Bonding Days 3 and 4

There are two post today, one from Jesse and one from me.

Amy here:

Well I can’t believe we’ve been gone a week already. I must say the time has gone a little faster than I anticipated. Being able to speak to Connor and Lana daily gives me peace of mind so I’m not feeling completely home-sick yet. Jesse and I are trying to make the most of our time here. We want to learn and experience as much as we can so we can tell the baby about Kazakhstan as he gets older. This blog will help. We plan to print all the blog post (and comments) and use it as journal for him --an electronic scrapbook of sorts.

Side Note: keep the comments coming. It’s so fun to read them. I haven’t determined if it’s possible to reply to an individual comment yet, but please know we’re reading them daily.

Today we spent the longest amount of time so far with the baby, about 90 minutes. He came in different clothes today and looked so cute. He had on the same outfit Monday – Thursday… it was clean just the same. I think he only had on 3 shirts today instead of 4, one cultural difference I don’t understand but have come to accept. He was full of surprises today. He showed us he can roll over, belly crawl and sing! I was rocking him in my arms and he started signing / cooing to me. Jesse has decided that tickling the boy is the best way to bond. Baby giggles are the sweetest sounds. I can’t wait for you all to meet him.

We asked our adoption agency about what we could and could not post about him on the blog. We were asked not to post his name and pictures of him until after we take custody. We will have photos of him to show when we return. Remember we do not take custody of him until our second trip. We will come home in early May without him and hopefully return 4 weeks later to bring him home. I have no idea how we’ll make those 4 weeks between trips go fast.

We were not overly adventurous the last couple days. We went back to the mall for coffee at the café. It’s a great place to people watch (or to be watched ---we might as well be draped in an American flag). Our source of amusement today was watching the traffic---sounds boring uh? No kidding, it’s like watching a sport. For example, there was a long line of traffic waiting at a red light and twice we saw drivers/cars from the back on the line (twenty cars or so) pull into 3 lanes of oncoming traffic and race to the front of the line. Their goal is to time it so the light turns green just as the reach the front. Our second source of entertainment is watching a game we call “Frogger”. Walking across the street, even at cross walks, is a lot like the old video game Frogger. At any minute you could be smashed by a car, truck or bus coming from either side.

Our food ordering challenges continue. Yesterday a waitress helps Jesse pick something from the menu and it comes out wrapped in foil. I could not wait to see what was inside…I’m laughing my head off as he starts to peel back the foil. It reminded me of a jack-in-the-box, something was surely going to jump out of it. (See photo)

Tomorrow (Saturday) we’re excited about our lunch and dinner plans. Our social schedule is filling up… yeah right. Actually we are hoping to meet up with a couple from North Carolina for lunch. We passed them in the Baby House one day. We didn’t have a chance to talk at the Baby House, but our translator Zhenia saw them later and got their name and number for us.

We've been invited to dinner by Yuliya and her American husband Jon-Paul. (Note to Shane and Misty, we told her hello for you.) Yuliya speaks perfect English and appears to be the sweetest lady in Kazakhstan. Yuliya (like Julia without the J) and her husband own a children's photography shop in the hotel. It's sort of like a Picture People. They said it's a new concept here Shymkent, but are hopeful the idea will take off soon. She noticed us on our first day here and said, "hello, how are you?" Ahh English speaker, she's now our friend whether or not she wants to be. Yesterday, Jon-Paul helped us purchase a Kazakhstan sim card for our phone. I never thought I'd have a Kazakhstan phone number.

So I guess that’s it for now. If any of you are within arm’s reach of Connor and Lana please give them a hug for me!

The Bed Story

Jesse wrote:

We have referred to 'The Bed Story' a few times in prior posts, so I figured it was about time to share the goods.  This is a 'G' rated story (sorry Allen), so it is intended for all audiences...

You really must have a good context of the overall day in order for this story to make any sense.  So please oblige me and let me walk you through a few events that led up to the bed story.  It was Monday, April 7th -- one of the longest, stressful, yet eventually most rewarding day of our lives.  Of course, I'm writing about our first day in Shymkent, and the day we met with our son.

The day starts early for Amy and I, with us up at 4:00 am to shower, pack, and head to the airport to catch yet another flight (albeit a short one, less than 2 hrs to Shymkent).  Everything goes smoothly during the check-in process, but the fun starts when it was time to board the flight.  Like many US airports, we have a bit of a walk from the gate to the actual plane, so we employ our now commom 'lemming' method... we follow the pack.  The pack leads us to a bus, which is now about 90% full, so we scramble on with our carry on luggage in tow.  Then we wait.

And wait.

At this point, the bus isn't quite mosh-pit squished, but we continue to take on a trickle of passengers, and the engine has yet to start up.  And then we see the SARS family.  Yep, a family of three have just walked out of the main building with surgical masks on and are heading toward our bus.  Not just our bus, but right toward our position.  More precisely, Amy's position.

By this time, we've been hanging out on this bus (no seats, you stand holding onto a strap -- much like in the states) for 10-15 minutes, and have watched about 3 other perfectly functioning empty buses pass us by.  And now I have three people that might have some airborn disease dancing with my wife.  Not necessarily prom close, but this isn't a first date, either.  Great.

Eventually, the engine finally sputter to life, and we head off... a total of approximately 200 yards to the 747 sitting in front of us.  You gotta be kidding me?!  Absurd.  Fortunately, the flight was smooth, and we arrived on time.  Contrary to myth, there were no chicken coops on board the flight -- actually, the service was fine.  

After giggling about the need to obtain a vaccine for Monkey Pox due to our contact with the SARS family, we landed in Shymkent ready to roll.  As before, we employ our 'lemming' method, and followed the crowd, hoping to find the checked baggage carousel.  Only, there was no crowd to follow, as everyone headed in random directions after deplaning the 747!  Hmm... how's that possible, you say?  Well, you simply start to walk down the side of the tarmac, of course, silly.

After trying to enter the nearest building and being told 'Nyet' by the very nice security guard, followed with a few wild hand gesticulations, we figured the best course of action was to hang by the plane and keep watch over the luggage handlers directly.  Worse case, I could sacrifice myself and dive in front of the luggage tow truck, and Amy could hopefully grab one of our bags.  Fortunately, they ended up bringing the tow around the plane and dropped off the bags at the curb, much like a smaller commuter plane.  All turned out well, just a bit of mayhem with the number of people and lack of coordination (not to mention the fact that it was also raining).

Now that we are warmed up for the actual main event, we headed to the Regional Ministry of Education, then the Local Education Office (title is more official than what I can remember), then to the Baby House.  That's where the next step in our fun day picks up.

I'll skip some of the details that I know many of you will want regarding the challenges we faced this day, but just to give you a taste, I wanted to describe one scene.  We will fill you in on the rest of the details later.

While meeting with the Baby House Director, we had the opportunity to discuss the background of our son, including his medical information, etc.  To go through this information, the Director asked one of her doctors to present the baby's 'file' to us.  On our side of the table, we have the two of us, our translator Zhenia, and our coordinator Nurshai.  Of course, just to make things interesting, the doctor announces that the baby's file is in Kazakh, so she will speak in Kazakh.  Our translator only speaks Russian and English.  Our coordinator speaks Kazakh and Russian.  Hmmm... I'm sure you're getting the picture, but the discussion has to go something like this.

Doctor (in Kaz) -> Nurshai(translates to Russian) -> 
Zhenia (translates to English) --> Us

Pretty much like the game you used to play in school, where you would whisper the story into the ear of your friend, have them pass it to the next friend, and see what it turned into by the end.  So, the conversation went something like this...

Doctor -- 'The baby has a history of blahblahblah--ly'  (ly is a common Kazakh ending)

Nurshai -- 'Umm...  I think she really means yaddayaddayadda -- ivish' (Russian ending)

Zhenia -- After looking sheepishly at us, he would state, 'Perhaps he has a history of blahish yadayad ivish sorda-viski (russian, with some flare and creative interpretation)

Us -- Blank look

Now realize this is all happening real time and is a very important topic.  And, the doctor has chosen this as the day to show off her Kazakh speed reading skills, so she doesn't hestitate at all for any of this translation to occur or to really sink in.  The only experience I can compare this to is the Dolby Digital sound effects that occur at the beginning of a movie, which swirl around you and are somewhat disorienting, yet still impressive.  To add to the absurdity, we later find that the doctor could actually speak in Russian, she just felt that our translator should know Kazakh.  Not kidding.

By the end of the day, you can imagine that we are beyond tired.  We are completely spent.  Amy unpacks some of our stuff (realize that we have attempted to pack for a month).  I look longingly at the bed.  We've only been able to sleep in a bed once in the past 4 nights, so this should be a treat.

Upon a little closer inspection, the bed seems a little odd.  Not really concerning to me, since I believe my eyes are crossed by this point.

I take the Nestea plunge onto the bed... and find myself rolling into what feels like a canyon on the right side of the bed!  I bust into hysterics, as I realize that there is absolutely no support structure under the entire right side of the bed!  That's right, folks... I didn't break the bed, the supports were missing when we arrived.  Which meant that someone had either left it that way or had slept on it that way, or at a minimum a cleaning crew had changed the linens and nobody recognized the problem!  Net result was that half the bed was perfectly fine, the other half was about 1 foot off the ground.

We didn't want to deal with the language barrier issues that evening, so Amy was a champ and decided on the 'bottom bunk'.  We have a picture posted, but not sure that it does it justice. Everything was fixed the following day.

Day 2 of 14 day bonding period

Shymkent Time: 2 a.m. Cincinnati Time: 4 p.m.

Well once again I’m awake in the middle of the night, but I just took a little something to help me sleep. While I’m waiting for it to kick in I’ll tell you about our day.

This warm and sunny day started with a trip to the Baby House. We got there at 11:30 a.m. and spent about 45 minutes with the baby. He was in good spirits but seems to have a cold. He’s very interested in the toys we bring. Today his favorite thing was a Count to 10 Touch and Feel book. We’ve only spent a total of 3 supervised hours with him so we’re still working to figure out his physical abilities. He does not walk or crawl. His personality is starting to come through a little bit. He cried when I sat him down on the floor to play, he stopped the minute I picked him up and held him! When the caregiver came in to get him at end of visit he did not immediately go to her. Instead, he laid his head on Jesse’s chest as if to say, “I’m fine here, come back later”. Ahh… pulls at the heart strings already.

On a side note: We have not decided on his new name yet. Kazakh names don’t really translate well to English so we’re struggling with our decision.

After the visit we took his blood sample to a medical center for some additional testing we requested. They did not accept our insurance card (joke) so we paid cash/Tenge for the test. The results will be available next week.

We had the rest of the day to explore so we went to Istanbul Restaurant. This is a restaurant the Clarks told us about, we walked past it twice before I noticed the small free wireless sign in window. It’s very rare to find free wireless internet access. Anyway, the food is great. I ordered a gyro of sorts. I don’t know what the meat was, maybe it was horse and I just don’t know it. I’m kidding--I assume it was lamb. Jesse ordered the “pizza” and it was our favorite meal thus far. Restaurants are challenging because most do not have an English menu. We have no idea what the Russian menu says and therefore have no idea what we’re going to get. Today the menu had pictures – yippee. Jesse did learn to say “do you have an English menu?” in Russian which is very helpful. What would be more helpful is if they said DA (yes).

Another side note: The Russian alphabet is in Cyrillic letters. There are 33 letters in the alphabet, 5 of which look and sound like ours. A,K,M,O,T. There are 7 letters that look like English letters but have different sounds. For example, H sounds like N and C sounds like R. I’m not sure about the other 21 letters, thus the reason for my advanced state of cluelessness. (Oh did I mention some people speak Kazakh).

After sitting in Istanbul for almost 2 hours abusing the free internet access we went to find Madlen, a restaurant that has an outdoor coffee and pastry shop. They serve one tasty Latte! We wondered back to the hotel for Jesse’s late afternoon crash nap. Dinner tonight was again an adventure. We went to the grocery store located inside hotel mall area. We went to the deli counter and stared at a bunch of “meats”, none of which looked familiar. No turkey, ham or roast beef to be found. The lady behind the counter grabs a lunch meat and says one English word, 'GOOD'. (She lied !). We bought bread, cheese, tomato and mustard to go along with the mystery meat and made sandwiches in the room. We ended the day by watching a DVD movie on the laptop and waiting for the time to call Connor and Lana.

I could ramble on about more topics, but I should try to sleep. Maybe I’ll watch some TV, there are no English speaking channels other than BBC, I can’t think of anything more boring than watching M-TV in Russian.

Talk with you later… Amy

Picture Slide Show

Hey Everyone,

We're working to get more pictures posted.

If you click on photos shown on right it will open a window where you can see the captions.

Jesse's Kazakhstan Observations

Wed, April 9thLocal Time: 8:50 am Cincinnati Time: 10:50 pm

Just when we thought we were getting over our jet lag, looks like Amy had a bit of a relapse. It was a long night for her of tossing and turning. So, after staying awake most of the night, she finally crashed early this morning, which gives me some time to summarize a few of our more lighthearted observations of Kazakhstan. Don’t worry ladies, we’ll post again later in the day with an update on the little one, as we’re off to visit him around lunchtime today (can’t wait to see him). Also, before I get going on my spinoff of the Saturday Night Live ‘Random Thoughts by Jack Handy’ moment, I wanted to encourage everyone to keep up the comments to the blog. (Remember Allen E, to keep it clean). It’s really been great to have everyone’s support during this life changing event.

A few observations of life in Kazakhstan:

· Driving is the national sport. Ok, so you don’t actually get points, but you should simply for surviving. Laws are more ‘suggestions’ than mandates. And lane markers are merely to add decorative color to the streets. They have developed a language using only the car/truck/other random motor vehicles’ horn as the means for communications. I suggest they drop the pretense of rules, slap some tires around the outside of all the vehicles, and call it what it is… a huge bumper car ride. By the way, most cars are imported used, as new vehicles are very expensive (since there are no auto factories nearby). I’m guessing this contributes to the general attitude toward driving – ‘It’s already dented, what the $%#!’. The good news is that Amy now regards my driving as excellent, or should for at least a few weeks after we return (until I get too close to the elder statesman in front of me).

· Unlike us Americans, the average Kazak seems to be thin and in decent shape. Since their food is very meat and potatoes (yummy), my theory is that it has more to do with exercise than diet. Most of the folks we’ve met walk a lot. Which I believe is related to their fear of driving. See bullet above.

· However, if you are going to get your exercise by walking in Kazakhstan, you better watch your step. There are potholes that could swallow a small child, and the sidewalks have somewhat random changes in elevation, which I would call a step, but placed in odd locations. It’s hard to describe, but easy to trip over. Trust me, I almost broke my neck last night. And that was before I had a peva (that’s beer, ya’ll).

· Much to my dismay, tea is the preferred drink over coffee. Not a packet of Sweet-n-Low or Splenda to be found. And to Connor – no son, I haven’t been able to find a Starbucks (or Starbuckinski’s). For Connor, this will be justification enough to pick up our new son immediately and bring him home to the States. Is it a problem if your 6 year old is addicted to Strawberries and Cream Fraps from Starbucks? (no caffeine, but plenty of sugar and calories). Thus the need for all the extracurricular activities. Miss our trips, son.

· The typical police officer is plain-clothed, except the traffic cops. Not sure the reason, other than the traffic cops definitely need to stand out. You will occasionally see military personnel on the streets with the cops. Not overly intrusive, but a presence nonetheless.

· While in general I love the diversity of looks in attire in Kaz, for the life of me I can’t understand the way the typical baby is dressed. For instance, the first time we met our little guy, he was wearing 4 shirts, 1 jacket, 2 pairs of pants, 3 pair of socks, and a hat. It was about 70 degrees F outside, and we were indoors! It was like the movie ‘A Christmas Story’, but instead of the first grader getting overly bundled up to head out to face the cold, there are hoards of babies sweating away in the spring heat. Tiny little arms stuck straight out, barely able to move. Kinda funny to see, but can’t be all that comfortable for the youngsters, though. Go figure.

· While traveling in Kazakhstan, we have noticed that the airports address baggage handling a bit differently than in the states. In Almaty, it was more similar to the Caribbean, where the baggage would randomly come out of one of the baggage carrousels, regardless of how they were labeled. They will then pile up because the baggage was too big for the carrousel, and folks would dive over one another in an attempt to find their stuff. Reminds me of single 30-something ladies jostling for the bouquet at a wedding.However, in Shyment, the luggage experience was very different. We flew on a fairly large plane (~747 size), so when we disembarked, we assumed we would head into the terminal to receive our very large checked baggage. Nope. We were shepherded into an area just outside next to the plane and told to wait, while our luggage was put onto a truck, then brought around the plane for us to pull off ourselves. We cut the middleman right out of the equation. I think you could have asked to dive right into the belly of the cargo hold yourself and they wouldn’t have minded – perhaps a ‘be aware of the jet turbine engine’ warning, but other than that, you would be good to go.

It's a Boy!

Tuesday morning… local time 10:45 a.m. Cincinnati Time: 12:45 a.m
Yesterday was a very emotional day at the Baby House and we’ll tell you more about that process later. Frankly I just don’t feel like writing about it at the moment.

More importantly, as I write this morning I’m thinking about Connor and Lana, just typing their names makes me tear up. I miss them so much, but feel very comfortable with our decision to have them at home with the normalcy of their comfortable mid-western American lives.

Speaking of comfortable…I’ll tell you about the bed a little later or have Jesse tell you about it. He had a whole hearted laughing attack last night when he sat down on my side of the bed last night. Note I said “my” side of the bed.

It’s a sunny morning in Shymkent and we are both feeling hopeful about the day (and month) ahead. A full night of sleep can do wonders for the spirit or perhaps it’s the fact that today will be our first day in 4 days that we don’t have to get on a plane.

Or maybe it’s because we had a great conversation with Dr. Staat, our US doctor, last night. We’re thrilled to tell you we’re going to proceed with the adoption of a 15 month old Kazakh BOY! We can’t give a lot of details in this public forum until the adoption is final, but we can tell you he’s alert, playful, and ticklish. Makes me smile thinking about him!

I’m off to shower and prepare for our visit today at 2:00 and then another visit at the Ministry of Education local office.


Update – local time, 9:29 pm. Cincinnati Time: 11:29 am
So it’s probably against blogger etiquette to provide updates to a blog within a blog, but so goes it when you can only get access to the internet sporadically. This is Jesse, and I’m currently sitting in a café about ½ mile from our hotel (nearest one that has WiFi access). I’m here because we ran out of credits on our mobile phone last night while speaking with our doc in the states, and Amy was dying to speak to the kids at home, so I’m off to refill the card. What my baby wants, my baby gets…

Ok, so it’s not such a burden, as I’m drinking a cold one while doing my internet chores, and I’m also missing our little ones like crazy – so getting the phone up-and-running serves us both.To sum it up, today was a day to remember. We will certainly provide more details in the future regarding our soon-to-be newest addition – but know that he already seems enamored with Amy and tolerates me (good sign, all things considered). I’m running out of battery power, but will send more details tomorrow, as well as fill everyone in on a few funny stories, including the bed story.

Shymkent Day 1

Let me start by saying Jet Lag is a major drag! Jesse and I both are struggling to get through the days right now. I slept like a baby for 4 hours last night and then at 2:00a.m. I'm wide awake. Thank goodness for Ipod audio books, listening saved my sanity as I was trying to pass the time in a small room with no where to go and no TV to watch. The hotel had one English speaking channel, BBC.

This rainy morning we arrived in Shymkent, a two hour flight from Almaty. We were met by our driver, coordinator and translator. With not a minute to catch our breath it was Game On! Our coordinator arranged for us to see an apartment, but we were not interested in staying there. It was clean but not our "cup of tea". We ask to go to the Hotel instead. We decided to splurge and get the deluxe room for $100/night. A small two room unit versus a single room with just a bed. I figure the extra money might save our marriage, after all we'll be here a month.

Next we raced to the regional Ministry office. Our coordinator Nurshy is hard to keep up with, she's a lady on a mission! I think she pushed the elevator button 3000 times. We spent a total of 3 minutes in that office. The official apologized she was in a hurry and she left. We proceeded to the local Ministry office. We had a short conversation with an official there and then off to the Baby House.

The time at the baby house was extremely stressful but we've met a child we're hopeful will become our "one Moore."

More information to follow as soon as we can...