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.
Monday, December 21, 2009
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!
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