diary

TRIP JOURNAL

My trip here was greatly helped by a daily journal Catherine Thode kept of her travels here a year ago and of course Susan Clegg's superlative website http://kazakhadoptivefamilies.com Although not a great deal has changed, here's an update for any families headed this way soon.

April 8, 2003 -- Finally, The Phone Call

After getting the call on April 8 that the invitation from the Kazakh government had been issued and I was free to travel to Kazakhstan, I called Nikolay to let him know I was finally coming (on a week's notice). He is clearly excited to come to America and be Nikolay Lee Kelly! I leave next Wed morning, Apr 16, stopping in Durham to drop off the orphanage gifts and medical supplies that Steve will bring later (I am limited to 72 (!) pounds of checked luggage for 4 weeks). I leave Durham Thursday AM and get to Pavlodar Sat morning at 6AM after TWO red-eyes in a row (and four more flights: Raleigh-Dulles-Frankfurt-Hannover-Pavlodar). It should be a pretty awful sight! Assuming the visa arrives on time, which is now due to be issued Tuesday. (Every day offers a new twist...)

Steve arrives in Pavlodar Apr 26 and will stay through the court date, which I hope is May 2, then he will go back to NC to finish law school (but that means Dad won't be able to join me on the trip after all). From there Nikolay and I take a three-hour plane ride to the former capital, Almaty, the Apple Capital of the World (where the US embassy is), for immigration processing and medical exams, shots, etc. We also hope to be the first visitors to two out of three geocaches in all of Kazakhstan, and maybe hide one of our own!

We hope to leave Almaty early (1:45 AM!) on the morning of May 9 for Frankfurt and then on to Durham, NC, for Steve's graduation from Duke Law School on May 10. Any delays mean we miss Steve's graduation. May 11 (Mother's Day!!!) we go to DC to get Nikolay registered at the embassy on Mon and Tues before getting home to Lake Tahoe via Reno late Tuesday May 13.

The area of Kazakhstan where we will be is 14 hours ahead of the west coast, so at 8AM on the west coast, it is 10PM in Pavlodar. The number at the hotel is 011-7-3182-320539, Room 6; I will be there each day between 5:30 and 6:00PM west coast time. Internet cafes will allow me to send messages periodically, and I can be reached at kek@mindspring.com.

Tues-Sun, April 15-20 Getting Here, Getting Around

I am going to write this as the one long day it was. It was one of the more difficult trips I have had, but as with most things, you forget about all the difficulties once you are here. Suffice it to say I am here with the help of Senator Ensign's office, the luck of having been born in Canada (and thus possessing a Canadian passport), the Canadian embassy to the US, being able to speak German, and the Kazakhstan consulate in Frankfurt. Without all of their help I would still be camped out on the doorstep of the Kazakhstan embassy to the US on Easter weekend, or facing anti-demonstration tanks in the street outside the US consulate in Frankfurt. But that is a story for another day.

I arrived at 6AM this Saturday morning, April 19, on Air Kazakhstan flight Y9 216, a 4.5-hour trip from Hannover, Germany the second red-eye in a row since leaving Durham Thursday morning. I was asleep before the plane doors closed in Hannover and did not wake up till the pilot announced our landing (in Russian). Apparently I missed quite a party this flight leaves Germany once a week, on Friday night, to take workers home for the weekend. Sleeping was no doubt assisted by the fact that the back of my seat had one position - fully reclined. The attendants didn't seem to mind or care that the seat was not in its "full, upright and locked position," and I surely didn't either. No baggage police to tell you your bags needed to be stowed (although the German airport was very strict on size limitation). If there was a meal, which I doubt, I missed it. The aircraft was a Tupolev 154, which holds about 160 passengers. It my brief moments of consciousness it seemed airworthy enough, and one I would not mind flying again. Especially if I can get that same seat 28F.

Upon arriving in Pavlodar we were ushered into an anteroom of some kind with nothing in it but a scale. After about a half an hour, a customs official came into the room and began to take the windows off their hinges and pile them in the corner, at which point everyone rushed to the open window waving their baggage claim tickets and yelling to the baggage handlers outside which piece was theirs. Yes, we all got our bags pushed through the window to us. It was more entertaining to watch than to be in the middle of.

Finally to the exit door, the customs official pointed at my bag and asked something that was probably pertaining to the contents, so I just said "orphanage" in Russian and he waved me through. Baggage total: one 66-pound garment bag on wheels, one 6-pound Ikea tent/tunnel for the orphanage (thus kept to my 72-pound limit), one very heavy carryon which was small enough to fit underneath the seat on the Lufthansa flights (they did not care about the weight, just the size), and a briefcase. (For a detailed list of contents, see "What I Packed" elsewhere on Nikolay's website.)

It took an hour to unload 100 passengers and their bags, even as the only plane at the airport. Yackov Dvoretsky, the attorney handling the adoption here, was there to meet the plane personally at 7AM on a Saturday morning. The man is a tireless worker. He started out by telling me this is the first time a Kazakhstan visa had been processed with the intervention of a US senator's office and it apparently caused quite a stir. Anyway, I am here.

Yackov, as it turns out, is the reason we are all here. A barrister (like in the UK, a higher level of practice than a lawyer), it was apparently he who brought the case before the KZ Supreme Court to allow international adoptions in 1995. His uncle, who holds a doctorate degree in physics, is a member of Parliament. As they say over here, it's not what you know, it's who you know, and Yackov knows a lot of both.

The hotel was about a 20 min drive from the airport through some pretty desolate countryside in near-zero temperature but clear skies. Spring has just started to arrive in southern Siberia, which is where we are. And if anyone doubts that concrete is the world's most common construction material, they need look no further than Pavlodar.

Upon seeing the Admira Hotel, also known as the Business Centre, my first ungracious thought about the decrepit, run-down structure was THERE IS NO WAY I AM STAYING HERE. That is another adoptive parent, Graham, in the photo, in front of the hotel. But as with most things here, external appearances are deceiving, and it was quite nice inside. Apparently this is where the party apparatchik used to stay when visiting in Russia's heyday, and the adoptive families seem to get the nicest rooms. More like small apartments, with large sitting rooms and a separate bedroom, Persian rugs on wood floors, a nice tiled bathroom with heated pipes for the towels, a refrigerator, a phone with a standard US-type RJ11 modular connection, and windows on two sides. You can see parts of the Irtush river about ¼ mile away. The bed is barely long enough for me at 5'8" and I have to sleep diagonally on it to be comfortable; Graham across the hall (and 6'5") says he sleeps on the very comfortable sofabed.

The water is a little rusty first thing in the morning but fine for showers. Although the windows have grilles and the external portions of the buildings look run down, the area seems quite safe to walk around and there is even an occasional jogger running along the river. The rooms are overheated here as they are everywhere - about a constant 80 degrees F - and no way to turn it down until spring, when the Central Heating Authority turns it off for the entire city. We just open the windows to cool things off. The hotel food is great; the cheese blintzes are terrific and plentiful, and there is laundry service. Altogether very comfortable, even for two weeks. I was not surprised to learn that when the orphanage kids see the hotel often think they have arrived in America!

Incidentally, the phone number of the hotel from the US is 011-7-3182-320539, fax 322196. Incoming callers need to ask for us by room number, not by name. Most adoptive families stay in the large rooms: #6 and #9. We worked out that I will be in the room each day from 7:30-8:00 AM local time, 5:30-6:00PM West Coast time, to be available for calls. Each agency has its families stay at different hotels for reasons that aren't clear to us, so families that don't have Yackov as facilitator will likely stay elsewhere.

Nikolay is in the Kachirie orphanage with the 4-7-year-olds, an hour away, and I don't get to see him till Monday when the director of the orphanage can be present. So after a shower and unpacking for a two-week stay, I had breakfast with a great couple from Texas, Traci and Graham, who have been here over two weeks (since April 2) and were beyond stir crazy on top of the excitement of just having adopted a nine-month-old boy, Dmitri Stefano Andrighetti Kunze. (They had come for a three-year-old but he was adopted before they arrived, which happens here all too often in the system of first-come, first-served.) They were going to pick up Dmitri that day to take him home from the local baby orphanage and hopefully on to Almaty the next day for final paperwork. Traci and Graham are the only other adoptive family here, but 19 others are on the way over the next couple of weeks.

While waiting to be picked up at 11:30 to go to the baby house, they walked with me down to the river and to the local stores so I could get money changed and find my way around, which was a big help. The currency, the tenge, is available only in Kazakhstan, and is about 152 tenge to the dollar no matter where you change your money. No commissions.

Traci and Graham invited me to come along to the baby orphanage with them, which turns out to be the same home one of our group's children is in (Ruslan, going home to the Robles). I got to videotape the whole event for the parents, who of course were thinking about everything except videotaping. It was a wonderful treat for me to be able to participate. I managed to get the caretakers on film scolding Traci for not having the "right" clothes with her (which consisted of a minimum of seven layers of clothing, not five), her "not knowing" how to take Dmitri's shirt off -- you name it, Traci could do nothing right by them, but she took it all in stride. Somewhere in the building were 100 children ages 0 to 4 but you could not hear a sound anywhere. Traci asked how that could be and was told "discipline." I only saw three children in our area of the building, including one child with fairly severe fetal alcohol syndrome, which is supposedly much less common here than in Russia due to the large Muslim population (47%).

Several very kind caretakers came to say goodbye to Dmitri and were clearly sad to see him go. The only "off" note of the day was learning that the passport machine was broken and not expected to be fixed until Thursday, so they will be here a week longer than they had planned as Dmitri needs a passport to travel. But right at the moment, they are so happy they don't care! Nikolay already has a passport from his travel last summer, so that won't be a problem for us, but there will no doubt be other challenges to overcome.

That afternoon Askhat joined us, a great guy who works for the local Boy Scouts and sort of babysits all of us here while Yackov gets work done. He is one of the unadvertised gems of the program and obviously has made a big impact on the families who have come to town (of which he remembers each in incredible detail). He is studying to be an interpreter and enjoys exchanges with Americans and soaking up the culture (!?). He accompanied us to a bookstore, to the Internet Cafe, to buy a heating coil so I can make hot chocolate in the room, and help Traci buy a week's worth of clothes and food for Dmitri (which lasted barely three days - the little guy is an eater!). Although I can manage OK in the stores (there is no tourism here and virtually no one speaks English), there is no doubt things go a lot faster when Askhat is along to translate. The stores are all in unmarked concrete structures and you have no idea from the outside what is inside, but the word "bazaar" comes to mind. Booth after booth of independent vendors selling everything from Friskies to cell phones to souvenirs to rugs, one after the other. Even the supermarket is run by separate vendors; buy milk here, juice there.

Across the street I got some great bilingual children's books in English and Russian and a map of town. Prices are very inexpensive by US standards. A measuring tape was 10 cents, the heating coil 50 cents, a liter of juice $1. (But a bottle of Johnson's baby shampoo will set you back $2.) The measuring tape even had inches on one side and centimeters on the other, only to discover that the inches were so long that a foot measured about 10 actual inches long on the tape. Hey, what can you expect for a dime.

Bought 10 liters of water, plus milk, juice, yogurt, crackers and hot chocolate (of course) for about $8. But you really have to know where you are going, as all the stores are accessible through unmarked doors that you would never think to enter without someone there to show you.

Went back for a nap around 4:30 and did not wake up till 9:30. Had a great dinner of Russian salad: julienned ham, salami, cheese, vegetables -- and salmon in my room. $4.50. Stayed up till midnight studying my Russian tapes and watching BBC World and CNN (the only English language channels), then called it a day. Discovery Channel is here, too, but in Russian.

Up early for more blintzes (called "blini" here) and a walk to the new Russian Orthodox church nearby. It was Palm Sunday (Easter is celebrated a week later here) and I was intrigued to see how the day might be celebrated. The first thing that caught my attention was all the pussy-willows being sold on the street and carried into the church. Perhaps it is the only thing growing here at the moment, but nearly everyone was carrying them, either single branches or by the armful, into the packed church. I could not make it much farther than the entryway, so decided to return on a less crowded day.

Wandered over to one of two Internet cafés, where I had mixed success. (Note to families: of the two Internet cafes across the street from each other, one to the west (river side) seems to have a more stable 56K connection but runs on Windows 98, whereas the Internet cafe in te Flagman cafe across the street runs on Windows 2000.) They both have USB ports but no CD or Zip drives. If you bring a portable USB storage device or other attachments, be sure to bring the drivers, as both cafes are very nice about allowing you to use your equipment on their machines. I did not bring a laptop so I have not tried to connect to the Internet from the hotel, but I don't see why it wouldn't work.

The Internet cafe setup is more like a Kinko's than a café: one room, bare walls, about seven computer stations and desks, but definitely no café selling lattes to enjoy while you type The machines all ran well on Windows 98 on 56K connections (albeit in Russian, though you can change the screen to English). Unfortunately my email provider (Earthlink) no longer supports Internet Explorer 4 (which is what the Win98 machines were running on), IE5 is no longer available, and downloading IE6 crashed the machine, so I did not get access to my email that day. Instead wrote notes about the first days here, got a little work done, and left after about four hours of computer time.Total bill: $4.40.

Meandered back to the hotel, stopping to buy some more books and groceries along the way. Caught up with Traci and Graham and noted that Dmitri was now fully in charge of both their lives - quite an astonishment to them both, I imagine. We had dinner at the hotel as Askhat was suffering from severe allergies and Traci and Graham were not quite ready to venture out on the town with Dmitri. Ordered a gin and tonic and then immediately rethought it as drinking the local water (and the ice made from it) is not advisable, so it turned out to be just a glass of warm gin-flavored tonic. Mostly tried hard to be patient while looking forward to seeing Nikolay the next day, but didn't get to sleep till about 3.

Monday, April 21 -- Seeing Nikolay!

Woke up early, about 6, with way too much energy. Yackov had said he would call at 8:30 with the day's schedule, and in the meantime the blini were calling to me. Started to take a walk down to the river, but the winds were a little brisk so headed to town instead. More meandering, more groceries every day new sights to see. Went to Café Santos with Traci, near the new mosque (the largest in Kazakhstan, we are told), for some amazing hot chocolate Traci had discovered. That will definitely be a daily stop. Good thing it is a half-hour walk to get there! The cafe is the only thing here so far that has been so upscale that it seemed almost out of place -- more like Seattle than Kazakhstan.

Yackov called precisely at 8:30 to say our first appointment with the regional court was at 11, and then called at 10 to say it had been moved to 2:30 because their offices were moving that day and they could not get the computer set up before we got there. The 2:30 appointment lasted 10 minutes and consisted of several pleasant questions about summer camp, Nikolay, how was I going to care for him while I work, and was I able to deal with any disabilities he might have? This line of questioning was a bit of a surprise, as I thought officially the summer camp is not recognized and I was not to expect any questions about Nikolay directly, but... there was my original dossier in her hands, the first I had seen of it since sending it off to the embassy, complete with pictures of Nikolay. Then she said Nikolay looks a lot like me and expressed many nice wishes for the both of us in our new life. We then waited an hour in the hall for more papers to be signed somewhere, and finally at 3:45 we were off to the orphanage at Kachirie to see my little duck-eyes!

OK, so here is an embarrassing story on me. When I met with Yackov in Salt Lake City in January, I asked him what Nikolay's last name given to him at the orphanage, Chernochin, meant. He said "Duck Eyes." I was too startled to respond then, but it was really making me curious. Do orphanage kids not have enough problems without being given names like Duck Eyes?

So on the trip out to the orphanage at Kachirie I asked Yackov why he had been given a name like Duck Eyes. Yackov reminded me that Nikolay was a foundling and that the orphanage must have been struck by his big, beautiful, dark eyes. Oh, DARK eyes, not duck eyes! I have a lot of explaining to do to the family and I doubt my family is likely to let me live that one down.

It was about an hour's drive to the Kachirie orphanage (or 45 min if Yackov is driving), on a road running northwest from Pavlodar along a fairly barren stretch of road with the Ertis river frequently in sight. Just outside of Pavlodar, there was an oil refinery to the right, and just beyond it an old chemical weapons plant (Yackov thinks I am kidding about wanting to get a tour), and then not much of anything for a long ways. The two-lane road is not dirt, but it's probably pretty muddy in the winter. Right now, in April, it is full of potholes. With the snow finally melting, there are fires everywhere as the farmers clear last year's vegetation and the air is quite thick in places. We swerve a lot to avoid hitting cattle of every variety -- herded mostly by Kazakh women that look right out of a National Geographic Special -- in the road looking for any blade of grass they can find before being herded home in the evening.

Getting closer to Kachirie, we see some sort of police set-up on the left side of the road, looking somewhat like a permanent DUI check station. (All the officials in government are Kazakh, incidentally, including all police.) As we approach them, Yackov takes off his seat belt and waves congenially at the officers who don't wave back. He turns to say something to Svetlana, the new lawyer in his office who is in training to help with the adoptions and has come along to help out with paperwork today. (Yackov's wife, Anna, is five months pregnant and I have not met her yet.) I ask him why he took his seatbelt off and he says, "Because no one here uses seat belts, so if you pass them with a seat belt on, they think you are drunk and pull you over."

Finally we turn off into Kachirie. All the roads are now dirt and there are even more farm animals to dodge. It is ten minutes till 5PM and there is a judge to visit, fees to be paid, and paperwork to file to start my official two-week stay. As of December 2002, the government has become very strict about the mandatory two-week stay prior to the court date and there are no deviations allowed, not even for "summer camp kids". So although I had hoped for a court date two weeks after my Saturday, April 19, arrival, on May 2 (Dad's birthday), in fact it is going to probably be Monday, May 5, as the papers starting my official visit can't be filed until Monday. We drop off Svetlana who runs to get all the paperwork filed before 5 while Yackov takes me to the orphanage.

I had seen one picture of the orphanage but was not prepared for the simple environment these kids know as home, having first met them in San Jose. I cannot even imagine what a shock Safeway or Macy's or even a restaurant must have been for them last summer in comparison. And I don't mean this in any negative way; you can hear the sounds of happy children playing from a long distance away, and they have the most enormous playground I have ever seen. The contrast for an American is remarkable, even for one with a lot of travel experience throughout the world. Trying to find an example close to home, it reminds you somewhat of many areas in Mexico once you get out of the tourist areas, with a little Turkish/Oriental flavor and without the warm sunshine. I have no difficulty believing that there are no accommodations to be had in Kachirie!

As we approached the main building, Yackov said, "Now watch them all run out. They always do when they see my car coming." I asked him what it is he brings them that they always come running. His answer: "Hope." This picture of Yackov with the kids says it all.

The building is a long-rectangular two-story structure made of concrete, surrounded by a large playground full of the types of play equipment we all know from our childhood. Playhouses, swings, carousels, monkey bars - you name it - in very rusted but good working condition. The children could all be seen laughing and playing on the very far side of the grounds, under the watchful eye of three caretakers with their backs to us.

The building inside was dark but painted in shades of green and blue, and cheerfully decorated with potted plants, plastic flowers, and other decoration. The birthday of every child born in April was prominently posted in the entryway, along with a lot of pictures of kids playing near a pool, pouring buckets of cold water over their heads. Nikolay is one of them.

We turned the corner into the director's office as I am fumbling to get out a camera, expecting Nikolay to be called to the office, but too late. There's Nikolay, standing behind the director's desk, looking... what? Completely excited, terrified, thrilled, and frozen in place, all at once. Of course at that point I lost any pretense of social graces and without even saying hello to the director dropped all my bags and yelled "NIKOLAY!!!!!!!!" He ran up and gave me the biggest hug ever. A Hallmark moment that will be recorded forever in my mind and probably his and nowhere else. I still cry just to think about it.

I held him and hugged him for quite a few minutes. He is still light enough that I can pick him up with one arm and I told him all the Russian I could think of. "Hello, my son, how are you, have you been a good boy? We are going to America, what do you think about that?" He was as overwhelmed as I and did not have a lot to say, but the director said she had asked him this morning what he was looking forward to most and he reportedly said, "Mostly I would just like to go to America tomorrow." I guess I am not worried any longer about whether he wants to leave.

Finally composed enough to be polite, I introduced myself to the Director of the orphanage, Olga (they do not make the Americans fumble through the patronymics), who is delightful. There were lots of gifts of flowers in the office; when I asked, it was with no small amount of pride that she told me the flowers had arrived in honor of her having been there 17 years that day. I learned later that she has been over 30 years at the orphanage. I asked how many children had been adopted while she was Director, and she said 53. Not many, until you realize all the adoptions have been since 1995.

On Olga's desk was a scrapbook: Dinia's, not mine (Nikolay stayed with Dinia's family before I had him stay with me for three days last summer) and a few of the pictures I had sent Nikolay from last fall but not MY little scrapbook I had sent him of life at Tahoe. In the confusion of the moment I neglected to ask Olga where it was, and whether Nikolay knew it wasn't Dinia coming to get him, but me. Too late now!

I had brought a large Ikea play tent and tunnel as a gift for the orphanage, which seemed to go over well. Olga gamely help me put it together right there in her office while Nursulu (going home soon to the DeOcampos) went through all the items her family had sent for her, piece by piece, and Nikolay took pictures with my camera, just as he did last fall. He is absolutely fascinated by anything mechanical. Although Nikolay had not changed in any way that I could tell in seven months (which surprised me greatly), Nursulu had definitely grown and was more adorable than ever. Lots of smiles and thank-yous from both of them caught on videotape to take home to the DeOcampos. And an unprompted "thank you" in English from Nikolay who apparently remembers a few words from last summer. I notice Nikolay is still wearing the shoes I bought him last fall and a cap I had mailed him.

It was a little more difficult to see Nursulu than I had planned. She had only met me briefly at the airport and probably had no clue who I was. I had all these things to tell her from her family, and here I was with no one to translate. So I just sat down and told her in English all the things her family wanted her to know, and showed her all the things they sent her, and she seemed to understand the intent if not the words and was quite happy about it all. I will have to go back later when someone is available to translate to make sure she got it all; I am sorry I did not get much of it on film because I couldn't talk to her from behind a camera. II think the DeOcampos can be sure Nursulu knows she is well loved and that they are coming for her very soon. Then Nursulu carefully packed up all her gifts into a little bag and ran off, holding it very tightly!

While Nikolay and I were having fun, Yackov, Svetlana and Olga were elsewhere working hard on the endless paperwork that goes with the adoption. (The tedious dossiers appear to be only a small dent in the pile.) Nikolay discovered the portable Dictaphone I brought and had a lot of fun recording a poem and two songs into it. He then gave me a videotaped tour of the playground, where you will hear him call me "Mama" on tape (for only the second time). Unfortunately, although I got a lot on film, I got very little on the digital camera. I will have to fix that on the next trip.

It was 6PM and time to go; a long day for everyone. And with a simple "bye-bye, Mama" (in English) and a wave, Nikolay ran off to join his friends on the playground.

Tuesday, April 22 -- Catch-Up

Driving back to the orphanage yesterday, there were lots of questions from Svetlana and Yackov. How did my family feel about adopting Nikolay? What do my friends think of it? What other countries did I consider? Why Kazakhstan? What do I do in my free time in Pavlodar? How big a city do I live in? How is the air quality there? (How do you describe Lake Tahoe in anything but superlatives and how did I forget to bring a single picture of it in 72 pounds of luggage?)

In the cultural exchanges along the drive, I learned something that I know will be of interest to many of the families wondering how and which cultural ties to keep alive. On Nikolay's birth certificate, he is listed as being of Russian nationality, which surprised me as he was reportedly born in Pavlodar and has never been to Russia. Seeing "Russian" seemed as strange to me as it would to see "Irish" nationality on my birth certificate! Apparently a careful distinction is made here between nationality and citizenship. Nikolay is of Russian nationality, and Kazakh citizenship. Askhat, born here, is of Tartar nationality and of Kazakh citizenship. And those of Russian heritage who were born here largely refer to Kazakhs as "they," not "we." Nikolay and I are headed for Russian Heritage Camp in Colorado in June, where Russian adoptees gather once a year to keep up cultural ties, and it is helpful to have that understanding now.

Arriving back at the hotel, Askhat was ready to show us a Turkish restaurant not far from the hotel, Café Bospor, but Traci and Graham decided to pass so I got to take Askhat to dinner. It was a great meal, and about 8PM, when suddenly the lights went dark, the disco ball turned on, and undefinable Eastern European music started blaring from the corner. The guy at the adjacent table in a red muscle shirt and black pants got up and started doing a Chippendales routine for the benefit of his three female companions who could not seem to care less and in fact weren't even watching him. The gals behind the counter were another story - they were absolutely transfixed by watching this Patrick Swayzee wannabe, although whether they were transfixed with horror or glee I am not quite sure. When it was all over, he sauntered back over to his table, lit a cigarette and resumed eating his dinner. Askhat looked somewhere between surprised and embarrassed. I told him too bad Traci wasn't here as she's from Texas and would no doubt be throwing dollar bills at the guy. It was all in all quite hilarious although we think we are going to go back a little earlier in the evening next time to avoid the floor show.

Tuesday was a chance to get caught up on work, send files home, get Steve's ticket organized, and finally establish an email connection. (Apparently we do not get to go to the orphanage more than two or three times a week during our supposed "bonding" period!) Getting through 282 messages on a 56K connection is pretty slow going and I could not get through them all before Traci finally dragged me out of the Internet café for another chocolate infusion at Café Santos around 5.

After taking the long way home along the river on a nice spring evening, we went out for an early dinner at Asia -- Dmitri's first night on the town, -- and he was so good that people at adjacent tables were surprised to see there was even a baby at the table when we carried him out. (What exactly did they think Traci and Graham were doing underneath the table?) Traci declared Asia the best food yet, with great spaghetti and "real" calamari, high praise from an accomplished Italian-American cook (who was also born in Canada, incidentally). Total spent thus far for everything the first four days but the hotel room : $100. The hotel room is $64 a night, whether single or double, and you can charge it to a credit card.

Wednesday, April 23 -- Another Trip to the Orphanage

I was waiting in the street and ready to go when Yackov and Svetlana came by at nine for the second trip to the orphanage. After more paperwork and stops, we got to the orphanage about 10:30. This time a lot kids came running towards us from a different place and started asking me a lot of questions I couldn't understand. I managed to get one picture just before Yackov made a dash for the front door. Yackov later told me they were saying, "Are you coming for me?" "If not me, who are you coming for?" "Can I go to America with you?" I was suddenly thankful I didn't know enough Russian to have understood all that. Usually full of good humor, you could tell that despite all the great things Yackov has done here, it is still difficult for him to see so many left behind. There are reportedly 120,000 children in the Kazakhstan orphanages alone, which is a lot for a population of 15 million.and an indication of the difficult economic times faced here in Kazakhstan. The US in contrast has about 110,000 in foster care (we have no orphanages)..

There is a little office behind the caretaker's room where parents can have a little privacy with their child, and that is where we set up shop today, just Nikolay and me. I brought quite a few books, Marzipan and the camera, and a couple more small gifts for the orphanage (a poster of the English and Cyrillic alphabet, and a growth chart in both meters and feet where we confirmed Yackov is indeed 6'4"). After taking apart the entire contents of the bag, Nikolay was only interested in the camera and the cell phone, and in taking apart the battery if possible. This picture shows Nikolay trying to make calls and being disappointed that there was no cell reception in Kachirie, because he remembers it worked just fine in San Jose. You may all expect quite a few calls when we get home!

So we drew pictures instead. He drew an airplane, another airplane, and then (surprise) some miscellaneous letters (A, M, H, O, N) that did not mean anything but were meant to show me he was learning his letters (which I had was told he had not yet been taught, so this was a nice surprise indeed). The first four of those letters have Cyrillic counterparts and he could have been writing in English or Russian, but interestingly, N is not in the Cyrillic alphabet.

Then I asked him to draw a picture of himself, and he drew a colorful picture of a boy with a big smile (standing very close to the airplane). Next came an ambulance; I recall he was captivated by all ambulances and police cars last fall. I asked him to draw a picture of our house (of which he had seen pictures) and got a bright, three-dimensional (!) drawing of a yellow and orange house. I asked him to draw our cat, and he drew a yellow cat with a big smile. Finally he drew a red, yellow, brown and green flower and an orange boat on a blue lake, and then his attention was back to the camera. I don't know what a psychologist would say, but they look like the drawings of a fairly happy kid to me.

But all is not perfect, of course. When he picks up a book or the camera I can see he is trembling, and I assume it all must be pretty overwhelming for him. He has trouble looking at me or responding to me, almost like he is in denial that it is all finally happening, and he pretends to be firmly engrossed in his drawing. I am thinking that it must be hard to see me coming and going two or three times a week, and that things will settle down a bit after he leaves the orphanage and we can communicate a little better. That, or... he just thinks I am completely hopeless as I don't speak enough Russian to understand all that he says, and maybe he can make a break for it as soon as he lands in the US.

The room itself is a little bit of a museum for the orphanage, with pictures dating back to 1930 and showing caretakers dressed in white hats and uniforms pouring tea from a samovar. Many samples of delightful artwork the kids have created over the years were on display. A wall unit separates the caretaker's room from the private space for the parents on the other side. In the wall unit I was startled to see many - most - of the non-personal things I had sent Nikolay over the past months. I didn't mind that Nikolay did not have them himself. They were things like crayons and Legos and such for all the kids, but what the heck were they doing sitting unused on display? I learned later the games are indeed rotated out among the children, but always find their way back to this room at the end of the day.

Another short visit; we had to leave at noon, not to return until Friday. ("If I am here to bond with him, shouldn't I be at the orphanage every day?" "You bonded with him last summer." "If I bonded with him last summer, why do we stay two weeks?" And so on.) If I had pressed the issue I think I could have arranged to get to the orphanage every weekday, for the cost of hiring a taxi to take me out there (there are no cars or even bicycles for rent), but on Traci's advice I decided to pass up extra visits that weren't on the schedule. As Traci noted, the visits are a little too "structured" to be of much fun for anyone anyway, and they are more awkward than not with everyone too wound up to enjoy the experience on a daily basis. This time I got a big hug AND a kiss good-bye!

On the way back to the hotel I found out that no court will be held on Monday, May 5, and that we are scheduled for 10AM on Tuesday, May 6, for the final adoption proceedings. Then there are a lot of emigration papers to be processed, which if everything goes perfectly would mean we could leave for Almaty on Wednesday morning at 9AM for the medical visit and to process the US immigration papers before going home. (Pavlodar is one of the provinces that generally does not require the additional two-week stay after the court hearing.) But nothing -- repeat -- nothing goes perfectly here, and I am reminded that Traci and Graham and apparently about one hundred other families are stranded here at the moment without the ability to get a passport issued.

Back to the Internet café by 2 to sort out a mess with Steve's plane ticket over here and get a few other things done. A nice surprise -- found out our big grant to conduct clinical trials on our medical device was approved, so I have that to look forward to upon return (congratulations, everybody!!!). And best of all, my messages to you are getting through, Lynne is posting them, and in return I am getting LOTS of warm and wonderful emails from everywhere: friends, family, and past and prospective adoptive families I don't even know. THANK YOU - all of you - for all your warm wishes! It means more than you could know.

And to all of you with questions specific to Pavlodar and the kids here: I am tracking down answers as best I can and will respond to each of you individually. However, if the child is not part of Yackov's group, Yackov has no access to any information about them. I do know there have been some failed adoptions here recently which have resulted in efforts to accredit agencies and weed out those with less reputable practices, as (as Yackov puts it), one bad apple spoils it for all the rest. (See "Lessons Learned" on the home page.) I have been able to get permission to see the rest of the kids from our summer camp group and there was no problem taking pictures of them home to their families, but it is truly impossible to find out about anyone else not in our group and orphanage. The children older than 8, incidentally, are in a building adjacent to the Kachirie orphanage where Nikolay is, although I have not seen any of them yet. They are all released on their 18th birthday with $200, by which point there is not much of a future to look forward to for many of them.

Not much luck with errands despite Askhat's able assistance. First a stop at the post office where I actually got to experience that oft-reported uniquely Russian ritual of being in one line for 20 minutes, being ignored for several more, then being told to go to another line and repeat the process, only to be sent back to the first line 20 minutes later! Auuggghh. I was trying to send a one-pound package to the US, but declined when I learned it would be $50 to get it there within 10 days. For that, I can Fedex it there, and I will tomorrow. Not much luck with the Air Kazakhstan office here, either: no fax, no computer connection, no ability to make reservations or pay for a ticket, so I went back to the hotel and faxed (!) my reservation to the same Air Kazakhstan ticket counter in Hannover, Germany that has been so efficient from the outset.

Finally had a great dinner with Askhat at Anatalia, thankfully sans floor show but with great music entertainment from a talented local who is a friend of Askhat's. Askhat came over directly from his afternoon with the Boy Scouts and I have to get a picture of him in his scout outfit for all the families who have been asking about him. He has more American flags than badges! Every moment I think he is about to run and help a babushka across the street. There is a chance he will be over this summer to interpret for the summer camp program in Utah and he is so very excited about it.

It's 1:30 AM and I am finally caught up on all the details I am anxious to send home. I will be first in line at the Internet café when it opens tomorrow! I am having a GREAT time.

Wednesday, April 23 -- Another Trip to the Orphanage

I try to bring a little something to the orphanage each visit, and today it is a kilo of mandarin oranges I found in town. The visits with Nikolay at the orphanage seem to be a little stressful for Nikolay; he won't look at me much at all, and you can see a million things racing through that little head. I have read enough on adoption and attachment over the last few months not to be concerned or even take it personally -- building trust takes time. (As Steve later points out, no one tells him to put that big grin on his face when the caretakers tell him to give me a kiss goodbye.) He is also at that in-between age, too old for the bonding time at the baby house, and too young to understand why all the coming and going and why can't we just go HOME. He is too jumpy to sit down and read or draw, so I try to make the visit brief so he can get back to playing, which is, after all, what any six-year-old wants to be doing.

Maybe a word about what to wear to the orphanage is in order. Everyone has a different opinion on this topic, of course, but my approach is to dress as well as possible -- if for no other reason than out of respect for our hosts at the orphanage. The workers are impeccably dressed even just to care for children all day long. I wore a long black skirt the first day, and nicer attire than I ever wear at home for each subsequent visit. Not only is the effort appreciated, you also tend to blend into the background more that way, and are less of a target for pickpockets. The two families that followed did likewise, and we were offered tours of the facility and the chance to take extensive photos and videotape of the orphanage (although no close-ups of children we did not know), opportunities which we came to learn were not the norm. It may just be a coincidence, but having seen the pride the caretakers take in their charges, you can see the high expectations they have of their prospective parents (particularly American ones). The jeans have not left my hotel room, even to wander around town, because I think blending in as much as possible is essential for the safety of a single woman traveling overseas. They may be able to tell I am not from here, but from the number of people that come up and speak to me in Russian, it seems clear they don't think I am an American. That is just fine for these turbulent times.

Having said that, getting pictures of the other children in the orphanage -- or even information about any children I am not personally acquainted with -- is virtually impossible, in part due to all the recent disrupted adoptions and efforts to get a better system back on track. By the end of my stay here, over half the families here will go home with different children than they came for, which has been very trying on all parties. It has been very distressing for many families to lose a child they are on their way to adopt, particularly with the completely avoidable four-month delays incurred at the embassy in Washington that would allow many of them to get here that much sooner. We have come to realize that despite referrals and summer camp and all kinds of assurances, at the end of the day the system is truly first-come, first-served, period. The only consolation, and it is a small one, is that sometimes it is the birth families themselves that come to reclaim a child they had asked the orphanage to care for a few months (hence the six-month wait to ensure true abandonment). As the families here are finding out, there are many thousands of wonderful kids in the system here for them to meet personally and take home. And the one single determinant of success in adoption among the families here thus far has been direct communication with Yackov, if nothing other than to tell him our arrival date and the names of the children we hope to adopt.

We have also come to learn that it is true that there are some in government here who are quite opposed to Kazakh children being adopted internationally -- but we find out it is primarily those of Kazakh heritage they are opposed to seeing adopted, not those of Russian or other heritage. In town we find an elementary school that has segregated its pupils by ethnicity (which we hear is not always the case but is apparently quite common), and less mixing of ethnic groups than we might have expected, except among teenagers. Everybody, however, is very nice to us and very accommodating with what must be some very strange American ways. (Driving to the orphanage, Colleen asks the cab driver to stop for so many pictures of horses, sheep and goats along the way that I finally ask Askhat to tell the driver Colleen is a veterinarian. Askhat responds, "I think he understands.")

Money has been very easy to exchange; the bank across the street from the hotel has the best rates, and is open till 7PM six days a week. But they are serious about lunch breaks, even in the largest banks; Graham entered one bank five minutes before lunch was over, and a guard actually pulled a gun on him. (There are armed guards in every bank.) Most shopping malls have a change booth also, and the rate is within 1 tenge of 152 to the dollar everywhere you go. I tried an ATM machine, of which there are quite a few, but they are somewhat hidden. Had no problem getting funds with my Bank of America check card (you get tenge, of course, not dollars), but another bank (USAA) did not allow a withdrawal. Wiring funds here is not difficult, as some have learned in their extended stay. For those who do online banking, I discovered that many US bank sites do not support anything less than Internet 5.0 and above, which is not available at some of the Internet cafes.

What does not work is making transfers online. I tried to do that at the Internet café, with no success. Steve said someone back at USAA Bank is looking at a screen and seeing someone is trying to transfer funds from a non-secure computer in an Internet café in Kazakhstan and is just laughing his head off.

Traci and I head for our afternoon chocolate break at Café Santos, and she tells me of their experience with the Hallmark channel who has been filming them for their series on adoption. Apparently filming has been going on for months, and the social worker and a cameraman even came to Pavlodar with them to film the final steps. This is one story I can't wait to see! You will hear the story of the 3 ½-year-old they originally intended to adopt, but who was adopted before they could get here, and how they ended up with nine-month-old Dmitri instead. Walking around town with tall, glamorous, very Italian-American Traci is like having Sophia Loren at your side to do grocery shopping, and I enjoy her tremendously. We sure have had a lot of good times and laughs here.

Thursday, April 24 -- The Faces of Kazakhstan

Woke up to the smell of smoke! The vegetation all around the hotel is being burned off, and when the wind is just right it comes right through my open windows. Graham and I realize that if there really were a fire in the hotel, that none of us would be able to get out of our rooms due to the heavy grillwork. Not a cheery thought. But then Dad called to check in on things, and gave me an update on the home front.

Walking down to the Internet café, we come upon a group of Kazakh kindergarteners out for a walk in the park. I ask if we can take pictures and the kids go crazy seeing themselves in the digital camera. The Kazakhs are really a beautiful people. As I can't take many pictures out at the orphanage, particularly of other kids there, here is a sampling of some of the faces we saw in town.

That afternoon, Askhat accompanies me to the Air Kazakhstan office to check on Steve's reservations. It is a lovely spring day and I am down to a T-shirt, while everyone else in sight is down to three layers. Inside the Air Kaz office, it is at least 95 degrees with the central heating still on full bore, and I stand there motionless with rivers of sweat running down my face. I can't even think or hear what is being said, and we both have to go outside and cool off a couple of times before we can finish even a simple transaction. Once thermally regulated again, we walked around a new section of town and ended up at Classic Pizza, about a mile south of our hotel. Marvelous, authentic, thin-crust Italian pizza and cold Pavlodar beer. Wonderful.

Headed back to the Internet café until 9, then back to the hotel via the river walk. It is 9:30 and light enough that cars still don't have headlights turned on. It is a beautiful, warm spring evening, and lots of people are out enjoying the fine weather. At 10PM Traci and Graham get the call -- the passport machine is fixed.

Friday, April 25 - Nikolay's History

Bad news for Traci and Graham today -- the passport machine was fixed late last night and the passport has been issued, but Almaty has no record of the INS (now BCIS) approving Dmitri's immigration to the US. A quick check of the paperwork confirms that San Antonio was instructed to keep the confirmation there instead of forwarding it to Almaty. Parents are dispatched to San Antonio to ask the BCIS to please cable the approval to Almaty immediately. (The BCIS throughout the US provides no telephone access, and all requests have to be done in person.) Note to families: before you go, check your I-171H form and be sure the box is checked to have the INS approval forwarded to the US embassy in Almaty, and then email the embassy to confirm they have received it. See the embassy website for contact information.

Then a trip to the orphanage to see Nikolay and have a chat with Olga. I bring a ball for Nursulu and toy police cars for Renat, Murat, and Temirlan (who I still have not seen). I come prepared with my long list of questions to ask the caretakers obtained from the EEAC website. I turn on the Dictaphone and ask Olga to tell me about Nikolay. This is what I learn, in Olga's words.

Nikolay is very sociable. He is in a group of 13 children (9 boys, 4 girls) who take good care of one another. He is now in preschool and would have gone to first grade here this fall. He knows all the letters of the (Cyrillic) alphabet and can read and distinguish between vowels and consonants. He knows his shapes and numbers, and he studies Kazakh language also. He is definitely ready for first grade in the fall. There is nothing to worry about regarding his health and mental development. He has three classes in the morning of 40 minutes each. Math, reading, music, etc. I am free to take his school copybooks home with me. Also a toy he might want to take with him.

He has been here for two years. He is very good at reciting poems and singing songs. He draws very well. He loves to ride bicycles. He is very technical. He loves pets and pets love him. He does a special exercise where he pours cold water from a bucket over himself (is he ever going to like Tahoe!) All the children take complete care of themselves -- do their beds, dress and undress themselves, brush their teeth -- and are good about chores. [In fact, later when I looked around for Nikolay's clothes in the hotel, I finally found them folded up and back in the drawer.]

Nikolay has not been involved in any sports competitions but he loves to take part in all sports activities in his age group. But it's mini-basketball, mini-soccer, etc. He is well coordinated. He likes to lift weights (!). Regarding foods, he eats everything: juice, potatoes, gulasch. He does not care for milk or tea with milk. [He subsequently polished off a liter of milk so now even that is covered.] Give him whatever healthy foods he likes but please control the amount. The kids will tend to eat quite a lot at first unless you control the portions. His main meal is at midday, with a treat each day at 4PM (usually chocolate).

His daily schedule:

8:00

Wake up

8:15

Physical exercise and brush teeth

8:45 Breakfast

9:15

School

11:00 Juice break

12:15 Lunch, wash hands and face