
Mark: Found what??
Translator: Look on the windowsill behind the blind.
“Santa” had been there, and had brought us a couple of small souvenirs from the town we are staying in! Our translator is so thoughtful!! It’s so wonderful when you meet someone halfway around the world, and things just click so quickly that you can move beyond the professional arrangement and into a real friendship, and we really look forward to staying in touch with her after we get back home.
Lena had asked us to wear warm clothes today so that we could go outside and walk around, maybe slide down the small hill on the orphanage grounds a few times, and get some fresh air. Looking outside, I was skeptical, but we bundled up with thermals and extra layers anyway.
On the way to the orphanage, we stopped at a bookstore to pick up a Christmas gift for Lena. The plan had been to give her the first Twilight book. We needed to get a new copy….the ones we bought in Kyiv were in Ukrainian, and she told us a few days ago that she doesn’t read Ukrainian all that well; she prefers Russian. Ooops. We walked into the bookstore, and the first thing we saw was a beautiful boxed set of all four books in Russian. It was a little bit more than we had planned to spend, but it was less than I spent on my English set. We paid, and then Mark remembered that we needed a gift bag. We returned, and selected a cute pink gift bag with butterflies. After a short but intense discussion regarding the need (or not) for tissue paper (I didn’t see any and have no clue how to ask for it, so my position was that we didn’t need it…), we purchased the gift bag and left.
We arrived at the orphanage during dance rehearsal, so we waited patiently. Soon enough, Lena appeared. She presented each of us with a gift; mine was a pretty folded-paper vase with six flowers, and Mark’s was a small swan. She told us that she had learned about half of the English words that I wrote down for her yesterday, but she’s still pretty self-conscious and she refused to tell us which ones. We all decided that the weather was too grim to walk outside, so we just hung out for a while, Lena taunting the fish in the aquarium with a plastic shark at regular intervals.
Near the end of our visit, our translator finished with the family she was helping, and we presented her Christmas gifts…the book set, a Russian copy of the Twilight DVD, and a new wristwatch. Lena was overjoyed; she decided that we should take the books back in our luggage on this trip, and then she could read them when she arrived in the US.
Our translator asked her to make a list of any other Russian books, DVDs, or music that she wanted, and after we left the orphanage, she took us shopping. Shopping in Ukraine is an interesting prospect…the economy here is growing, and you can find modern malls with specialty shops as well as open air markets and street vendors. Mall shops tend to be pretty expensive and carry somewhat higher quality merchandise—the street vendors are where the deals are.
Our translator and driver shuttled us through the foggy streets to find the best prices. Each vendor was happy to show us his selection of CDs and DVDs, and we quickly discovered that some of them might not be of entirely legitimate origin, considering that we found DVDs for movies like Avatar, 2012, and New Moon…still in theaters! We returned from our shopping expedition with several books and a few movies and DVDs for Lena to watch as she settles in, and also to help keep both girls exposed to the Russian language over time.
Shopping works up an appetite, so we popped into a pizza restaurant for a final meal with our translator before she returned on tonight’s train to Kyiv. As we returned to our apartment, we passed through the center of town and noticed a big holiday celebration getting underway. As we live only a couple blocks away, we quickly returned to the apartment, organized our purchases, and then set off into the early evening.
As we walked toward the city center, we browsed through a few shops, enjoying the walk through the balmy 40-degree evening. We visited a pet shop and saw Chinchillas, miniature guinea pigs, and even piranhas! We also stopped into a couple of watch shops, and browsed through one of the local malls. The highlight of the evening, though, was the outdoor program to kick off the holiday season. A crowd of people gathered in front of the town’s auditorium; families with small children, small groups of high school friends, and older people. A huge Christmas tree was set up next to a small stage, where the town was treated to skits with St. Nicholas and the Snow Princess and performances from what appeared to be local high school kids.
All in all, a unique and memorable Christmas day!
Friday, December 25, 2009
Pins and Pine Needles
Day 12 – Thursday, 24 December
Today is just another workday in Ukraine, and we are waiting for another key document, without which we are dead in the water. Yesterday, our translator had extracted a promise from the official responsible for this document, “Tomorrow morning.” She left the apartment early and promised to call us as soon as it was ready.
I perched myself in the corner of the kitchen with a pot of coffee and caught up on blogging. Mark settled in at the desk and focused on work. We both waited on pins and needles for the phone to ring.
10:00…11:00…Noon…as time passed, we began to fret a little more. We had planned to leave around 3:00 to visit the orphanage, and we thought the document would be long finished before then. We finally received a call around 2:30. Our document was finished; one more hurdle was cleared, and it was time to go visit Lena.
We gathered our things, bundled up, and headed down to the car. When we arrived at the orphanage, the first question out of Lena’s mouth was “When is court?” We told her the hearing date and time, and then reviewed the timeline of my second trip on the calendar with her. We can tell that she is thinking deeply about the changes that are coming in her life. She is very excited about finally being an official part of our family, but there’s also a real sense of loss for the life that she knows and the people here that she cares about, and anxiety for the challenges that lie ahead.
I held her for a few minutes while she mused, then she lifted her head off my shoulder and asked to play a game. She perked up quickly as she won the first game. We visited for a couple of hours, playing games, chatting, and reviewing music on our iPods until it was time to go. Lena asked us to wear warm clothes tomorrow so we can all go outside together tomorrow; she reminded us about 5 more times before we left!
Because we only had one car for two families today, our translator went back to the apartment first, and sent the car back for us about 30 minutes later. We ran a couple of errands with the other family on the way home; and when we arrived at our apartment, it was full of Christmas cheer! Our translator had found some Christmas decorations—lights and ornaments—and had hung them up in our room while she was waiting for us. It was so sweet and thoughtful of her, and it helped today feel a little bit more like Christmas Eve.
We decided to celebrate Christmas Eve together with the other family and our translator at the hotel restaurant across the street. The five of us met there, and enjoyed a leisurely dinner filled with more food than we could eat and great conversation. I learned that Ukrainians never take restaurant leftovers home…as I asked for a box for the salmon I couldn’t finish! We were so full we could barely walk, but we made it home, had a cup of tea and chatted with our translator a little longer, and then crashed.
Today is just another workday in Ukraine, and we are waiting for another key document, without which we are dead in the water. Yesterday, our translator had extracted a promise from the official responsible for this document, “Tomorrow morning.” She left the apartment early and promised to call us as soon as it was ready.
I perched myself in the corner of the kitchen with a pot of coffee and caught up on blogging. Mark settled in at the desk and focused on work. We both waited on pins and needles for the phone to ring.
10:00…11:00…Noon…as time passed, we began to fret a little more. We had planned to leave around 3:00 to visit the orphanage, and we thought the document would be long finished before then. We finally received a call around 2:30. Our document was finished; one more hurdle was cleared, and it was time to go visit Lena.
We gathered our things, bundled up, and headed down to the car. When we arrived at the orphanage, the first question out of Lena’s mouth was “When is court?” We told her the hearing date and time, and then reviewed the timeline of my second trip on the calendar with her. We can tell that she is thinking deeply about the changes that are coming in her life. She is very excited about finally being an official part of our family, but there’s also a real sense of loss for the life that she knows and the people here that she cares about, and anxiety for the challenges that lie ahead.
I held her for a few minutes while she mused, then she lifted her head off my shoulder and asked to play a game. She perked up quickly as she won the first game. We visited for a couple of hours, playing games, chatting, and reviewing music on our iPods until it was time to go. Lena asked us to wear warm clothes tomorrow so we can all go outside together tomorrow; she reminded us about 5 more times before we left!
Because we only had one car for two families today, our translator went back to the apartment first, and sent the car back for us about 30 minutes later. We ran a couple of errands with the other family on the way home; and when we arrived at our apartment, it was full of Christmas cheer! Our translator had found some Christmas decorations—lights and ornaments—and had hung them up in our room while she was waiting for us. It was so sweet and thoughtful of her, and it helped today feel a little bit more like Christmas Eve.
We decided to celebrate Christmas Eve together with the other family and our translator at the hotel restaurant across the street. The five of us met there, and enjoyed a leisurely dinner filled with more food than we could eat and great conversation. I learned that Ukrainians never take restaurant leftovers home…as I asked for a box for the salmon I couldn’t finish! We were so full we could barely walk, but we made it home, had a cup of tea and chatted with our translator a little longer, and then crashed.
Thursday, December 24, 2009
We Have a Court Date!
Day 11 – Wednesday, 23 December
Wake up. Drink Coffee. Feel panicked about lack of blog posts. Write most of Monday's blog. Answer phone. Take fastest shower ever. Run down to car.
While our translator continues to run all over town working on documentation for us, we were allowed a very long visit at the orphanage today. We arrived a bit before 11:00, and Lena came down grinning. As we hugged, her friend Christina stepped into the room and greeted us. Christina was adopted by an American family a few years ago, and has come back to Ukraine for an extended visit with her grandmother. She hung out with us today and helped translate.
I brought some extra clothes with me today for Lena to try on, so we can get a feel for sizes. She has grown a bit since last time we saw her, and is a very normal, healthy 14-year old!
Once the fashion show was complete, we asked Lena about the folded paper bird that she had given us on Monday, and the other sculptures that the girls had made. We suggested that sometime she could show us how they were made; she quickly ran into the adjacent room, grabbed a crane-looking bird, and started deconstructing it!
Us: “Lena, what are you doing!?!?! Put that back together!”
Her: “I don’t think I know how. But it’s OK, it’s not mine.”
She is a very determined girl, though. She claimed the ability to reassemble a new bird in under 20 minutes. She took the entire thing apart, separated the paper pieces by color, and then proceeded to build a new one while Dad timed her. She did produce something in that time, although it wasn’t *quite* like the original. And it was missing a head. But she called it complete, and claimed success. Who are we to argue with art? Perhaps it should be named Ichabod?
We passed a good part of the afternoon chatting and playing. Lena took our camera and snapped many photos of her friends. Lena made up new rules for Uno (to her advantage, of course), like if two cards add up to the number that’s showing, you can play them both. Or like if a number is showing and you have two more of them, you can play them both. Uh…no. Masha was getting excited to have a fourth in the family so we could play more games together, but I suspect that maybe we’ll be spending more time refereeing then playing!
After several fun-filled hours, our translator appeared again, and told us today’s visit was coming to an end. We visited for a few minutes with the Director of the orphanage, gave her the gifts that we brought (a framed photo of the four of us, plus a small photo album filled with photos of Masha and the family), and showed her the video that Masha made for her.
The Director talked to us about the importance of families for children and reminded us that children need rules and consistent enforcement of boundaries. She also told us to encourage the girls in the areas where they showed talent and that it was very important that they keep their native language as they learn English. This was a bit of a guilt-trip for us, as Masha has clearly forgotten her Russian, although we all hope that she’ll remember it when Lena gets home. But Lena has already told us that she wants to keep her Russian, and being a little older, I suspect it will be a little easier for her than it was for Masha.
Our meeting complete, we left the Center around 3, stopped to exchange some money, and then our translator dropped us off at the grocery store while she ran to check on one of our documents. Even though we only had eight items on our grocery list, we piled back into the car a half-hour later with a full cartload of groceries.
As we pulled out of the parking lot, our translator handed us a document and joyfully informed us that we will have our court hearing next Tuesday at noon! This is great news, as it’s perfect timing to make our return flight home on the 31st (with no change fees or thousands of dollars in additional fares), and it allows us now to plan and book flights for me to return after the mandatory two-week appeal period to bring Lena home.
We still have a few documents that need to be completed before the court hearing, but we’re on track, and our translator is not worried. One more stop for a followup before close of business, and then we head home to start dinner.
Since I found fresh ginger at the grocery, tonight I made one of our favorite dinners from home…Clay Pot Ginger Chicken. Even though it’s not real Clay Pot (and not nearly as good as at Bamboo in Malvern), it’s a taste of home. We invited the other couple over (they are staying just a couple doors down in the same apartment building, so it’s easy to visit), and they arrived just as I was finishing cleaning and cutting the chicken.
Beer and vodka began to flow, and we chatted as I made not nearly enough rice, then made way too much more rice but burned the bottom (ohhh, how I miss my rice steamer!). We all realized that tomorrow is Christmas Eve, and over dinner, we compared American and Ukrainian holiday traditions for Christmas and New Year’s. We explained our Christmas traditions to our translator, and she described their New Year’s traditions.
After a wonderful evening with our new friends, they bid us good night. We called home, talked to Mash, and then went to bed.
Wake up. Drink Coffee. Feel panicked about lack of blog posts. Write most of Monday's blog. Answer phone. Take fastest shower ever. Run down to car.
While our translator continues to run all over town working on documentation for us, we were allowed a very long visit at the orphanage today. We arrived a bit before 11:00, and Lena came down grinning. As we hugged, her friend Christina stepped into the room and greeted us. Christina was adopted by an American family a few years ago, and has come back to Ukraine for an extended visit with her grandmother. She hung out with us today and helped translate.
I brought some extra clothes with me today for Lena to try on, so we can get a feel for sizes. She has grown a bit since last time we saw her, and is a very normal, healthy 14-year old!
Once the fashion show was complete, we asked Lena about the folded paper bird that she had given us on Monday, and the other sculptures that the girls had made. We suggested that sometime she could show us how they were made; she quickly ran into the adjacent room, grabbed a crane-looking bird, and started deconstructing it!
Us: “Lena, what are you doing!?!?! Put that back together!”
Her: “I don’t think I know how. But it’s OK, it’s not mine.”
She is a very determined girl, though. She claimed the ability to reassemble a new bird in under 20 minutes. She took the entire thing apart, separated the paper pieces by color, and then proceeded to build a new one while Dad timed her. She did produce something in that time, although it wasn’t *quite* like the original. And it was missing a head. But she called it complete, and claimed success. Who are we to argue with art? Perhaps it should be named Ichabod?
We passed a good part of the afternoon chatting and playing. Lena took our camera and snapped many photos of her friends. Lena made up new rules for Uno (to her advantage, of course), like if two cards add up to the number that’s showing, you can play them both. Or like if a number is showing and you have two more of them, you can play them both. Uh…no. Masha was getting excited to have a fourth in the family so we could play more games together, but I suspect that maybe we’ll be spending more time refereeing then playing!
After several fun-filled hours, our translator appeared again, and told us today’s visit was coming to an end. We visited for a few minutes with the Director of the orphanage, gave her the gifts that we brought (a framed photo of the four of us, plus a small photo album filled with photos of Masha and the family), and showed her the video that Masha made for her.
The Director talked to us about the importance of families for children and reminded us that children need rules and consistent enforcement of boundaries. She also told us to encourage the girls in the areas where they showed talent and that it was very important that they keep their native language as they learn English. This was a bit of a guilt-trip for us, as Masha has clearly forgotten her Russian, although we all hope that she’ll remember it when Lena gets home. But Lena has already told us that she wants to keep her Russian, and being a little older, I suspect it will be a little easier for her than it was for Masha.
Our meeting complete, we left the Center around 3, stopped to exchange some money, and then our translator dropped us off at the grocery store while she ran to check on one of our documents. Even though we only had eight items on our grocery list, we piled back into the car a half-hour later with a full cartload of groceries.
As we pulled out of the parking lot, our translator handed us a document and joyfully informed us that we will have our court hearing next Tuesday at noon! This is great news, as it’s perfect timing to make our return flight home on the 31st (with no change fees or thousands of dollars in additional fares), and it allows us now to plan and book flights for me to return after the mandatory two-week appeal period to bring Lena home.
We still have a few documents that need to be completed before the court hearing, but we’re on track, and our translator is not worried. One more stop for a followup before close of business, and then we head home to start dinner.
Since I found fresh ginger at the grocery, tonight I made one of our favorite dinners from home…Clay Pot Ginger Chicken. Even though it’s not real Clay Pot (and not nearly as good as at Bamboo in Malvern), it’s a taste of home. We invited the other couple over (they are staying just a couple doors down in the same apartment building, so it’s easy to visit), and they arrived just as I was finishing cleaning and cutting the chicken.
Beer and vodka began to flow, and we chatted as I made not nearly enough rice, then made way too much more rice but burned the bottom (ohhh, how I miss my rice steamer!). We all realized that tomorrow is Christmas Eve, and over dinner, we compared American and Ukrainian holiday traditions for Christmas and New Year’s. We explained our Christmas traditions to our translator, and she described their New Year’s traditions.
After a wonderful evening with our new friends, they bid us good night. We called home, talked to Mash, and then went to bed.
Writer’s Block
Day 10 – Tuesday, 22 December
I’m settling into a morning routine: make coffee, set up laptop in the corner of the kitchen by the radiator and write before Mark wakes up. But occasionally, I have a day when I sit in front of my keyboard and my fingers simply won’t produce the words. Today was one of those days.
I got up about 8:15, as our translator zipped out the door to chase more documents. By 9:30, when the only words on the screen were “Day 9 – Monday, 21 December,” I gave up and switched to a book.
Today’s goal was to finish the local court resolution, which would allow us to get on the schedule for our court hearing…hopefully early next week! We thought yesterday was the last day the court was scheduling new hearings, but our translators have been working closely with the local authorities; because of the importance of completing our hearing before the holidays, they have made special arrangements to accept our documents whenever they are complete, and they keep telling us not to worry.
Our translator appeared back at the apartment around lunchtime, saying “We wait.” Around 2:30, her phone rang, she announced, “We go.” And we went. And we waited. Seriously, people. Bring books. I am soooo thankful for my Sony PR505; I am comforted to know that I will not run out of reading material while we wait and wait and wait. At under a pound, carrying more books than I could read in a year, it’s making all the waiting bearable. In the back of the cold car for almost two hours, I finished The Time Traveler’s Wife.
About the time it got too dark to read, we saw a familiar face leave the Notary. He approached the car and told us we could go in. We quickly reviewed the document, signed five copies, and piled back into the car. Although our documentation for court is still not finished, our translator tells us that we are still on track for court early next week. No worries.
Nearly 5:00, we headed to the orphanage for a short visit with Lena. With tears in her eyes but a smile on her face, Lena came running down and gave us huge hugs. We just hugged her and held her until she settled in. We learned that she is very worried about court and she’s still having a hard time believing that we’re finally here and that all of this is real. I cuddled with her on the couch of the Bird Room while Mark extracted his laptop, called home, and woke Masha up for a video call via Skype.
Because we arrived so late, our time today was short. We left the Center about 5:45 and realized we were all starving! We had heard about a restaurant in town called “Potato House,” which was, oddly, a Tex-Mex burrito place. A large wooden Indian greeted us as we entered the packed restaurant, and all the employees wore cowboy hats. We each ordered a beer and a “spicy” chicken burrito (we were advised to steer clear of the steak…) and found a table.
A few minutes later, steaming hot chicken burritos were delivered to our table. As we dug in, we realized that while they were quite tasty, they sure didn’t taste like any burrito we’d ever eaten. Chicken. Mushrooms. Garlic sauce. In a tortilla.
Back at home, I took notes as our translator taught me to make another of the wonderful salads that is common here (Lisa, it’s the Amstor egg salad!!!)…we are eating like royalty this time! As she finished, though, my head assaulted me with a wicked sharp pain and I started feeling kind of nasty. I tasted a bite of the salad and then stumbled off to bed around 8:00.
I’m settling into a morning routine: make coffee, set up laptop in the corner of the kitchen by the radiator and write before Mark wakes up. But occasionally, I have a day when I sit in front of my keyboard and my fingers simply won’t produce the words. Today was one of those days.
I got up about 8:15, as our translator zipped out the door to chase more documents. By 9:30, when the only words on the screen were “Day 9 – Monday, 21 December,” I gave up and switched to a book.
Today’s goal was to finish the local court resolution, which would allow us to get on the schedule for our court hearing…hopefully early next week! We thought yesterday was the last day the court was scheduling new hearings, but our translators have been working closely with the local authorities; because of the importance of completing our hearing before the holidays, they have made special arrangements to accept our documents whenever they are complete, and they keep telling us not to worry.
Our translator appeared back at the apartment around lunchtime, saying “We wait.” Around 2:30, her phone rang, she announced, “We go.” And we went. And we waited. Seriously, people. Bring books. I am soooo thankful for my Sony PR505; I am comforted to know that I will not run out of reading material while we wait and wait and wait. At under a pound, carrying more books than I could read in a year, it’s making all the waiting bearable. In the back of the cold car for almost two hours, I finished The Time Traveler’s Wife.
About the time it got too dark to read, we saw a familiar face leave the Notary. He approached the car and told us we could go in. We quickly reviewed the document, signed five copies, and piled back into the car. Although our documentation for court is still not finished, our translator tells us that we are still on track for court early next week. No worries.
Nearly 5:00, we headed to the orphanage for a short visit with Lena. With tears in her eyes but a smile on her face, Lena came running down and gave us huge hugs. We just hugged her and held her until she settled in. We learned that she is very worried about court and she’s still having a hard time believing that we’re finally here and that all of this is real. I cuddled with her on the couch of the Bird Room while Mark extracted his laptop, called home, and woke Masha up for a video call via Skype.
Because we arrived so late, our time today was short. We left the Center about 5:45 and realized we were all starving! We had heard about a restaurant in town called “Potato House,” which was, oddly, a Tex-Mex burrito place. A large wooden Indian greeted us as we entered the packed restaurant, and all the employees wore cowboy hats. We each ordered a beer and a “spicy” chicken burrito (we were advised to steer clear of the steak…) and found a table.
A few minutes later, steaming hot chicken burritos were delivered to our table. As we dug in, we realized that while they were quite tasty, they sure didn’t taste like any burrito we’d ever eaten. Chicken. Mushrooms. Garlic sauce. In a tortilla.
Back at home, I took notes as our translator taught me to make another of the wonderful salads that is common here (Lisa, it’s the Amstor egg salad!!!)…we are eating like royalty this time! As she finished, though, my head assaulted me with a wicked sharp pain and I started feeling kind of nasty. I tasted a bite of the salad and then stumbled off to bed around 8:00.
Document Day
Day 9 – Monday, 21 December
Google the word “Monday” and I’m sure you’ll find the following definition: “Retribution for a leisurely Sunday.” Our translator and I were both up around 7:30. She scurried out the door a little after 8, and told us that we would be needed maybe around 10 or 11.
Perhaps at this point, a cross-functional process diagram might be helpful, but I’m just not inclined to fire up Visio. Feels too much like work. Suffice to say there are many reviews and authorizations and circular escalations to create each document in the process, and there are several documents created in sequence for each adoption. Our role is to wait quietly until our signatures are required, then scramble to the Notary’s office to show our passports and sign many copies of a document, and then wait quietly some more until the next document is ready.
We were prepared for a very busy Monday, but we’ve found that our translator is the one doing allllll the work. She is running around from office to office getting the documents drafted and approved and approved again and edited and re-approved, and then sending a car for us, and then sending us back home again. We simply maintain a state of readiness; prepared to leave the apartment at a moment’s notice.
So, we got ourselves all coffeed up and ready to face the world, and then…nothing. The phone finally rang around 11, and our translator said “Maybe it will be a little while longer. I will call you when we are ready for you.” Hmm. That could mean 15 minutes or 4 hours. I hopped online, downloaded emails, replied to emails, did a little work, read a half a book, and generally waited. Mark’s been able to dig into of lot of documentation for his work, but I’m having trouble getting too deeply engrossed in anything, because we have to be ready to leave at a moment’s notice. But we can’t sit and stare at the wall, either.
Finally, about 1:45, the phone rang. “In ten minutes, you will go downstairs. There will be a black car with a horse on the front. You will get in. It will bring you to me.” Felt like The Godfather, Ukrainian Edition.
Thirty minutes later, we were walking back into our apartment, our work for the day finished. Turns out all we needed to do was walk in, sign a couple pages, and go back home. Signed documents in hand, our translator bolted out the door and off in another direction for more scurrying.
Around 4:00, the phone rang again. Our translator was in the car downstairs, ready to take us to the orphanage to see Lena. Scramble around, run downstairs, pile in the car.
The orphanage was bustling…the children were preparing for an anniversary celebration to be held tomorrow, with a big program of singing and dancing by the children. Unfortunately, with the flu quarantine, we would not be allowed to attend the performance. Lena appeared in her costume, panting and tired from practice. She hugged us, then ran upstairs to change clothes. She reappeared, accompanied by two friends. And an intricately folded paper bird. Her friend presented us with this beautiful swan; we had seen some similar pieces in the visiting room the day before, so the girls had made one for us that morning!
We were able to hang out for about an hour while our translator worked in the office on some more documentation. Lena asked us to quiz her on reading numbers; I wrote a 4-digit number on my notebook, and she read it off in English. We chatted a bit, looking up translations in the Russian/English dictionary as needed, and asking our translator to clarify as she popped in and out of the room. We didn’t need too much help, though…Lena has been practicing her English, and she’s really getting good.
We went through all the family photos, and learned that Lena thinks the trees behind our house remind her of the forest in the Twilight movie. She practiced her new signature, Elena Grace Niles, adding curlicues and flourishes, and being certain that it reflects her personality. Lena asked many questions about Masha and school. It’s clear that she’s nervous about the big change ahead of her, but that she’s getting excited, too.
Around 5:30, we left the orphanage and headed to a local pizza place for a bite. As we stood in line, our translator’s phone rang. It was her boss, who was also in town working with the other family. They chatted for a minute and devised a plan to have a little party with both families at our apartment after dinner. We quickly ate our pizza and then stopped at the store to stock up on party supplies—sausage, cheese, bread, olives, and of course, chocolates and vodka.
As they arrived, we scrambled to try to find chairs enough for everyone, and then gathered around the table in our tiny kitchen. We toasted and ate and talked and laughed all evening, and had a great time getting to know the other family, and getting to know our translators better. We learned a lot:
• One person pours drinks for everyone at the table
• It’s bad luck for women to pour drinks in a mixed group
• When a bottle is emptied, the person whose glass is filled last makes a wish, blows it into the empty bottle and then seals the bottle up
• It’s bad luck to leave an empty bottle on the table
• Ukrainians love their vodka!
Our translator’s boss regaled us with stories of Ukrainian history and tradition, while sitting on an upturned bucket (since we didn’t have enough chairs). We thought the other family might turn into pumpkins, as they had taken the train down the night before and hadn’t slept for a while, but they are troopers, and the vodka flowed until after 11:00.
Google the word “Monday” and I’m sure you’ll find the following definition: “Retribution for a leisurely Sunday.” Our translator and I were both up around 7:30. She scurried out the door a little after 8, and told us that we would be needed maybe around 10 or 11.
Perhaps at this point, a cross-functional process diagram might be helpful, but I’m just not inclined to fire up Visio. Feels too much like work. Suffice to say there are many reviews and authorizations and circular escalations to create each document in the process, and there are several documents created in sequence for each adoption. Our role is to wait quietly until our signatures are required, then scramble to the Notary’s office to show our passports and sign many copies of a document, and then wait quietly some more until the next document is ready.
We were prepared for a very busy Monday, but we’ve found that our translator is the one doing allllll the work. She is running around from office to office getting the documents drafted and approved and approved again and edited and re-approved, and then sending a car for us, and then sending us back home again. We simply maintain a state of readiness; prepared to leave the apartment at a moment’s notice.
So, we got ourselves all coffeed up and ready to face the world, and then…nothing. The phone finally rang around 11, and our translator said “Maybe it will be a little while longer. I will call you when we are ready for you.” Hmm. That could mean 15 minutes or 4 hours. I hopped online, downloaded emails, replied to emails, did a little work, read a half a book, and generally waited. Mark’s been able to dig into of lot of documentation for his work, but I’m having trouble getting too deeply engrossed in anything, because we have to be ready to leave at a moment’s notice. But we can’t sit and stare at the wall, either.
Finally, about 1:45, the phone rang. “In ten minutes, you will go downstairs. There will be a black car with a horse on the front. You will get in. It will bring you to me.” Felt like The Godfather, Ukrainian Edition.
Thirty minutes later, we were walking back into our apartment, our work for the day finished. Turns out all we needed to do was walk in, sign a couple pages, and go back home. Signed documents in hand, our translator bolted out the door and off in another direction for more scurrying.
Around 4:00, the phone rang again. Our translator was in the car downstairs, ready to take us to the orphanage to see Lena. Scramble around, run downstairs, pile in the car.
The orphanage was bustling…the children were preparing for an anniversary celebration to be held tomorrow, with a big program of singing and dancing by the children. Unfortunately, with the flu quarantine, we would not be allowed to attend the performance. Lena appeared in her costume, panting and tired from practice. She hugged us, then ran upstairs to change clothes. She reappeared, accompanied by two friends. And an intricately folded paper bird. Her friend presented us with this beautiful swan; we had seen some similar pieces in the visiting room the day before, so the girls had made one for us that morning!
We were able to hang out for about an hour while our translator worked in the office on some more documentation. Lena asked us to quiz her on reading numbers; I wrote a 4-digit number on my notebook, and she read it off in English. We chatted a bit, looking up translations in the Russian/English dictionary as needed, and asking our translator to clarify as she popped in and out of the room. We didn’t need too much help, though…Lena has been practicing her English, and she’s really getting good.
We went through all the family photos, and learned that Lena thinks the trees behind our house remind her of the forest in the Twilight movie. She practiced her new signature, Elena Grace Niles, adding curlicues and flourishes, and being certain that it reflects her personality. Lena asked many questions about Masha and school. It’s clear that she’s nervous about the big change ahead of her, but that she’s getting excited, too.
Around 5:30, we left the orphanage and headed to a local pizza place for a bite. As we stood in line, our translator’s phone rang. It was her boss, who was also in town working with the other family. They chatted for a minute and devised a plan to have a little party with both families at our apartment after dinner. We quickly ate our pizza and then stopped at the store to stock up on party supplies—sausage, cheese, bread, olives, and of course, chocolates and vodka.
As they arrived, we scrambled to try to find chairs enough for everyone, and then gathered around the table in our tiny kitchen. We toasted and ate and talked and laughed all evening, and had a great time getting to know the other family, and getting to know our translators better. We learned a lot:
• One person pours drinks for everyone at the table
• It’s bad luck for women to pour drinks in a mixed group
• When a bottle is emptied, the person whose glass is filled last makes a wish, blows it into the empty bottle and then seals the bottle up
• It’s bad luck to leave an empty bottle on the table
• Ukrainians love their vodka!
Our translator’s boss regaled us with stories of Ukrainian history and tradition, while sitting on an upturned bucket (since we didn’t have enough chairs). We thought the other family might turn into pumpkins, as they had taken the train down the night before and hadn’t slept for a while, but they are troopers, and the vodka flowed until after 11:00.
Monday, December 21, 2009
Happy Borschday
Day 8 – Sunday, 20 December
And on the seventh day, we rested.
Well, ok, really the 8th, but you get the idea. After a week of running around and traveling and stressing out and running around some more, we finally had our first totally “down” day. The weather warmed to just above freezing and a light fog filled the streets around our apartment, giving us a cozy, cocooned feeling perfect for a lazy Sunday.
We slept in. I made a pot of really strong coffee. I read while Mark played with the internet sharing on our computers and did a bit of work. We had planned to get outside for a walk around town, but as the sky began to darken, we realized it really would be great just to keep puttering around the apartment.
We had one item on our to-do list for today (if you remember, two or fewer items is likely to be a successful day in Ukraine…): Make Ukrainian Borsch. Borsch is a tomato-based soup with pork and root vegetables, including beets; every Ukrainian woman has her own special Borsch recipe. Last time we were here, we learned one. Today, we learned another. Different, but equally delicious.
Mark parked himself with his laptop in the corner of the kitchen while our translator directed me around the tiny kitchen, grating and chopping and peeling. All the while, we chatted and sipped vodka and had a great time. We are so blessed to have a translator who is quickly becoming a friend.
After dinner, we sat captivated for a 3-hour showing of Ukraine’s equivalent to American Idol. Lena had shared her favorites with our translator yesterday, and we chose our own favorites as we watched. The show is a little different, as they focus as heavily on the stage performance as the singing; the performers are accompanied on the stage by dancers and wind machines and pyrotechnics. They are down to seven competitors, and are holding the finale next week.
We know that tomorrow will be a very busy day for our translator, as she has to do about three days’ worth of paperwork in one day to meet the deadline to get onto the court schedule before the holiday break. Our role in the day will be mostly to wait, appear at the right time to sign everything, and then wait again until she gets the court application submitted. With an important and busy day looming, bedtime sneaked up on us quickly. After a short call home to Masha, we stumbled off for a good night’s rest.
And on the seventh day, we rested.
Well, ok, really the 8th, but you get the idea. After a week of running around and traveling and stressing out and running around some more, we finally had our first totally “down” day. The weather warmed to just above freezing and a light fog filled the streets around our apartment, giving us a cozy, cocooned feeling perfect for a lazy Sunday.
We slept in. I made a pot of really strong coffee. I read while Mark played with the internet sharing on our computers and did a bit of work. We had planned to get outside for a walk around town, but as the sky began to darken, we realized it really would be great just to keep puttering around the apartment.
We had one item on our to-do list for today (if you remember, two or fewer items is likely to be a successful day in Ukraine…): Make Ukrainian Borsch. Borsch is a tomato-based soup with pork and root vegetables, including beets; every Ukrainian woman has her own special Borsch recipe. Last time we were here, we learned one. Today, we learned another. Different, but equally delicious.
Mark parked himself with his laptop in the corner of the kitchen while our translator directed me around the tiny kitchen, grating and chopping and peeling. All the while, we chatted and sipped vodka and had a great time. We are so blessed to have a translator who is quickly becoming a friend.
After dinner, we sat captivated for a 3-hour showing of Ukraine’s equivalent to American Idol. Lena had shared her favorites with our translator yesterday, and we chose our own favorites as we watched. The show is a little different, as they focus as heavily on the stage performance as the singing; the performers are accompanied on the stage by dancers and wind machines and pyrotechnics. They are down to seven competitors, and are holding the finale next week.
We know that tomorrow will be a very busy day for our translator, as she has to do about three days’ worth of paperwork in one day to meet the deadline to get onto the court schedule before the holiday break. Our role in the day will be mostly to wait, appear at the right time to sign everything, and then wait again until she gets the court application submitted. With an important and busy day looming, bedtime sneaked up on us quickly. After a short call home to Masha, we stumbled off for a good night’s rest.
Wow
Day 7 - Saturday, 19 December
We must feel like this is our second home, because for the first time in a week, we both slept well and long. I woke around 8, made a cup of tea, and found a nice warm spot at the kitchen table next to the radiator to write. Mark and our translator both rose a short while later.
“We have small problem.” Um…uh oh. That’s never a good thing to hear. Our translator proceeded to explain to us that the holidays in Ukraine begin on 31 December and then run the full first week of January. While the Ukrainian courts continue to hear cases up to 30 December, at least in our region, they stop taking new cases on 21 December. Yes, that’s Monday. Yes, we have many documents to prepare before our court application. Yes, we still must get the application submitted on Monday. No, this isn’t really possible, but yes, we will get it done.
Ultimately, everyone connected with our adoption process here in Ukraine is just as motivated to get us done and home as we are to get there. Even though today is Saturday, the assistant director very generously agreed to come in and prepare the necessary documents to hit the ground running early on Monday. The side benefit of that…we finally will be allowed to visit Lena at the orphanage!
We dressed and our translator suggested that we bring with us the gifts for specific kids and the Assistant Director), but that we leave for later the general orphanage gifts and the one for the Director. We gathered these together and then chatted as we waited for our driver to mush through the snowy streets to our doorstep.
Our hearts quickened as we travelled the well-known route from the apartment to the orphanage. Everything looked the same, yet very different in the cold snowy morning. We glimpsed familiar buildings and intersections through the fogged car windows, and cheered as we made the final turn down the lane to the Center. The legendary blue van rested in the snowy parking lot, and we carefully made our way up the icy walk to the bright yellow entrance.
The Assistant Director greeted us warmly, and quickly ushered us into the green room to wait while she found Lena. Our translator held the camera, and we jittered in anticipation…the last 3 minute wait was the hardest! But at last, the AD popped her head into the room and then everything else melted away as Lena ran into our arms.
Tears streamed down our translator’s face as she clicked away, capturing the first moments together again so we can cherish them forever…Lena kept repeating, “I can’t believe you’re finally here and this is real.” We just hugged her as tightly as we could.
The time finally came to let go, and we shifted to a sofa in the corner of the room. Lena sat between us, and we went through the photo albums we had brought. She ran up to her room and brought down a collection of family collages that she had made from photos we had sent to her; she and her friends had worked very hard to compose a card in English for us, filled with love and well-wishes.
She also brought down a large photo album containing many memories of her life, including a few photos of her bio parents, several photos from when she was very small (3 or 4) and many more of her friends and of adults from the church that the kids attend. As she explained each picture, we discovered that she had been studying English; her knowledge of English now completely surpasses my knowledge of Russian!
We missed her 14th birthday by just a few days, so we presented her with a set of bangle bracelets and a silver cross necklace. We then spent at least a half hour passing the necklace back and forth, each of us reducing the knot in the chain a little more before passing it on in frustration…Team Niles finally untangled it, and I was able to fasten it around Lena’s neck.
As we finally settled in, we pulled out a card game we played a lot when Lena visited us a couple of summers ago: Set. A matching game with shapes, colors, and numbers lends itself well to language-less play, and Lena had gotten pretty good at it while she was in the US. But when she started nailing sets instantly, we both just looked at her, stunned. “Every day,” she replied to our questioning faces. The cutest part was when she would see a set, but wait for one of us to find it…just like a parent waiting for a small child to see it and then feel triumphant! Needless to say, her practiced eye kicked our sleep-deprived tails: 14-5-4.
We chatted as much as we could without a translator; we discovered that school was closed, not for the holidays yet, but because of fear of a Swine Flu outbreak. We showed Lena photos of her new room and shared paint chips so she could pick a new color.
Through all of this, our translator was working in the Assistant Director’s office, preparing documents for Monday. They finished, and she came in to sit with us for a while. With a translator present, Lena’s inner chatterbox emerged. She talked about the movies and music she liked (she loves Twilight, but hasn’t read the books yet! Woohoo!), and asked for some DVDs and books to take back to America with us. She asked about school and what grade she would be in, and when she would start school, and how it worked for Masha, and how her teachers would teach her English. She asked about Masha’s career ambitions, and shared that she still wants to be a journalist. She brought down her notebook and her English textbook, and talked about what she was learning in school and what she thought worked and what didn’t. She talked a lot!!
We had noticed the guards wearing masks, and had seen very few kids in the hallways. From our translator, we learned that the orphanage was actually under a quarantine to prevent spread of the Flu, and that it was likely that our contact with the other kids on the Center would be pretty limited. We were not able to personally give the gifts we brought for the two other kids (or take pictures or pass on hugs and kisses from their American families). Huge, huge apologies to J. and R., but know that your gifts WILL of course be passed on to the kids.
We also learned that there will be a big celebration to honor the anniversary of the Center. Similar to the 1 June Children’s Day celebration that we saw last time we were here, there will be a big program, and many of the Center’s supporters will attend. We know that we’ll at least have an opportunity to see all of the kids then, and take many photos!
After a couple hours there, the AD appeared, all bundled up and ready to go. Our translator popped up and announced that our visit today was over, and that sadly, we would not be able to visit tomorrow because it was Sunday, but we would be back on Monday after all our paperwork was complete. We collected up all our things, hugged Lena about 30 more times, and waved “Paka!” as she disappeared up the stairs.
We drove the AD back home, then turned our thoughts to our bellies…we were starving! The cupbords in our apartment were totally bare, so we decided to go to Amstor, a Wal-Mart-like megamart with a cafeteria as well as a grocery. We filled up at the cafeteria, and then proceeded to overflow our cart with the groceries we would need for the next week as well as a huge bag of chocolates and various Vodkas to take home. Thank goodness Amstor takes credit cards!
Note to those of you following us…I’ve mentioned before, and will again. You can buy just about anything you need here, with one glaring exception: You cannot purchase plain potato chips. You can buy sour cream and onion chips. Or cheese-flavored chips. Or Crab-flavored chips (yes, yes, I said crab). But no plain ones. For an addict like me, that’s a tough one, but I’ll survive. You will too. :-)
Once our American consumerism was sated, we returned to our apartment as darkness fell over the town. Even 600 miles south, the sun sets around 4:00 here in mid-December. We shuttled our heavy grocery sacks upstairs and quickly unpacked everything. After a large late lunch, none of us was very hungry, so we snacked, washed two loads of laundry, read a little bit, called home and fell into bed completely exhausted.
We must feel like this is our second home, because for the first time in a week, we both slept well and long. I woke around 8, made a cup of tea, and found a nice warm spot at the kitchen table next to the radiator to write. Mark and our translator both rose a short while later.
“We have small problem.” Um…uh oh. That’s never a good thing to hear. Our translator proceeded to explain to us that the holidays in Ukraine begin on 31 December and then run the full first week of January. While the Ukrainian courts continue to hear cases up to 30 December, at least in our region, they stop taking new cases on 21 December. Yes, that’s Monday. Yes, we have many documents to prepare before our court application. Yes, we still must get the application submitted on Monday. No, this isn’t really possible, but yes, we will get it done.
Ultimately, everyone connected with our adoption process here in Ukraine is just as motivated to get us done and home as we are to get there. Even though today is Saturday, the assistant director very generously agreed to come in and prepare the necessary documents to hit the ground running early on Monday. The side benefit of that…we finally will be allowed to visit Lena at the orphanage!
We dressed and our translator suggested that we bring with us the gifts for specific kids and the Assistant Director), but that we leave for later the general orphanage gifts and the one for the Director. We gathered these together and then chatted as we waited for our driver to mush through the snowy streets to our doorstep.
Our hearts quickened as we travelled the well-known route from the apartment to the orphanage. Everything looked the same, yet very different in the cold snowy morning. We glimpsed familiar buildings and intersections through the fogged car windows, and cheered as we made the final turn down the lane to the Center. The legendary blue van rested in the snowy parking lot, and we carefully made our way up the icy walk to the bright yellow entrance.
The Assistant Director greeted us warmly, and quickly ushered us into the green room to wait while she found Lena. Our translator held the camera, and we jittered in anticipation…the last 3 minute wait was the hardest! But at last, the AD popped her head into the room and then everything else melted away as Lena ran into our arms.
Tears streamed down our translator’s face as she clicked away, capturing the first moments together again so we can cherish them forever…Lena kept repeating, “I can’t believe you’re finally here and this is real.” We just hugged her as tightly as we could.
The time finally came to let go, and we shifted to a sofa in the corner of the room. Lena sat between us, and we went through the photo albums we had brought. She ran up to her room and brought down a collection of family collages that she had made from photos we had sent to her; she and her friends had worked very hard to compose a card in English for us, filled with love and well-wishes.
She also brought down a large photo album containing many memories of her life, including a few photos of her bio parents, several photos from when she was very small (3 or 4) and many more of her friends and of adults from the church that the kids attend. As she explained each picture, we discovered that she had been studying English; her knowledge of English now completely surpasses my knowledge of Russian!
We missed her 14th birthday by just a few days, so we presented her with a set of bangle bracelets and a silver cross necklace. We then spent at least a half hour passing the necklace back and forth, each of us reducing the knot in the chain a little more before passing it on in frustration…Team Niles finally untangled it, and I was able to fasten it around Lena’s neck.
As we finally settled in, we pulled out a card game we played a lot when Lena visited us a couple of summers ago: Set. A matching game with shapes, colors, and numbers lends itself well to language-less play, and Lena had gotten pretty good at it while she was in the US. But when she started nailing sets instantly, we both just looked at her, stunned. “Every day,” she replied to our questioning faces. The cutest part was when she would see a set, but wait for one of us to find it…just like a parent waiting for a small child to see it and then feel triumphant! Needless to say, her practiced eye kicked our sleep-deprived tails: 14-5-4.
We chatted as much as we could without a translator; we discovered that school was closed, not for the holidays yet, but because of fear of a Swine Flu outbreak. We showed Lena photos of her new room and shared paint chips so she could pick a new color.
Through all of this, our translator was working in the Assistant Director’s office, preparing documents for Monday. They finished, and she came in to sit with us for a while. With a translator present, Lena’s inner chatterbox emerged. She talked about the movies and music she liked (she loves Twilight, but hasn’t read the books yet! Woohoo!), and asked for some DVDs and books to take back to America with us. She asked about school and what grade she would be in, and when she would start school, and how it worked for Masha, and how her teachers would teach her English. She asked about Masha’s career ambitions, and shared that she still wants to be a journalist. She brought down her notebook and her English textbook, and talked about what she was learning in school and what she thought worked and what didn’t. She talked a lot!!
We had noticed the guards wearing masks, and had seen very few kids in the hallways. From our translator, we learned that the orphanage was actually under a quarantine to prevent spread of the Flu, and that it was likely that our contact with the other kids on the Center would be pretty limited. We were not able to personally give the gifts we brought for the two other kids (or take pictures or pass on hugs and kisses from their American families). Huge, huge apologies to J. and R., but know that your gifts WILL of course be passed on to the kids.
We also learned that there will be a big celebration to honor the anniversary of the Center. Similar to the 1 June Children’s Day celebration that we saw last time we were here, there will be a big program, and many of the Center’s supporters will attend. We know that we’ll at least have an opportunity to see all of the kids then, and take many photos!
After a couple hours there, the AD appeared, all bundled up and ready to go. Our translator popped up and announced that our visit today was over, and that sadly, we would not be able to visit tomorrow because it was Sunday, but we would be back on Monday after all our paperwork was complete. We collected up all our things, hugged Lena about 30 more times, and waved “Paka!” as she disappeared up the stairs.
We drove the AD back home, then turned our thoughts to our bellies…we were starving! The cupbords in our apartment were totally bare, so we decided to go to Amstor, a Wal-Mart-like megamart with a cafeteria as well as a grocery. We filled up at the cafeteria, and then proceeded to overflow our cart with the groceries we would need for the next week as well as a huge bag of chocolates and various Vodkas to take home. Thank goodness Amstor takes credit cards!
Note to those of you following us…I’ve mentioned before, and will again. You can buy just about anything you need here, with one glaring exception: You cannot purchase plain potato chips. You can buy sour cream and onion chips. Or cheese-flavored chips. Or Crab-flavored chips (yes, yes, I said crab). But no plain ones. For an addict like me, that’s a tough one, but I’ll survive. You will too. :-)
Once our American consumerism was sated, we returned to our apartment as darkness fell over the town. Even 600 miles south, the sun sets around 4:00 here in mid-December. We shuttled our heavy grocery sacks upstairs and quickly unpacked everything. After a large late lunch, none of us was very hungry, so we snacked, washed two loads of laundry, read a little bit, called home and fell into bed completely exhausted.
Saturday, December 19, 2009
Be Strong
Day 6 – Friday, 18 December
A weak light broke through the frost-covered window of our compartment, causing me to roll and face the wall and beg for a few hours in a soft bed with a fluffy pillow. Sleep on a train is only marginally more possible than sleep on a plane; at least on the train, you have the ability to lie flat, albeit on a hard, narrow bunk with sheets the texture of tea-towels dried on a clothesline. Again, I strongly recommend the use of pharmaceutical assistance!
We finally shook off the cobwebs a little before 10; our train was scheduled to arrive at the unpronounceable town of our destination at around noon. We believed the plan was to arrive, pile into a car, and drive to our final destination, arriving around 2:00 or so. Ahhhh, we were so naive. In short order, our translator popped back into the compartment, and it became apparent that the plan had changed. Despite my expectation that traveling south would mean warmer, more pleasant weather, there had been a huge snowstorm in the south, closing roads all over the place. Our driver was unable to meet us in the unpronounceable town; we were stranded.
Our translator parked us in a quiet corner of the train station’s unheated waiting room and went to work. She finally returned with a new plan and a message from her boss: “Be strong.” Turns out, there was a local train to our town that left at 3:00 and if all goes well, will arrive at 7:00 PM. Yes, this meant a 3-hour wait in an unheated train station when it was approximately 9 degrees outside and still snowing. And yes, this meant another 4-hour train ride, in a train equipped with bench seats and minimal heat. And yes, this meant that we would finally arrive in town a full 12 hours after we expected to. But we are strong, and in the end, it is what it is. Trains were running, cars were not. It was the best option available, so we took it.
Food options were extremely limited in the train station; seems that either dried or smoked fish is the food of choice for Ukrainian travelers. While we are very adventurous, our translator wisely decided that we were already close to our limit, and chose a small bruschetta with ham, tomato, and parsley to sustain us. We were also very thankful for the large sack of miscellaneous junk food I had packed back in Kyiv, and we devoured almost all of it while we waited. Be Strong.
At about 2:50, they called our train, and many people filed outside onto the snowy platform. The train, however, was not present, not did it choose to arrive for another 20 very, very cold minutes. There was no way for the station to know the exact arrival time, though, so all the passengers were required to…Be Strong.
While we waited, we watched another train approach the platform, but stop short. A crew of railway workers ran up to the front of the train with shovels and manually dug out a drift so the train could pass. Be Strong.
Finally, our train swept up to the platform, and we raced to board. My secret hope was that Train #2 would be as cozy warm as Train #1. Not to be. Train 2 resembled a subway car, only a bit wider, with bench seats facing each other and an aisle down the middle. And despite the heating vents running down each side of the car, it was almost as cold as outside. Be Strong.
We rushed to stow our immense collection of luggage on the overhead racks before anyone else could take the space, and settled into a set of seats as the train began to move.
As I mentioned, Train #2 was a local train. As such, it stopped many times, and people boarded and disembarked frequently. The combination of the many people and the weak heat radiating from the sides of the car brought the temperature to tolerable, provided you kept sweater, coat, scarf, and gloves on for the duration of the ride. But we were strong, and right on time at 7:00, we finally arrived. We hauled our assortment of baggage off the train a final time, and dragged to the waiting taxi.
The first step in the local adoption process is to obtain permission from the local Inspector to visit the orphanage and meet with the child you plan to adopt. Since we arrived so late, the Inspector’s office was closed. But God and good relationships were smiling on us…our translator had called ahead to the Inspector’s office earlier in the day and shared our tale of travel woe. The Inspector remembered us from Masha’s adoption, and she graciously agreed to meet with us after-hours to keep our process moving along. This was a GREAT exception to the normal way things are done, for which we are very thankful!
After this meeting (and collecting the associated documents), it was much too late to visit the orphanage. We were very tired after over 24 hours of travel for the second time in six days, so the taxi delivered us to our apartment, and we quickly settled in to the place we’ll call home for the next couple of weeks.
Starvation outranked exhaustion, though, so before calling it a night, we strolled across the street to a restaurant and had a wonderful meal with our translator. I had a terrific Ukrainian Borsch and veal with a mushroom-cream sauce, Mark had a sausage and vegetable soup and a pork chop and potato salad. We left feeling full and happy, and crashed quickly when we got back home.
A weak light broke through the frost-covered window of our compartment, causing me to roll and face the wall and beg for a few hours in a soft bed with a fluffy pillow. Sleep on a train is only marginally more possible than sleep on a plane; at least on the train, you have the ability to lie flat, albeit on a hard, narrow bunk with sheets the texture of tea-towels dried on a clothesline. Again, I strongly recommend the use of pharmaceutical assistance!
We finally shook off the cobwebs a little before 10; our train was scheduled to arrive at the unpronounceable town of our destination at around noon. We believed the plan was to arrive, pile into a car, and drive to our final destination, arriving around 2:00 or so. Ahhhh, we were so naive. In short order, our translator popped back into the compartment, and it became apparent that the plan had changed. Despite my expectation that traveling south would mean warmer, more pleasant weather, there had been a huge snowstorm in the south, closing roads all over the place. Our driver was unable to meet us in the unpronounceable town; we were stranded.
Our translator parked us in a quiet corner of the train station’s unheated waiting room and went to work. She finally returned with a new plan and a message from her boss: “Be strong.” Turns out, there was a local train to our town that left at 3:00 and if all goes well, will arrive at 7:00 PM. Yes, this meant a 3-hour wait in an unheated train station when it was approximately 9 degrees outside and still snowing. And yes, this meant another 4-hour train ride, in a train equipped with bench seats and minimal heat. And yes, this meant that we would finally arrive in town a full 12 hours after we expected to. But we are strong, and in the end, it is what it is. Trains were running, cars were not. It was the best option available, so we took it.
Food options were extremely limited in the train station; seems that either dried or smoked fish is the food of choice for Ukrainian travelers. While we are very adventurous, our translator wisely decided that we were already close to our limit, and chose a small bruschetta with ham, tomato, and parsley to sustain us. We were also very thankful for the large sack of miscellaneous junk food I had packed back in Kyiv, and we devoured almost all of it while we waited. Be Strong.
At about 2:50, they called our train, and many people filed outside onto the snowy platform. The train, however, was not present, not did it choose to arrive for another 20 very, very cold minutes. There was no way for the station to know the exact arrival time, though, so all the passengers were required to…Be Strong.
While we waited, we watched another train approach the platform, but stop short. A crew of railway workers ran up to the front of the train with shovels and manually dug out a drift so the train could pass. Be Strong.
Finally, our train swept up to the platform, and we raced to board. My secret hope was that Train #2 would be as cozy warm as Train #1. Not to be. Train 2 resembled a subway car, only a bit wider, with bench seats facing each other and an aisle down the middle. And despite the heating vents running down each side of the car, it was almost as cold as outside. Be Strong.
We rushed to stow our immense collection of luggage on the overhead racks before anyone else could take the space, and settled into a set of seats as the train began to move.
As I mentioned, Train #2 was a local train. As such, it stopped many times, and people boarded and disembarked frequently. The combination of the many people and the weak heat radiating from the sides of the car brought the temperature to tolerable, provided you kept sweater, coat, scarf, and gloves on for the duration of the ride. But we were strong, and right on time at 7:00, we finally arrived. We hauled our assortment of baggage off the train a final time, and dragged to the waiting taxi.
The first step in the local adoption process is to obtain permission from the local Inspector to visit the orphanage and meet with the child you plan to adopt. Since we arrived so late, the Inspector’s office was closed. But God and good relationships were smiling on us…our translator had called ahead to the Inspector’s office earlier in the day and shared our tale of travel woe. The Inspector remembered us from Masha’s adoption, and she graciously agreed to meet with us after-hours to keep our process moving along. This was a GREAT exception to the normal way things are done, for which we are very thankful!
After this meeting (and collecting the associated documents), it was much too late to visit the orphanage. We were very tired after over 24 hours of travel for the second time in six days, so the taxi delivered us to our apartment, and we quickly settled in to the place we’ll call home for the next couple of weeks.
Starvation outranked exhaustion, though, so before calling it a night, we strolled across the street to a restaurant and had a wonderful meal with our translator. I had a terrific Ukrainian Borsch and veal with a mushroom-cream sauce, Mark had a sausage and vegetable soup and a pork chop and potato salad. We left feeling full and happy, and crashed quickly when we got back home.
On the Road Again
Day 5 – Thursday, 17 December
I have discovered the key to our formerly successful anti-jetlag strategy: prescription drugs. In the past, we have employed tactics that included deliberately not sleeping on the plane and pushing hard through the first day to ensure exhaustion and a solid first night’s sleep. In the past, our first morning in the new place, we have awoken pretty much refreshed and ready to rock. In the past, we’ve supplemented sleep for the first few nights with Ambien. Please note the correlation. This time, we didn’t get around to calling the doctor for a new prescription. Those of you following us…don’t skip this step!!!! We have yet to see a good night’s sleep.
On a typical day, we have two tasks to accomplish. Today’s tasks: pack up the apartment and catch a train. Seems simple enough, right? Perhaps that’s slightly oversimplified; as the morning geared up, we found a couple more things that needed to be done. A phone call with our translator also identified one more critical path task: Unlike last time, we were now required to pick up our documents from the SDA personally. Without these, we cannot move on to our next step in-region.
We learned that our driver would pick us up a little after 3, drive us to the SDA to retrieve the documents around 4:30, and then take us on to the station to catch a 7:20 train. As we began to pack up, we checked the charge on our supply of camera batteries…we have four, but they were all dead.
Mark: “Where’s the charger?”
Christine: “Uh…still plugged into the wall at home?”
Mark: “Uh oh. Will the camera on the iPhone do for the rest of the trip?” (Note: this is the iPhone that is still in the possession of our driver….)
Christine: “Uh, no.”
Good thing a mall is just a few blocks away. Off goes Mark to find a new, inexpensive digital camera while I pack. Today’s to-do-list has grown to four items. This is a terrible omen. Any time a Ukrainian to-do list contains more than two items, you can be assured of not fully completing the list.
I pack and clean the apartment at a leisurely pace, and my anxiety subsides as I finish with time to eat a snack, get started on a new book, and watch the light snowfall that had begun earlier in the day. Mark made it back with a camera and some more snacks for the train, so we were feeling really good about the day’s progress.
At 3:30, our driver appeared and we hauled all of our luggage out to his car. In quick order, he produced Mark’s iPhone and iPod, confirmed we had our passports (and everything else), and we were on our way to the SDA. So far, so good.
We encountered heavy traffic on the way into town, but arrived at the SDA right on time. Our translator was there to greet us, and ushered us onto the lobby stairs to await our paperwork. As more and more couples arrived with their translators, the wide stairway became crowded to the point that building occupants could not pass. After quite a while, a representative appeared and gave a short speech, which was translated to us as “we must go out.”
Turns out that too many people were waiting in the main lobby, so they opened up another area for us to wait, but we had to go outside and enter the building through another door. So we joined a herd of other prospective adoptive parents, shuffling to the other door and packing like sardines into a small hallway. Our translator explained to us also that the Director of the SDA was in a late meeting, and she would sign all the documentation when the meeting was over, but no one could tell us how long that would be. We began looking at our watches more and more frequently, continually calculating the countdown and getting more nervous with each passing minute. I kept reminding myself that on this trip, it’s our translator’s job to worry, not mine!
Finally, at about 6:00, a young woman shoved her way through and into a side room with an armload of documents. The herd anxiously pushed into the room behind her, and she began to call out names. After several more minutes, we finally signed for our set of paperwork, and our translator shot out of the door like a bullet, with us trailing closely behind. As soon as we were outside, she began jogging up the snow-covered cobblestone street toward God-Knows-Where. We broke into a jog and followed closely behind.
A couple uphill blocks later, she spun around and announced “Wait here!” and dodged into a coffee shop on a busy streetcorner. Now, I’m not one to stand outside in windy, snowy, 4-degree weather when there’s coffee less than 50 feet away from me. But we were told to wait, so wait we did, as we speculated why she was running down the street like we were late, but was then stopping off for a cup of coffee? A couple minutes later, she emerged, and started running across the street, waving us to follow.
Across the intersection, we spotted our driver waving frantically at us. We leapt into the van, and another couple hopped in after us, greeting us with a hearty “Hi, guys!” Having no idea that other people were behind us, this took us aback a bit, but we quickly exchanged introductions with another couple who are also adopting from the same orphanage as we are! Turns out they had been waiting in the coffee shop while we “popped into” the SDA for our documents.
Excited as we were to meet them, we hoped our encounter would be short; we looked at our watches and realized we had less than an hour before our train was scheduled to depart. Kyiv was blanketed in a light dusting of snow, but the drivers were behaving as it if it was a foot. Our driver nosed into traffic, only to continue just a few inches at a time in the gridlock.
Remember when I said that four things on a to-do list for the day was pushing our luck? Well, we had three of them done. While we all remained hopeful, it soon became clear that we were unlikely to catch our train. Our translator began to frantically work the phones to make alternate arrangements. 7:20 came and went, and we remained sitting still in snowy Kyiv rush-hour traffic.
Our translator managed to get us booked on a 10:55 train to some city that even she had never visited, but that was a 2-hour drive from our final destination. She told us that we would be met by our driver, who would take us the rest of the way. We would still be able to do the documents and paperwork we needed to see Lena and keep the process moving.
We finally arrived at the train station at about 8:00. We had learned during our 1.5 hour, 1-mile ride that the other couple hadn’t gotten a real meal since their flight a couple days prior, so we descended upon a Ukrainian cafeteria-style restaurant and piled our plates high. Our translator helped identify all the foods for us, and made some wonderful recommendations!
Finally, around 9:00, we bid the other family goodbye, and we made our way into the train station to find a spot to wait out the next couple of hours until our new train departed. We quickly learned that train station waiting areas are low on the list of areas to be heated; even in the center of a very busy building, we could still see our breath. We eventually found a slightly warmer area to wait near the ticket counter, but we stayed bundled in our coats and scarves! Finally, at about 10:30, they called our train, and we gathered our massive collection of luggage and traipsed toward our train platform.
Now is the time that we remember what we said last time but failed to heed…PACK LIGHTER! Seriously. To those following us….no more than one large rolling duffel and one backpack each. I mean that. NO MORE THAN THAT! We have two large rolling duffels, one regular rollaboard, one regular duffel, a backpack with Mark’s laptop, and a big purse with my laptop. Seriously. DO NOT BRING THIS MUCH CRAP! Really. Don’t. You’ll regret it. Really.
OK, on with the story…We finally managed to pile ALL of our crap into the train and find our compartment. Which says a lot since it was DARK. Yes, friends, the lights were out. There was just enough light creeping in through the windows from the dimly lit platform to stow all of our luggage away from the overnight trip and settle in. We learned that the electricity was out on our car («элeктричество не работает,» Лена!), but that they were working on it, and they hoped that once we got underway, they could get the lights on.
Thankfully, the train was really warm, so we shed layers, and waited patiently and chatted a bit until it became clear a bit after midnight that we weren’t getting any lights tonight. We fired up a laptop, made up our bunks by its light, and bid each other a good night.
I have discovered the key to our formerly successful anti-jetlag strategy: prescription drugs. In the past, we have employed tactics that included deliberately not sleeping on the plane and pushing hard through the first day to ensure exhaustion and a solid first night’s sleep. In the past, our first morning in the new place, we have awoken pretty much refreshed and ready to rock. In the past, we’ve supplemented sleep for the first few nights with Ambien. Please note the correlation. This time, we didn’t get around to calling the doctor for a new prescription. Those of you following us…don’t skip this step!!!! We have yet to see a good night’s sleep.
On a typical day, we have two tasks to accomplish. Today’s tasks: pack up the apartment and catch a train. Seems simple enough, right? Perhaps that’s slightly oversimplified; as the morning geared up, we found a couple more things that needed to be done. A phone call with our translator also identified one more critical path task: Unlike last time, we were now required to pick up our documents from the SDA personally. Without these, we cannot move on to our next step in-region.
We learned that our driver would pick us up a little after 3, drive us to the SDA to retrieve the documents around 4:30, and then take us on to the station to catch a 7:20 train. As we began to pack up, we checked the charge on our supply of camera batteries…we have four, but they were all dead.
Mark: “Where’s the charger?”
Christine: “Uh…still plugged into the wall at home?”
Mark: “Uh oh. Will the camera on the iPhone do for the rest of the trip?” (Note: this is the iPhone that is still in the possession of our driver….)
Christine: “Uh, no.”
Good thing a mall is just a few blocks away. Off goes Mark to find a new, inexpensive digital camera while I pack. Today’s to-do-list has grown to four items. This is a terrible omen. Any time a Ukrainian to-do list contains more than two items, you can be assured of not fully completing the list.
I pack and clean the apartment at a leisurely pace, and my anxiety subsides as I finish with time to eat a snack, get started on a new book, and watch the light snowfall that had begun earlier in the day. Mark made it back with a camera and some more snacks for the train, so we were feeling really good about the day’s progress.
At 3:30, our driver appeared and we hauled all of our luggage out to his car. In quick order, he produced Mark’s iPhone and iPod, confirmed we had our passports (and everything else), and we were on our way to the SDA. So far, so good.
We encountered heavy traffic on the way into town, but arrived at the SDA right on time. Our translator was there to greet us, and ushered us onto the lobby stairs to await our paperwork. As more and more couples arrived with their translators, the wide stairway became crowded to the point that building occupants could not pass. After quite a while, a representative appeared and gave a short speech, which was translated to us as “we must go out.”
Turns out that too many people were waiting in the main lobby, so they opened up another area for us to wait, but we had to go outside and enter the building through another door. So we joined a herd of other prospective adoptive parents, shuffling to the other door and packing like sardines into a small hallway. Our translator explained to us also that the Director of the SDA was in a late meeting, and she would sign all the documentation when the meeting was over, but no one could tell us how long that would be. We began looking at our watches more and more frequently, continually calculating the countdown and getting more nervous with each passing minute. I kept reminding myself that on this trip, it’s our translator’s job to worry, not mine!
Finally, at about 6:00, a young woman shoved her way through and into a side room with an armload of documents. The herd anxiously pushed into the room behind her, and she began to call out names. After several more minutes, we finally signed for our set of paperwork, and our translator shot out of the door like a bullet, with us trailing closely behind. As soon as we were outside, she began jogging up the snow-covered cobblestone street toward God-Knows-Where. We broke into a jog and followed closely behind.
A couple uphill blocks later, she spun around and announced “Wait here!” and dodged into a coffee shop on a busy streetcorner. Now, I’m not one to stand outside in windy, snowy, 4-degree weather when there’s coffee less than 50 feet away from me. But we were told to wait, so wait we did, as we speculated why she was running down the street like we were late, but was then stopping off for a cup of coffee? A couple minutes later, she emerged, and started running across the street, waving us to follow.
Across the intersection, we spotted our driver waving frantically at us. We leapt into the van, and another couple hopped in after us, greeting us with a hearty “Hi, guys!” Having no idea that other people were behind us, this took us aback a bit, but we quickly exchanged introductions with another couple who are also adopting from the same orphanage as we are! Turns out they had been waiting in the coffee shop while we “popped into” the SDA for our documents.
Excited as we were to meet them, we hoped our encounter would be short; we looked at our watches and realized we had less than an hour before our train was scheduled to depart. Kyiv was blanketed in a light dusting of snow, but the drivers were behaving as it if it was a foot. Our driver nosed into traffic, only to continue just a few inches at a time in the gridlock.
Remember when I said that four things on a to-do list for the day was pushing our luck? Well, we had three of them done. While we all remained hopeful, it soon became clear that we were unlikely to catch our train. Our translator began to frantically work the phones to make alternate arrangements. 7:20 came and went, and we remained sitting still in snowy Kyiv rush-hour traffic.
Our translator managed to get us booked on a 10:55 train to some city that even she had never visited, but that was a 2-hour drive from our final destination. She told us that we would be met by our driver, who would take us the rest of the way. We would still be able to do the documents and paperwork we needed to see Lena and keep the process moving.
We finally arrived at the train station at about 8:00. We had learned during our 1.5 hour, 1-mile ride that the other couple hadn’t gotten a real meal since their flight a couple days prior, so we descended upon a Ukrainian cafeteria-style restaurant and piled our plates high. Our translator helped identify all the foods for us, and made some wonderful recommendations!
Finally, around 9:00, we bid the other family goodbye, and we made our way into the train station to find a spot to wait out the next couple of hours until our new train departed. We quickly learned that train station waiting areas are low on the list of areas to be heated; even in the center of a very busy building, we could still see our breath. We eventually found a slightly warmer area to wait near the ticket counter, but we stayed bundled in our coats and scarves! Finally, at about 10:30, they called our train, and we gathered our massive collection of luggage and traipsed toward our train platform.
Now is the time that we remember what we said last time but failed to heed…PACK LIGHTER! Seriously. To those following us….no more than one large rolling duffel and one backpack each. I mean that. NO MORE THAN THAT! We have two large rolling duffels, one regular rollaboard, one regular duffel, a backpack with Mark’s laptop, and a big purse with my laptop. Seriously. DO NOT BRING THIS MUCH CRAP! Really. Don’t. You’ll regret it. Really.
OK, on with the story…We finally managed to pile ALL of our crap into the train and find our compartment. Which says a lot since it was DARK. Yes, friends, the lights were out. There was just enough light creeping in through the windows from the dimly lit platform to stow all of our luggage away from the overnight trip and settle in. We learned that the electricity was out on our car («элeктричество не работает,» Лена!), but that they were working on it, and they hoped that once we got underway, they could get the lights on.
Thankfully, the train was really warm, so we shed layers, and waited patiently and chatted a bit until it became clear a bit after midnight that we weren’t getting any lights tonight. We fired up a laptop, made up our bunks by its light, and bid each other a good night.
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
SDA Appointment
Day 4 – Wednesday, 16 December
Still a bit jet-lagged, the screaming alarm at 6:30 AM came as a shock to both of us. We realized that we actually had to get up when the backup alarm on our phone shrieked at us from the other room. We launched into gear, quickly making breakfast and dressing up for our appointment with the Ukrainian State Department of Adoption (SDA). Unlike many countries, Ukraine does not allow pre-identification of children, so obtaining a referral to “meet” Lena and begin the adoption process is the first step in every adoption in Ukraine.
While our appointment was at 11:00 AM, this is one appointment where being late is absolutely not an option. Our translator also had an errand to run related to some other families’ paperwork, so she and our driver picked us up from our apartment at about 8:20. Driving around Kyiv in the daylight, we remembered the craziness that is traffic in this city! Sidewalks are not intended for pedestrians alone, lines on the road are merely suggestions, and every driver in the city knows the *exact* dimensions of his or her car, and delights in positioning their cars only millimeters from posts, walls, or dumpsters on either side. The more talented of these folks will play this game with moving objects such as oncoming cars. It’s amazing to see that most of these cars are not covered in scratches and scrapes and gashes and dents!
We crept through traffic into downtown Kyiv and stopped at a Notary for our translator to do some paperwork; notarys in Ukraine are more like paralegals than a notary public in the US, and they take their responsibilities very seriously. We found it both disconcerting and amusing to see an erotic bar adjacent to the notary’s office! Of course, Mark took a photo!
We arrived at the SDA with plenty of time to spare, but as I mentioned, being late is not an option here. It was much better to arrive early, sit in the warm car, and read a book than to get stuck in traffic and miss our appointment! I have to thank Mark again for the wonderful eBook reader that he got me for my birthday! It’s small, fits great in my purse, and I can carry more books with me at all times than I could ever hope to read! During the SDA wait, I finished Wuthering Heights.
At about 10:50, we went to the side door of the SDA. Last time we were here, we were forced to wait outside, and we wondered what happened to the poor people who had to wait when it was 8 degrees outside (yes, it was 8 today)! We discovered that they do allow people inside now, so we went in and waited in the stairwell until we were called.
“Niles?” It was the happiest I had been to hear my name called, and we followed our translator into the small office at the top of the stairs. Last time we were here, our facilitator was not allowed in with us, but they have changed the rules now, and she was allowed to translate for us. It was comforting to have a familiar face in there with us. We relaxed even more when we walked in and saw a file with Lena’s photo sitting on top of the table. The meeting lasted about 15 minutes, where we explained to the SDA how we had met Lena while we were adopting Masha, and had stayed in contact with her for the past 2.5 years. We talked of how she hoped to be a part of our family, and how Masha was very excited to have Lena for her sister. Then our translator and the SDA representative briefly discussed some of the details for our paperwork, and we were done! Tomorrow, they will issue us the formal permission documents to visit Lena and begin the local process for her adoption. Tomorrow night, we will take an overnight train, and should be in the region on Friday morning!
Today’s objective complete, our driver drove us back to the apartment. He dropped us at the mall across the street from our complex so we could grab a bite, then we walked back to the apartment (yes, still just 8 degrees Farenheit)! Shortly after our arrival, our facilitator stopped by to visit and collect the items that we brought for him and to help troubleshoot our Internet connection. It was great to see him again. After a short visit, he left us to relax for the rest of the afternoon…which we used very effectively by watching Tropic Thunder, testing the Internet connection about every 30 minutes, and catching up on blogging. :-)
About 5:00, I heard a roar of delight from Mark, and when I glanced over at his computer I saw the status line “Connected…” Never was there such joy as in our apartment now that we have access to the Internet!!! We are paying by the GB, so we won’t be online all the time, but at least now we feel connected to the outside world again…it’s amazing how addicted we have become! We made a couple of skype calls home, and tested the video calls from Mark’s computer, and then it’s my turn. Then an exciting dinner of chicken and pasta and one more call home to Masha. Maybe tomorrow I’ll get some photos uploaded…..
Still a bit jet-lagged, the screaming alarm at 6:30 AM came as a shock to both of us. We realized that we actually had to get up when the backup alarm on our phone shrieked at us from the other room. We launched into gear, quickly making breakfast and dressing up for our appointment with the Ukrainian State Department of Adoption (SDA). Unlike many countries, Ukraine does not allow pre-identification of children, so obtaining a referral to “meet” Lena and begin the adoption process is the first step in every adoption in Ukraine.
While our appointment was at 11:00 AM, this is one appointment where being late is absolutely not an option. Our translator also had an errand to run related to some other families’ paperwork, so she and our driver picked us up from our apartment at about 8:20. Driving around Kyiv in the daylight, we remembered the craziness that is traffic in this city! Sidewalks are not intended for pedestrians alone, lines on the road are merely suggestions, and every driver in the city knows the *exact* dimensions of his or her car, and delights in positioning their cars only millimeters from posts, walls, or dumpsters on either side. The more talented of these folks will play this game with moving objects such as oncoming cars. It’s amazing to see that most of these cars are not covered in scratches and scrapes and gashes and dents!
We crept through traffic into downtown Kyiv and stopped at a Notary for our translator to do some paperwork; notarys in Ukraine are more like paralegals than a notary public in the US, and they take their responsibilities very seriously. We found it both disconcerting and amusing to see an erotic bar adjacent to the notary’s office! Of course, Mark took a photo!
We arrived at the SDA with plenty of time to spare, but as I mentioned, being late is not an option here. It was much better to arrive early, sit in the warm car, and read a book than to get stuck in traffic and miss our appointment! I have to thank Mark again for the wonderful eBook reader that he got me for my birthday! It’s small, fits great in my purse, and I can carry more books with me at all times than I could ever hope to read! During the SDA wait, I finished Wuthering Heights.
At about 10:50, we went to the side door of the SDA. Last time we were here, we were forced to wait outside, and we wondered what happened to the poor people who had to wait when it was 8 degrees outside (yes, it was 8 today)! We discovered that they do allow people inside now, so we went in and waited in the stairwell until we were called.
“Niles?” It was the happiest I had been to hear my name called, and we followed our translator into the small office at the top of the stairs. Last time we were here, our facilitator was not allowed in with us, but they have changed the rules now, and she was allowed to translate for us. It was comforting to have a familiar face in there with us. We relaxed even more when we walked in and saw a file with Lena’s photo sitting on top of the table. The meeting lasted about 15 minutes, where we explained to the SDA how we had met Lena while we were adopting Masha, and had stayed in contact with her for the past 2.5 years. We talked of how she hoped to be a part of our family, and how Masha was very excited to have Lena for her sister. Then our translator and the SDA representative briefly discussed some of the details for our paperwork, and we were done! Tomorrow, they will issue us the formal permission documents to visit Lena and begin the local process for her adoption. Tomorrow night, we will take an overnight train, and should be in the region on Friday morning!
Today’s objective complete, our driver drove us back to the apartment. He dropped us at the mall across the street from our complex so we could grab a bite, then we walked back to the apartment (yes, still just 8 degrees Farenheit)! Shortly after our arrival, our facilitator stopped by to visit and collect the items that we brought for him and to help troubleshoot our Internet connection. It was great to see him again. After a short visit, he left us to relax for the rest of the afternoon…which we used very effectively by watching Tropic Thunder, testing the Internet connection about every 30 minutes, and catching up on blogging. :-)
About 5:00, I heard a roar of delight from Mark, and when I glanced over at his computer I saw the status line “Connected…” Never was there such joy as in our apartment now that we have access to the Internet!!! We are paying by the GB, so we won’t be online all the time, but at least now we feel connected to the outside world again…it’s amazing how addicted we have become! We made a couple of skype calls home, and tested the video calls from Mark’s computer, and then it’s my turn. Then an exciting dinner of chicken and pasta and one more call home to Masha. Maybe tomorrow I’ll get some photos uploaded…..
Recovery
Day 3 – Tuesday, 15 December
The sun shone brightly through the window as we awoke and glanced at a clock…11:30! Clearly, Tuesday dawned very late for us. But knowing that we had no obligations for the day, we tried to relax and use the time to recover from the trip. Neither of us had slept too well; we had forgotten that we are soft Americans used to our soft beds and squishy pillows…Add to that the stress of losing our luggage, Mark’s phone and iPod, and not being able to plug in any of our other electronics and charge them, and I was a bit of a basket case.
We had a bite to eat and called our translator to make sure there were no plans for the day. She confirmed that our driver did indeed have Mark’s iPhone and iPod, and would bring it to us tomorrow! Relieved a little bit, we decided to take a walk and try to find the grocery store. About 1:30, we bundled up in about 8 layers of clothes (ok, more like 3, plus coats) and started out of the apartment.
At this point, it’s important to note that our apartment is on the 8th floor of an old Soviet-style apartment building, in a huge complex of apartment buildings that look identical. I exited the building with fear and trepidation…I was certain we would never find our way home again! Our translator had told us to take the narrow road perpendicular to our building, and just follow it all the way out to the main street…but it was not quite that simple. We made notes of landmarks and took photos of our building, especially noting the unique blinds in the windows of the apartment next to the front door, but these steps did little to calm my anxiety!
We easily found the main street, and noticed a very long building across the street. It looked relatively new, but very plain. We started in the direction we thought to be the grocery store, but as I looked through a narrow glass door of the long building, I thought I saw a mobile phone store. Mark and I decided to look in and see if we could pick up an inexpensive replacement phone.
As we walked in, we realized that we had stumbled on a real, modern Ukrainian shopping mall! The young man at the phone store was most helpful despite a lack of English…my Russian crept back enough to communicate what we needed, and not only did we get a great little phone for about $40, but he also had a power adapter! With one quick stop, we solved two more problems that were totally stressing me out! A bit calmer, we wandered around the warm mall for an hour or so, noticing high-end Ukrainian stores mingled with Western stores, including Benneton, Timberland, and even an Apple store (called iStore here)! We also found a bookstore where we were able to pick up three of the four Twilight books in Ukrainian for Lena.
We then walked down the street and discovered the grocery store that we had been to the night before. Things here are well-suited for pedestrians, and we found it was actually easier to walk there to than to drive, albeit much colder! We picked up a few more groceries to carry us through Thursday, and then headed back to the apartment. Mark thought there should be a shortcut through the apartment complex, and so, despite my total fear of never finding our way back home, I put my faith in logic and my sense of direction, and we set off. A few minutes later, after zig-zagging through the complex, and trying to continue heading in the right general direction, we spotted our building! As we approached the door, our phone rang, and we learned that our luggage had been found and would be delivered to us later in the evening! Two more unnecessary sources of anxiety down!
We sautéed some chicken with onions, boiled some potato and mushroom vereneki (similar to perogies, only a little smaller). Before we left home, we loaded several seasons of a wide variety of TV shows on an external hard drive and brought a pile of DVDs so we would have plenty of entertainment; we watched a couple episodes of Curb Your Enthusiasm as we anxiously awaited our luggage delivery. It finally arrived around 10:00 PM…Seems the delivery driver had the same challenges with finding our apartment as I did! But we showered and went to bed feeling MUCH more peaceful than we had the night before. Our missing items are recovered, our bodies are recovering, and we are ready for the first formal step in the adoption process tomorrow morning!
The sun shone brightly through the window as we awoke and glanced at a clock…11:30! Clearly, Tuesday dawned very late for us. But knowing that we had no obligations for the day, we tried to relax and use the time to recover from the trip. Neither of us had slept too well; we had forgotten that we are soft Americans used to our soft beds and squishy pillows…Add to that the stress of losing our luggage, Mark’s phone and iPod, and not being able to plug in any of our other electronics and charge them, and I was a bit of a basket case.
We had a bite to eat and called our translator to make sure there were no plans for the day. She confirmed that our driver did indeed have Mark’s iPhone and iPod, and would bring it to us tomorrow! Relieved a little bit, we decided to take a walk and try to find the grocery store. About 1:30, we bundled up in about 8 layers of clothes (ok, more like 3, plus coats) and started out of the apartment.
At this point, it’s important to note that our apartment is on the 8th floor of an old Soviet-style apartment building, in a huge complex of apartment buildings that look identical. I exited the building with fear and trepidation…I was certain we would never find our way home again! Our translator had told us to take the narrow road perpendicular to our building, and just follow it all the way out to the main street…but it was not quite that simple. We made notes of landmarks and took photos of our building, especially noting the unique blinds in the windows of the apartment next to the front door, but these steps did little to calm my anxiety!
We easily found the main street, and noticed a very long building across the street. It looked relatively new, but very plain. We started in the direction we thought to be the grocery store, but as I looked through a narrow glass door of the long building, I thought I saw a mobile phone store. Mark and I decided to look in and see if we could pick up an inexpensive replacement phone.
As we walked in, we realized that we had stumbled on a real, modern Ukrainian shopping mall! The young man at the phone store was most helpful despite a lack of English…my Russian crept back enough to communicate what we needed, and not only did we get a great little phone for about $40, but he also had a power adapter! With one quick stop, we solved two more problems that were totally stressing me out! A bit calmer, we wandered around the warm mall for an hour or so, noticing high-end Ukrainian stores mingled with Western stores, including Benneton, Timberland, and even an Apple store (called iStore here)! We also found a bookstore where we were able to pick up three of the four Twilight books in Ukrainian for Lena.
We then walked down the street and discovered the grocery store that we had been to the night before. Things here are well-suited for pedestrians, and we found it was actually easier to walk there to than to drive, albeit much colder! We picked up a few more groceries to carry us through Thursday, and then headed back to the apartment. Mark thought there should be a shortcut through the apartment complex, and so, despite my total fear of never finding our way back home, I put my faith in logic and my sense of direction, and we set off. A few minutes later, after zig-zagging through the complex, and trying to continue heading in the right general direction, we spotted our building! As we approached the door, our phone rang, and we learned that our luggage had been found and would be delivered to us later in the evening! Two more unnecessary sources of anxiety down!
We sautéed some chicken with onions, boiled some potato and mushroom vereneki (similar to perogies, only a little smaller). Before we left home, we loaded several seasons of a wide variety of TV shows on an external hard drive and brought a pile of DVDs so we would have plenty of entertainment; we watched a couple episodes of Curb Your Enthusiasm as we anxiously awaited our luggage delivery. It finally arrived around 10:00 PM…Seems the delivery driver had the same challenges with finding our apartment as I did! But we showered and went to bed feeling MUCH more peaceful than we had the night before. Our missing items are recovered, our bodies are recovering, and we are ready for the first formal step in the adoption process tomorrow morning!
22.5 Hours of Travel
Day 1 and 2 – Sunday, 13 December and Monday, 14 December
All packed and out the door on time…we arrived at the Fort Wayne airport in time to discover that our originating flight was delayed, but only by 30 minutes. With 4 hours in Detroit, we had plenty of slack. No worries! We checked our luggage, hung out with Masha for a few extra minutes, then cleared security and the trip was on….
Our first flight carried us to Detroit in a whopping 26 minutes…by far the shortest leg of our journey. The next flight, Detroit to Amsterdam, was scheduled to depart at 9:55 PM, and pushed back right on time. After a short wait for de-icing, the plane lifted off and we said “пака” to the United States. Eight grueling hours and two inedible meals later, we landed in The Netherlands just 15 minutes before boarding began for our next flight to Kyiv! I quickly dropped into “run for your flight” mode, with Mark scrambling to keep up…I don’t think he’s ever seen me move that fast before!! Fortunately, Schipol airport is easy to navigate, and we arrived at our next gate with time to spare. Board and relax for our final 2.5 hour flight to Kyiv.
As we approached Kyiv about 4:30 in the afternoon, the first thing we noticed was that it was pitch dark. Kyiv is quite a bit further north than Fort Wayne, and it gets dark early here! After landing, we queued up in a long line for immigration, and then on to customs. While I filled out the customs forms, Mark went to collect our luggage. He quickly deposited one of our bags at my feet, but a few minutes later he came back with a concerned look…our other two bags were not anywhere to be found. The good news: the bag we had contained all the gifts we had carried for everyone else. The bad news: the missing bags contained all our own clothes and our US to European power adapter! Fortunately, the risk manager in me came through—I had our first three days of essentials (including dress clothes and shoes for our SDA appointment) in a rollerbag that we carried with us.
The lost luggage line didn’t seem all that long, only about 5 people ahead of us. But it was nearly an hour later when I was able to get in and speak with one of the agents. I handed over my bag claim tags (thank goodness I kept them!) and she began staring intently at her computer. I filled out 20 minutes worth of new customs forms and forms authorizing them to clear the luggage through customs and deliver it to us.
One thing we learned on our first trip to Ukraine was to trust our facilitator and go with the flow. Many arrangements are made on the fly, and the Ukrainian method of information sharing is quite different from ours. Because of this, when we landed in Kyiv we had no idea where we would be staying, we just knew we would be taken care of. So imagine my dread when I arrived at the “Delivery address” field on the lost luggage claim form! Fortunately, we did have our facilitator’s cell phone number, so I put that on the form and hoped that they would call him to find out where to bring our bags, if they ever found them….
Forms completed and signed, we cleared customs and finally saw a familiar face--one of the drivers that had helped us last time. He quickly grinned and waved to us. We also met our facilitator/translator for this trip. We quickly loaded into the van, and headed toward town.
On the way to the apartment, we stopped at a supermarket, where we were able to exchange money, get a SIM card for our phone, and get some basic groceries. While perusing the aisles, we remembered the amazing fruit juices that are available here, and also the tremendous variety of frozen pelemeni and vereneki. It was hard to choose just one or two!!
Finally, our shopping was complete and we piled into the car and drove to our apartment. Our translator helped us carry our few bags and groceries up to the apartment, showed us around, and then left us on our own around 8:00 PM. We had been travelling for 22.5 hours, and had been awake for almost 30. We quickly boiled some pelemeni and ate in a daze, then showered.
Our final surprise for the evening was the discovery that the little bag with Mark’s iPod and iPhone were not in my purse…I couldn’t imagine them being stolen from my bag—there was no way to know what was in the bag, and there were other valuable things in my purse that were more visible (like my laptop, blackberry, my iPod) that were all still there. After some very painful thought, I concluded they could have fallen out of my bag in the car. We called our translator, and she called our driver, but unfortunately he had dropped the car off at the garage, and couldn’t look for the phone until the morning. Oh. And as we were calling around with our translator, we discovered that the unlocked phone we had brought with us would only work on speakerphone. DOH!
We went to bed with a sense of loss…lost luggage, lost phone, lost sleep…but we are here, safe, and about 6,000 miles closer to our new daughter. That’s what counts.
All packed and out the door on time…we arrived at the Fort Wayne airport in time to discover that our originating flight was delayed, but only by 30 minutes. With 4 hours in Detroit, we had plenty of slack. No worries! We checked our luggage, hung out with Masha for a few extra minutes, then cleared security and the trip was on….
Our first flight carried us to Detroit in a whopping 26 minutes…by far the shortest leg of our journey. The next flight, Detroit to Amsterdam, was scheduled to depart at 9:55 PM, and pushed back right on time. After a short wait for de-icing, the plane lifted off and we said “пака” to the United States. Eight grueling hours and two inedible meals later, we landed in The Netherlands just 15 minutes before boarding began for our next flight to Kyiv! I quickly dropped into “run for your flight” mode, with Mark scrambling to keep up…I don’t think he’s ever seen me move that fast before!! Fortunately, Schipol airport is easy to navigate, and we arrived at our next gate with time to spare. Board and relax for our final 2.5 hour flight to Kyiv.
As we approached Kyiv about 4:30 in the afternoon, the first thing we noticed was that it was pitch dark. Kyiv is quite a bit further north than Fort Wayne, and it gets dark early here! After landing, we queued up in a long line for immigration, and then on to customs. While I filled out the customs forms, Mark went to collect our luggage. He quickly deposited one of our bags at my feet, but a few minutes later he came back with a concerned look…our other two bags were not anywhere to be found. The good news: the bag we had contained all the gifts we had carried for everyone else. The bad news: the missing bags contained all our own clothes and our US to European power adapter! Fortunately, the risk manager in me came through—I had our first three days of essentials (including dress clothes and shoes for our SDA appointment) in a rollerbag that we carried with us.
The lost luggage line didn’t seem all that long, only about 5 people ahead of us. But it was nearly an hour later when I was able to get in and speak with one of the agents. I handed over my bag claim tags (thank goodness I kept them!) and she began staring intently at her computer. I filled out 20 minutes worth of new customs forms and forms authorizing them to clear the luggage through customs and deliver it to us.
One thing we learned on our first trip to Ukraine was to trust our facilitator and go with the flow. Many arrangements are made on the fly, and the Ukrainian method of information sharing is quite different from ours. Because of this, when we landed in Kyiv we had no idea where we would be staying, we just knew we would be taken care of. So imagine my dread when I arrived at the “Delivery address” field on the lost luggage claim form! Fortunately, we did have our facilitator’s cell phone number, so I put that on the form and hoped that they would call him to find out where to bring our bags, if they ever found them….
Forms completed and signed, we cleared customs and finally saw a familiar face--one of the drivers that had helped us last time. He quickly grinned and waved to us. We also met our facilitator/translator for this trip. We quickly loaded into the van, and headed toward town.
On the way to the apartment, we stopped at a supermarket, where we were able to exchange money, get a SIM card for our phone, and get some basic groceries. While perusing the aisles, we remembered the amazing fruit juices that are available here, and also the tremendous variety of frozen pelemeni and vereneki. It was hard to choose just one or two!!
Finally, our shopping was complete and we piled into the car and drove to our apartment. Our translator helped us carry our few bags and groceries up to the apartment, showed us around, and then left us on our own around 8:00 PM. We had been travelling for 22.5 hours, and had been awake for almost 30. We quickly boiled some pelemeni and ate in a daze, then showered.
Our final surprise for the evening was the discovery that the little bag with Mark’s iPod and iPhone were not in my purse…I couldn’t imagine them being stolen from my bag—there was no way to know what was in the bag, and there were other valuable things in my purse that were more visible (like my laptop, blackberry, my iPod) that were all still there. After some very painful thought, I concluded they could have fallen out of my bag in the car. We called our translator, and she called our driver, but unfortunately he had dropped the car off at the garage, and couldn’t look for the phone until the morning. Oh. And as we were calling around with our translator, we discovered that the unlocked phone we had brought with us would only work on speakerphone. DOH!
We went to bed with a sense of loss…lost luggage, lost phone, lost sleep…but we are here, safe, and about 6,000 miles closer to our new daughter. That’s what counts.
Is Masha going with you?
No, unfortunately, we were not able to bring her for the adoption trip. We will be gone for at least three weeks, and she can’t miss school. Also, more importantly, this trip is not a vacation. The business and the logistics of the trip make it very difficult to accommodate extra people. Most of the cars are barely large enough to carry Mark and I, our driver, our facilitator, and Lena. Bringing even one extra person (and that person’s luggage) would push us to need two cars and also would require special lodgings as well…most of the apartments are not set up to accommodate extra children either. Further, a lot of our time is spent waiting around in cars, offices, hallways, etc. and after about the first 10 minutes, she would start getting bored and frustrated.
So, much as she would love to go, Masha will not be joining us on the trip. Instead, she will be staying at home. Our friend Anna and her daughter Gracie have graciously agreed to stay at our house while we are gone, so that Masha can keep to her normal schedule. Thanks, Anna and Gracie!!!!
So, much as she would love to go, Masha will not be joining us on the trip. Instead, she will be staying at home. Our friend Anna and her daughter Gracie have graciously agreed to stay at our house while we are gone, so that Masha can keep to her normal schedule. Thanks, Anna and Gracie!!!!
Sunday, November 29, 2009
At Last….
No beating around the bush…We have finally been invited to travel to Ukraine for our second adoption!!
As I mentioned in my last post, we were hoping to travel to Ukraine in late fall to begin the local process to adopt Lena. Well, ever the literalist, God has organized the timing so that we travel in the final week of fall—we leave on 13 December, just a week before the first day of Winter.
As with Masha’s adoption, the first step of the process is a meeting on Wednesday, the 16th in Kyiv with the State Department of Adoptions (SDA). The SDA manages all adoptions within Ukraine, both domestic and international. In order to protect the children and maintain a manageable process, the Ukrainian system operates on a “blind referral” system. This means that children cannot be matched with parents for adoption before the adoptive parents travel to Ukraine and meet with the SDA. In cases where parents wish to request the adoption of a child that they’ve previously met (like on a previous trip or through a hosting program), this meeting is the first and only opportunity to request a referral for that particular child. While there is a small chance that the SDA will not approve our request, we don’t foresee any significant issues.
Following that meeting (and the first of many sets of paperwork), we will travel to the region in southeastern Ukraine and begin the local process for adoption. If all goes well, we will arrive on Friday morning, and will finally see Lena and be able to hold her in our arms again!
As wonderful as it will be to see her again, our primary focus over the next several days will be on obtaining all the necessary permissions and executing documentation in preparation for our local court hearing. Typically, the court hearing is held about a week after the parents’ arrival in the region. In our case, we expect a little bit of extra documentation, but we are praying to have our court hearing completed by the 29th. It is important to understand that scheduling is a little less precise and rigid than in the US; some of you may remember that we had less than an hour’s notice for our hearing last time? http://nilesfamily.blogspot.com/2007/05/court.html
Following the court hearing, there is a mandatory 10-day appeal period. This appeal period must end on a business day; if the 10th day falls on a weekend, we must wait through the following Monday, and the final court judgment can be retrieved (and we can take custody of Lena) on Tuesday. For several reasons, local accommodations and extreme parental boredom included, parents are discouraged from remaining in Ukraine during the appeal period. You may recall that we stayed last time, but after living through that during *good* weather, we realize the wisdom in returning home, especially during winter!
Because of the holidays, we had to book our return flights for very early on the morning of New Year’s Eve. If we can’t make it to Kyiv in time for that flight, we’ll be stuck there through the middle of the next week!
While both parents must be present for the court hearing, only one is required to take custody and do all of the “outprocessing.” This includes obtaining a new birth certificate and passport, as well as collecting all the appropriate immigration paperwork at the US embassy in Kyiv. The current plan is for Christine to return to Ukraine and take care of all of this while Mark stays home with Masha.
Beyond our firm departure for Kyiv on the evening of the 13th, and our appointment with the SDA on the 16th, all dates are subject to change. We have learned to trust our facilitators and translators, knowing that they are as motivated as we are to get us back home…but it also means that we have no control and very little information about the timelines until events actually unfold.
Our travel anxiety is much lower. We have the advantage of being familiar with the city and understanding the basic process. We know that we can pack light, as we can buy almost anything we need in the local grocery stores. We expect to have Internet access from our apartment via broadband card (thanks to the Stillwells!!). I have already started loading up my e-reader with the many books I’ve been meaning to read (recommendations, anyone?), and getting the iPods updated with some new tunes. We will probably carry more weight in personal electronics than in clothes!!
Regardless, there are still many things to take care of before we leave, most importantly, the Care and Feeding of the Mashroom! We have a dear family friend who has graciously agreed to stay at our house with Masha so she can keep her routine close to normal while we are gone. Anna, you and Gracie are true blessings to us! We are diligently preparing house manuals and schedules, and trying to make this as easy as possible on everyone!
I’m not certain how much I’ll be able to post between now and our departure, but I’ll try to get a couple more posts up before we leave. Thanks to all of you for your endless support, prayers, and interest!!
As I mentioned in my last post, we were hoping to travel to Ukraine in late fall to begin the local process to adopt Lena. Well, ever the literalist, God has organized the timing so that we travel in the final week of fall—we leave on 13 December, just a week before the first day of Winter.
As with Masha’s adoption, the first step of the process is a meeting on Wednesday, the 16th in Kyiv with the State Department of Adoptions (SDA). The SDA manages all adoptions within Ukraine, both domestic and international. In order to protect the children and maintain a manageable process, the Ukrainian system operates on a “blind referral” system. This means that children cannot be matched with parents for adoption before the adoptive parents travel to Ukraine and meet with the SDA. In cases where parents wish to request the adoption of a child that they’ve previously met (like on a previous trip or through a hosting program), this meeting is the first and only opportunity to request a referral for that particular child. While there is a small chance that the SDA will not approve our request, we don’t foresee any significant issues.
Following that meeting (and the first of many sets of paperwork), we will travel to the region in southeastern Ukraine and begin the local process for adoption. If all goes well, we will arrive on Friday morning, and will finally see Lena and be able to hold her in our arms again!
As wonderful as it will be to see her again, our primary focus over the next several days will be on obtaining all the necessary permissions and executing documentation in preparation for our local court hearing. Typically, the court hearing is held about a week after the parents’ arrival in the region. In our case, we expect a little bit of extra documentation, but we are praying to have our court hearing completed by the 29th. It is important to understand that scheduling is a little less precise and rigid than in the US; some of you may remember that we had less than an hour’s notice for our hearing last time? http://nilesfamily.blogspot.com/2007/05/court.html
Following the court hearing, there is a mandatory 10-day appeal period. This appeal period must end on a business day; if the 10th day falls on a weekend, we must wait through the following Monday, and the final court judgment can be retrieved (and we can take custody of Lena) on Tuesday. For several reasons, local accommodations and extreme parental boredom included, parents are discouraged from remaining in Ukraine during the appeal period. You may recall that we stayed last time, but after living through that during *good* weather, we realize the wisdom in returning home, especially during winter!
Because of the holidays, we had to book our return flights for very early on the morning of New Year’s Eve. If we can’t make it to Kyiv in time for that flight, we’ll be stuck there through the middle of the next week!
While both parents must be present for the court hearing, only one is required to take custody and do all of the “outprocessing.” This includes obtaining a new birth certificate and passport, as well as collecting all the appropriate immigration paperwork at the US embassy in Kyiv. The current plan is for Christine to return to Ukraine and take care of all of this while Mark stays home with Masha.
Beyond our firm departure for Kyiv on the evening of the 13th, and our appointment with the SDA on the 16th, all dates are subject to change. We have learned to trust our facilitators and translators, knowing that they are as motivated as we are to get us back home…but it also means that we have no control and very little information about the timelines until events actually unfold.
Our travel anxiety is much lower. We have the advantage of being familiar with the city and understanding the basic process. We know that we can pack light, as we can buy almost anything we need in the local grocery stores. We expect to have Internet access from our apartment via broadband card (thanks to the Stillwells!!). I have already started loading up my e-reader with the many books I’ve been meaning to read (recommendations, anyone?), and getting the iPods updated with some new tunes. We will probably carry more weight in personal electronics than in clothes!!
Regardless, there are still many things to take care of before we leave, most importantly, the Care and Feeding of the Mashroom! We have a dear family friend who has graciously agreed to stay at our house with Masha so she can keep her routine close to normal while we are gone. Anna, you and Gracie are true blessings to us! We are diligently preparing house manuals and schedules, and trying to make this as easy as possible on everyone!
I’m not certain how much I’ll be able to post between now and our departure, but I’ll try to get a couple more posts up before we leave. Thanks to all of you for your endless support, prayers, and interest!!
Saturday, July 11, 2009
...And we're at it again!
After a lengthy hiatus to attend to life, the Niles Blog has returned!!
As many of you are aware, we have begun the process to adopt again! Over the next few weeks, I'll fill in the gaps over the past year, and share where we are in the process and what we expect to happen over the next few months. But for those of you clamoring for an update....
While we were in Ukraine to adopt Masha in June 2007, we met her best friend, Lena. She was a very sweet and soft-hearted girl, always there with a smile and a hug. We would have adopted her on the spot if we could, but we learned that her family situation was such that she was not available for adoption. Masha remained in touch with her after we returned to the US, calling and sending letters and photos.
Over time, we learned that the Center (orphanage) was working through the legal details to allow Lena to be adopted, but we understood that process was very long, involved, and often unsuccessful. While we had hope for her to eventually become part of a forever family, we committed to stay in touch with her and share our love with her regardless of what happened.
Fast forward to August 2008, when we had the opportunity to host Lena for a 2-week visit in our home. We knew that her opportunities to participate in hosting programs was pretty limited, and we wanted to give her a chance to travel to the US, visit with our family, and shower her with love for the time that we could. After some very chaotic travel arrangements, she arrived in mid-August and returned at the end of the month.
And no, i did not blog. :(
As she was packing to return to Ukraine, though, we learned that there had been a significant change in her status, and that she had been declared adoptable by the Ukrainian court system!! We rejoiced, but definitely recognized that there were still many hurdles to clear before she could become part of our family, including a 14-month waiting period before she would be eligible for adoption to a country outside Ukraine.
We began the process to update our Home Study (the first step in any adoption process), and learned that new State requirements meant we had to obtain some additional background checks through the appropriate Child Protective Services division of each state that Mark or I had lived in. A couple of mine took MONTHS to come back, and so our update took MUCH longer than our original homestudy.
As soon as we got the homestudy documents, we were able to move to Step 2: submit our application to US Citizenship and Immigration Services (CIS). We submitted that about three weeks ago, and we have an appointment to be a guest in their Indianapolis office to take our fingerprints and verify that our fingers haven't changed since last time we did this....
It generally takes them another 4 weeks to do what they do, so we hope to have their approval by the end of August. While they process our application, we will use the time to collect the many many other documents that Ukraine requires for us to submit as our application to adopt.
Just as with Masha, there is a risk that a Ukrainian family could choose to adopt Lena before she becomes available for international adoption. there is also a risk that we could be denied by the US or Ukrainian governments. While all of these risks are small, we are still praying that all goes smoothly!
If everything goes according to plan, we hope to be invited to travel to Ukraine late this fall.
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