Random Thoughts

As the days wear on we can honestly say that NOTHING seems new or noteworthy, so finding things to blog about can be a bit of a challenge at times. However, we know that at the very least reading a new blog lets you all know that we are alive and well, so here are some random thoughts that have passed through our minds the past eight weeks or so.

Spaghetti
When we first arrived here in Ust our first apartment was only temporary and so we tried to avoid unpacking a lot or accumulating anything extra before we switched to our current location. On top of that, we were dead tired and completely disoriented in our surroundings. The first thing we did after our visit to the baby house on the first day was make a stop at Arzhan, which is similar to Costco to pick up some food and supplies. Of all the things we had on our minds, what we might eat for the next few days or weeks never crossed our minds, so when we arrived at the store, we went completely blank. In addition, we had no idea what we would find, and with our driver’s little car, we didn’t want to buy too much stuff so that both families would have room. One of the first things we laid eyes on was a bulk package of spaghetti (about 2kg). Perfect! Simple, versatile, easy to cook and store. We knew we’d be able to work with that and at the very least could have just plain ol’ spaghetti with butter.

So now it’s eight weeks later and we are still working on that same package of spaghetti! We are starting to feel that in addition to the movie Groundhog Day we can add segments from Forrest Gump as well when Forrest’s friend and business partner, Bubba, is telling Forrest about all the things you can do with shrimp. “You can bake it, broil it, fry it, make it with sauce, …”

Things That Don’t Translate Well
We expected the language thing to pose a few challenges along the way, but we are quite surprised by the two things that seem to be the most difficult to translate.
“Right of Way” – as in the pedestrian has the right of way. Here, it seems to have been interpreted as “the pedestrian had best move right out of the way if they wish to make it to their destination in one piece.” Now that we are moving about the city with a stroller, we have noticed people are more willing to stop to let you cross the street, but we are actually finding that even more tricky because with multi lane traffic you can’t assume that just because the first car stopped that the next car will catch on so you sometimes find yourself half way across the street peeking around a bus for oncoming traffic and the bus driver is getting a little impatient because he doesn’t want to fall behind schedule and he doesn’t know what you are stopping for.

Which leads me to another thought about strollers. I totally understand why you push them, but doesn’t it seem just a little strange that when we head out in the world with the children that we are trying our hardest to protect and nurture that we make them go first into whatever awaits us? Almost sounds like those medieval taste-testers that were forced to taste the king’s food to make sure it wasn’t poisonous. Okay kid, you go first, and if nothing bad happens, I’ll follow….

“Poop” – before we became parents we noticed that other parents spent a lot of time talking about poop. We didn’t know that so much could be said about poop. So when it came time to find out about how our little guy has been raised before we assume his care we felt obligated to find out about poop. We gave our translator a list of questions about his schedule, diet, sleep habits, etc. to ask the caregivers while we were having our visit. Now, not wanting to sound crude, we wrote “How often does he have a bowel movement?” Now, to some of you, that may seem like a really absurd question. But the whole time we had our visits, Max only had one soiled diaper, so we were wondering if he was one of those people who just didn’t need daily movements. (I know, too much info) And, knowing that we were about to completely throw his little system for a loop, we thought we should know if any of the changes we made were affecting his digestive system.

Anyway, we handed the translator our list and went about our merry way so we could enjoy our time with Max. A little while later, she returned and said she got information about most of our questions, but there were a few she needed to ask us about. Sure enough, the poop question was one of them! She said, “What is a bowel movement?” Now of course our first reaction was to go completely blank. It totally threw us for a loop that this would be one of the things we might have to do charades for. I even looked it up in our Russian/English phrasebook. No poop. You wouldn’t believe how long it took for us to try to find a tactful and not too disgusting way to explain what we were wondering. Her first reaction was one of, “He poops when he poops, you can’t set a clock to it, you just deal with it when it happens.” But, finally we were able to explain why we wanted to know and she seemed satisfied that we weren’t off our rockers. (Note to self – just because someone says they speak English (Russian, French, etc.) does not necessarily mean they understand it!)

Russian Music Videos
In addition to our one and a half English television stations (CNN and a sports channel that is sometimes English and sometimes Russian) we have about 40 Russian stations that we surf through once in a while to see if there is anything we can watch, even if we can’t listen to it. Funniest Animals is one of our favourites because it is actually just as funny, if not better, without the annoying commentary. Sometimes we can catch a music video channel that plays a lot of music from North America (the popular music here is about 50% North American and 50% other) so when we can we tune in to it for some variety. We’ve noticed that a lot of the Russian music videos that we’ve seen look like they are right out of the 80’s. Very low budget, so they end up looking a lot like “Mickey” by Toni Basil (as in, “Oh Mickey you’re so fine, you’re so fine you blow my mind, hey Mickey, hey Mickey!”) or some of the early Cindi Lauper or Madonna videos. Nostalgic yes, but not necessarily good.

Dish Racks
Now here’s a great idea. In the cupboard above our sink is a built in drying rack for dishes. The dishes can drip dry right into the sink and you don’t have to go back to them to put them away because the dish rack doubles as cupboard space. The only downside for our North American lifestyles is that as far as we know, most people like to situate their sinks by a window and so to have a built in dish rack you would have to sacrifice your view. However here, where dish towels seem to have absolutely no absorbing qualities whatsoever, we love the built in dish rack.

Zoning
Another interesting thing we’ve noticed here is that there doesn’t seem to be any zoning bylaws. We originally thought that the plan right from the start was to build the stores along the street and the living areas above them. As time passed and we saw a few new stores being established, we realized that most buildings were once completely living spaces, but as times got better, if one wanted to start a store of their own, all they had to do was purchase a ground floor suite or two which they could renovate into a store. As time passed, more and more people did this, which has lead to the street level shopping and apartments above.

So, that’s all for the random thoughts from our little corner of the world. You never know, we may come up with more, we may not. Here’s hoping your little corner of the world is happy, healthy and looking forward to a terrific day!

So What's New?

Let’s start with the new things that Max is doing. First of all, he babbles constantly. Well, actually sometimes he replaces babble with all and all out yelling, but it’s the happy sort, so we love it. He would never be allowed to be this loud in the baby house, especially at nap time. He usually sings himself to sleep, which we love listening to. He also is making a few new sounds, including ‘ma’ and ‘ba’ (he already had a solid use of ‘da’) and is starting to try to imitate us. Max most definitely has begun to understand some English, especially his name and ‘no’. He responds to the words ‘come here’, ‘up’& ‘sit’.

He has started to stand a little bit on his own and we can really see the strength in his legs build. Today he spent about 20 minutes bouncing up and down on us, mostly under his own power with us to balance him and give him a little up start.

Today he decided to try out using a spoon on his own and actually did very well. We have some spoons that have slightly longer handles so Mom was able to give a bit of hand over hand help loading the spoon, but he got it in his mouth and eaten all on his own. It helped that he was eating stew, which sticks to the spoon so he could be successful even if he tipped the spoon over. He’s also sitting at the table on his own for most of the meal. We found a little stool that we can use as a booster seat and he will sit there even though there is no belt to hold him down. Of course one of us is always right beside him, but this makes it so much easier to feed him. Once he starts to get full he moves over to Mom’s lap for the last little bit, but this is so much better for all of us.

Other than that we are waiting for Max’s passport so that we can start to make plans to move to Almaty. As we said, we don’t know exactly when this will happen, but we will try to do a quick post when we know. We don’t know what or where our accommodations will be in Almaty, so we can’t say if we will be easy to contact or if we will have Internet access right away. If we end up in an apartment there that doesn’t have a phone, we try to find an Internet café. We’re hoping that our coordinator there will be able to fly to Moscow to process Max’s visa, which would shorten our wait by two or three days. The peace of mind will be worth the fees to expedite the paperwork.

The forecast for tomorrow calls for lower temperatures (26 degrees) so we are looking forward to getting out for a walk or for a treat. It’s 31 degrees in our apartment right now and we just heard some thunder, so maybe our relief will arrive a bit earlier than expected.

Take Care and Best Wishes

Closer

Okay folks, we can see the light at the end of the tunnel! We’ve booked our flights home (a very painstaking and troublesome event) for July 30th. Our flight leaves Almaty at 3:20am on the 30th and we will arrive home around 3:30pm on the 30th, if all goes as planned.

Travel will take approximately 24 hours in total, but we gain 12 hours on the way home, so this accounts for what seems to be a short trip. So that means that when we arrive at our final destination our bodies will think it is 3:30 in the morning, so we hold no promises that we will be alert and logical at that time. We actually have the fastest possible route home, but this also creates relatively short layovers which are a blessing if we make the next flight and a nightmare if we don’t. We’re pretty confident that each connection gives us ample time to stretch our legs, get to the next gate, go through customs (Calgary, we assume) and do whatever else we need to between flights. If all goes as planned, we will arrive in Frankfurt at 6:25am, depart for Calgary at 9:55am. Arrive in Calgary at 11:40am and depart at 2:25pm.

But before we get too ahead of ourselves, there are a few things that need to be completed here. First, we need to get Max’s passport in hand. Best case scenario, it could be here this Thursday. It may take until Monday or so, but we’re hoping for sooner rather than later. Then, we have to apply for a visa for him to leave Ust (yeah, we don’t get it either) which apparently takes only a day or so.
Then we’re off to Almaty to apply for his entry visa into Canada. This can take anywhere from two to five days, so that should still leave us a couple of days grace if something gets hung up.

Best case scenario, everything is done in the least amount of time possible and we have to keep ourselves busy for five or so days in Almaty. Next to worse case scenario, we make our plane with all documents in hand by the skin of our teeth. We don’t need to tell you then what the worst case scenario would be. We’re not sure yet who would lose their minds first, Rod or Tammy, if this happens. We’ve got our fingers crossed that by then we will have taught Max how to beg, plead and fly a plane so we can all get home.

So, we started packing today. First, because we are eager to get this show on the road, and second, we don’t want to be caught off guard if we get last minute confirmation that we can fly to Almaty. There is only one flight per day and we want to be on the first one possible!

Keep your fingers and toes (and whatever else you can think of) crossed for us!

(Gerald, now would be a good time to put a good word in for us!)