Our Home Away from Home

Since there is really nothing new happening here, we thought we’d take this opportunity to take you on a little tour of our luxury accommodations. This is what 600 sq feet looks like in our neck of the woods. Please note, the pictures do this apartment a favour, it really isn't this nice! We have spared you pictures of the peeling vinyl tile floors, stained carpets, etc. But anyhow...

First, the living room. Notice the lovely view of both laundry facilities. To the left, our deluxe, three string clothes line that only Rod can reach (and no, Tammy didn’t arrange for that before we moved in, it’s just a perk). To the right our super small, drains into the tub washing machine in the bathroom.

Did you notice the fancy duct tape artwork on the windows? There are no screens on the windows of the closed in balcony, so we had to improvise. Now on to the main hall, at the end of the hall (which isn’t nearly as long as it appears) you will see two doors at the end. The open door on the left is the bathroom with a tub, sink and the washing machine. Door number two is the other part of the bathroom, complete with silver Christmas tinsel decorating the water pipes.

Off of the main hall is the bedroom with a box that is supposed to resemble a bed and a crib. Notice the white square on the wall just above the left side of the crib. That would be the light switch. We can only imagine what would happen if we left the crib there once M is here with us. With his sense of humour, we can definitely see some light shows in the middle of the night. What better way than to wake your parents than to flip the lights on and off?

Lastly, off to the kitchen. We definitely won’t get any exercise in this room, as everything is basically within arms reach. And don’t you just love the fridge? It speaks for itself.

Other than that, we’re still doing fine. M has learned how to “Gimme 5” and impressed one of the very important Baby House officials with his new talent. We can’t remember her name, but she has the longest title we’ve ever seen. She reminds us of an Asian version of Christine, (Tammy’s former director) and her title is “The Representative of the Body of Guardianship and Trusteeship”. No, we don’t really know what her job is but she seems impressed with us so far and yes, we need to read her title in our court speech. Good thing we get to read it from our prepared script! By the way, Tammy lost the coin toss on this one, so it’s up to her not to screw it up.

Tomorrow we are venturing out to a Turkish restaurant called Doner with some of the other adoptive families we have gotten to know here. We will also say a sad farewell to our translator, who has been absolutely wonderful. It will be hard to see her go, but she is off to the USA to work and travel. We don’t know who our next translator will be, but we’re getting along quite well at the baby house and have a pretty good routine. We seem to be able to communicate everything we need to so far with the caregivers and if we got into a bind, we would either borrow another translator that can speak a bit of English, or our driver who we’re sure would give us a hand if there was a communication emergency. There are usually two or three translators around each day, but each one specializes in a different language, (English, German and Spanish) but it seems that all of them know at least a little bit of English.

Well, that’s all from the flip side. Hope you enjoyed your tour. Please watch your step as you exit the vehicle. Souvenirs are available at the gift shop. Please visit us again soon.

Yep, We’re Still Here

We just realized that it’s been 3 days since we last spoke. No, we’re not mad at you, it’s just that one day is starting to run into the next. We could have sworn it was only a couple of days.

Well, filing court papers was pretty much nothing. Seriously, all we did was wait in line for about 15 minutes, our coordinator shoved a package of papers through a hole just big enough for a mouse to get through and then we had to prove it was really us by showing our passports and crouching down so they could peek at us through the mouse hole to verify our identity. As our beloved driver would say, “No problem!”

But, filing our papers did accomplish a couple of things. First, it concluded our official 15 day bonding period and second, it got us a date for our court hearing (June 17) where we will officially request to be named as M’s parents. After our court hearing, we will have another 15 or 16 day wait, called the appeal period. After that, if all goes as planned, we will be officially declared his parents and then we can start the paperwork to get him home (immigration, visa, passport, etc.). We should also be able to set our “gotcha day” where we can spring the little gaffer out of the baby house and into our house forever.

We have also met another milestone with M. It is one of those ones that warms your heart and breaks it all at the same time. Other adoptive parents know exactly how this day feels, the day that your little one cries when you drop them off instead of when you pick them up. So far we’ve had it pretty easy, M is happy to see us arrive and easily goes back at the end of the visit. But, today was our day, and let us tell you, that’s a lot of emotion from each end of the spectrum to process at once. Today, one of M’s favourite caregivers was working, a young lady who calls him “little one”. Usually he is eager to see her, especially around snack time and we know that he will easily go to her when we leave. But today was different and when we did the hand-off, M immediately turned himself around and reached out to us with the saddest, tear-filled eyes we’ve seen. We could hear his sobs all the way down the hallway. So here’s where the spectrum of emotion comes in: joy because we know that he was happy to be with us and wants to stay with us and despair because we hate to see him so sad. We know that every day won’t be like this, but it still breaks your heart.

A few new families are arriving this week, and we recognize the look in their eyes. Another spectrum of emotion. Anticipation, fear, uncertainty, certainty, determination, promise, etc. all at once. The heart truly is the most flexible organ of the body. It can feel so many things all at once that you think it is going to burst, but it doesn’t, it dutifully carries on and keeps you going. Even though we can hardly call ourselves experienced at this, we will “pay it forward” as others have done for us and at the very least, offer support and companionship so far from home. Oh, and we’ll make sure to introduce ourselves to each and every family so they know that there is someone who literally speaks the same language!

Okay, so that definitely enough mushy stuff for one day. On the topic of life in Kaz, we’ve hit an all time low this morning: 21˚C in our apartment! For the first time, we dug for the denim jeans and long sleeves and didn’t even think twice about not wearing shorts. Now I know that at home you are longing for 21 degree weather so that you can finally dig those shorts out, but let us tell you, after 2 weeks of heat, 21 seems down right cold! As for the hot water, still nothing. Apparently when they say no water for one week, what they really mean is, “One week you’ll have hot water, but we won’t tell you which one.” We had a little panic the other day because we keep saying that as long as we have water, it’s all good. Well, one afternoon we didn’t have water, and other than our drinking water, we didn’t have any stored up. Thankfully it was only for a few hours, and we’ve learned our lesson – we keep a few jugs of water for washing on hand just in case.

In other news, we see that Detroit has won the Stanley Cup. In fact, we can see it about 3 times a day, every day. If you thought hockey dominated the television stations at home around this time, you should try only having 2 English channels! EuroSport has played the final game over and over and over and over and….okay you get the idea.

So what else can we tell you? Well, we’ve managed to buy light bulbs, and get some photos printed. Now, don’t underestimate what an accomplishment this is for us. First, you have to find a store that sells light bulbs and then you have to find one that sells the kind you need. Now, at home this is pretty straightforward, but here, not so much. Many of the stores here are kind of like a general store with a whole variety of unpredictable items for sale. One store can sell gardening supplies, plumbing supplies, socks, some vegetables, and laundry detergent. The next store might have clothes, a few dishes, maybe shoes, furniture, etc. Plus, you have to figure out if a store really is a store. There isn’t really shopping districts here, there are little stores dotted here there and everywhere and they aren’t always clearly marked what type of store there is. After about 5 carefully selected stores, we found a few that sold light bulbs and finally one that sold the kind we needed. So if you wonder what we do with our time, this is it, we look for light bulbs. Glamorous isn’t it?!?

On the topic of stores, these people love shoes! About every third or fourth store in our area is a shoe store. We don’t know if we just happen to be in the shoe district, or if this is a city wide phenomenon. As tempting as it is, Tammy hasn’t ventured in, mainly because of the weight restrictions on luggage for flying and also because with the heat, shoes bought here aren’t likely to fit once we get home. Oh, but there are so, so many beautiful shoes!

World, Meet “Scruffy”

We just had to give this little mutt some blog space. She meets us everyday when we get to the Baby House and she hangs out around the grounds there all day. You know you’ve been away from home for awhile when you wonder where a scruffy little mutt like this one is if she doesn’t appear on schedule.

We still don’t have hot water, but so long as we have running water, it’s all good. As we have mentioned, we only have one visit on Saturday and Sunday, so these are the days we venture out and explore the city. Yesterday’s adventure took us down some new streets, where we first happened upon this…

… a little taste of home? We think not. We then carried a little farther until we arrived at the zoo to meet the other family from Canada who is here. The zoo isn’t exactly like any zoo we’d see at home, but we did see a few interesting animals before we headed off for home.

At first we thought there was a pen of white tailed deer, but when we saw this buck in velvet, we also saw that it still has its spots, but we couldn't remember what type of deer it might be.

This little camel can't be too terribly old, as it is still a little wobbly on its legs. They are quite cute when they are young, but don't seem to age very well.

Today we spent a bit of time just walking along the river with another adoptive parent from Britain that we’ve gotten to know during our stay. Here is a view of the Altai Mountains from the other side of the bridge, about a 15 minute walk from our apartment. We walked to the other side of the bridge where we could then walk along the river. We took our shoes off and enjoyed the coolness of the water, but unfortunately couldn’t stay long because of an incessant swarm of small flies that were rather troublesome.

Tomorrow we head off to file our court papers, and then on Tuesday we will be given the date of our first court hearing where we will present to the judge our request to adopt our son. We will both speak a little bit about who we are, why we want to adopt, and why we choose Kazakhstan. It sounds difficult, but we are allowed to read from a prepared speech, so it shouldn’t be too bad. There will also be representatives from the Baby House and a variety of other officials who will speak to the judge about their opinion on the matter. After that, there is a 15 day appeal period and then a final hearing where we will hear the judge’s final ruling. So, we have our fingers crossed that our son will be allowed to come home with us in about 3 weeks. Until then, we will continue to have our daily visits to the Baby House.

It’s hard to bring variety to our explanations of our visits, especially when we can’t give you any specifics about what M is doing. He continues to bond well with both of us and we are enjoying seeing his personality emerge. He’s a bit of a comedian and loves to get his hands on anything he can toss down, especially the stack of clothes on the change table when his caregivers try to change his clothes. We’re excited that the best solution seems to be handing him off to us to change his clothes in the children’s locker room. The more we can do with and for him, the more he will come to understand that we aren’t just his personal daily entertainment. We’ve even had to practice a little bit of saying “no” as M has discovered our watches and jewellery and would love to yank them off. He keeps trying to chew on Tammy’s necklace, so this gives us some time to practice a new English word which we expect will become a regular part of our vocabulary if this little guy lives up to the twinkle in his eye and offset grin he gets when he’s up to something.

Other than that, we seem to have settled into quite a routine here. It’s definitely not anything overly exciting or anything. With approximately six weeks to go, we’re trying to pace ourselves and spread the adventure out, especially over the next few weeks until M comes home.

On another note, we’re finding that some of you who have phoned are having quite a lot of trouble getting through or when you do, get a terrible connection. It seems that if you go through the operator to make the call, that you get a much better connection with hardly any delay, if any. So if you’re one of those folks who are having phone troubles, maybe give that a try, we’d love to hear from you.