Water, water everywhere

I am sitting at this Internet cafe with Veeka on my lap; me cramming pieces of bread in her mouth to keep her from shrieking and disturbing everyone. Folks here let you know if they disapprove of things. If they think your kid is not dressed well enough for the weather, they shake their finger at you and say, "Oy, oy, oy." (shame, shame, shame).
Anyway, the night before last, Veeka was bouncing against the walls. I had JUST gotten her down at 11:45 p.m. (!) when I heard a KASPLOOSH. It seemed to be coming from the bathroom so I dashed in to find the water pipe had broken and water was flooding my bathroom. Fortunately the bathroom is about 2 inches below the rest of the hotel room, but I knew the water would rise quickly. I picked up the phone but noone was at the front desk. I grabbed my Berlitz phrase book but there was no line saying, "Some pipe has burst and we will drown soon if you don't do something." Grabbing Veeka and throwing on my bathrobe, I ran down four flights barefoot to the guard on the ground floor. Pinting upstairs, I yelled "Problem!!" pronouncing it like they do in Russian: "problame."
Anyway, I must have looked like a wild banshee for the guard raced after me 4 flights back up to the rapidly rising waters. He got on his walkie-talkie and frantically called someone and figured out which faucet to turn off. "Zaftra," I said to him as he left, which means "tomorrow."
Sure enough, 2 plummers showed up at my door yesterday morning at 9. Other than that, I went out to lunch with a Kazak friend, met another visiting friend from New Zealand who is in town and hosted 2 other people (Aida and Madina) who dropped by just when I was trying to put Veeka down. Of course she didn't mind; anything that delays her bedtime is fine with her.
Am closing photos of her sleeping and her in her carriage all bundled up for a walk in the park. Notice the snow and the birch trees. Does this look like a Russian novel?

The daily routine

She fell asleep! I was walking her back and forth, through the park, past the pigeons, doing EVERYTHING to try to get her to nap and finally she dozed off in her stroller. So into the I-cafe I sprinted.
We are kind of settling into a routine. We get up 7:30-8-ish and slog down 4 flights to the hotel restaurant. The help there was absolutely snotty to me but when I started showing up with Veeka (or Vicka as someone suggested-must think about that)I was then OK in their eyes. Anyway, the hotel got a list from the baby house as to accepted cuisine for the 2 adopted kids (mine and Mike and Carol's little Andrew). So the kids are served kasha or buckwheat groats, which was what was on for this morning. Usually I get either a meatloaf-rice combo (I know, weird for breakfast but that's what's served here) or more often, two crepes with jam. Veeka is a very polite eater and gets almost nothing on her unless I try to feed her something messy like pasta or grated carrots. She also has not figured out what to do with a straw yet.
Then it's back to the room for potty time and then some play while Mommy tries to study some Russian. I am now studying how to say "January" and "February," etc. Also how to say "first" and "second" and so on. Russian has a way of jamming together as many as 5 consonants in a word, sans vowels. This morning Mike had a kiddie video of Dr. Dolittle and his animals or something like that. Veeka didn't take to it much - I do not think she processes TV all that well because last night's "Princess Bride" didn't hold her attention.
Then it's back down 4 flights to the ground floor where I say "Minya noojna kalasku, p'shalsta" (I need the stroller, please) and the concierge runs and gets it out of storage. Veeka is dressed to the nines because the locals around here will come up and lecture you if your child is not dressed warmly enough (in their opinion) for the cold weather. Today it is -6 Celsius - about 22 degrees F?
Then we drop by the 2 spots where the stray kitties hang out and leave some kitty food there. Then today we went and picked up some cute Kazakh souvenirs which will serve as presents and house gifts for at least the next year. Then it was off to the local mall where I nodded and pointed at what I wanted for lunch. Usually these snack bars have some kind of meat pastry, borsht or something like it, an American soft drink and a shrimp-and-corn salad. They don't really seem to have lettuce in this country. The salads are good, but they tend to consist of peas, tomatoes, celery, etc. but no greens. Whenever I deal with a cashier, I try to repeat the amount I am paying back to them so I can practice my numbers; problem is, they think I am contesting the price, so out comes their adding machine while they insist they are not cheating me. Valentin told me to respond, "Ya trenyoorooyoo moy Russki!" (I am practicing my Russian!)
Sigh. WHY are they playing rap music in this cafe? Anyway, I try to keep Veeka active til noon, then feed her lunch (again, she is great in restaurants - very quiet and makes no scenes), then try to get her to nap, hopefully in her stroller and within a few blocks of the cafe. Today I will take her to a play date with an American couple staying at another (and more expensive) hotel. They are here for their 2nd child and their plight makes my time here seem like heaven. Their judge yesterday just told them their adoption agency's papers were outdated (and there's no excuse for an agency to let this happen)plus they want the parents and their coordinator to go find the birth mother somewhere in the Kazakh countryside to sign off on one more document. This poor couple is just tearing out their hair over this (the birth mom disappeared a long time ago) so I am taking them a CD of Russian "new age" music to brighten their day. So their adoption procedure has been put on hold until they can straighten everything out and who knows when that will be?
I have heard other bad stories about various from several Americans who are in country like I am. There's a lot of corruption in this adoption business; once you're here, you are pretty much on your own. There is not much your US agency can do for you nor the US embassy, for that matter. If a local prosecutor takes a dislike to you or wants to vent against Americans, you can lose your child. And some people have.
Note to Alison - yes, Veeka and Charlie must meet! And amusing Veeka is taking lots of energy. She gets bored easily with the same toys. Today Mike blew up some huge balloons for her he found at the local toy store.
Evenings - well, Veeka should be asleep by 7 but lately she's not been. Must get her to bed early tonight; will be watching "The Shawshank Redemption;" don't think she'll be into that.

Party, party

Veeka has already made the social scene here in swinging Kostenai by putting in an appearance last night at not one, but two peoples' homes where she charmed everyone with her love of music, dancing and stuffed toys. The aforementioned Madina, who has a passle of Kazakh relatives in town, has been so helpful! I called her yesterday (Sunday) to say I was going stir-crazy in the hotel and did she want to do something?
Well, she arrived in a taxi driven by Dimas, a *very* handsome Russian who scooted us to some strange apartment building way north of Kostenai where we hopped out and zipped up a smelly stairwell to a very nice apartment (this country has NO elevators, it seems and so I am always hauling this child up 4-5 flights of steps)where Madina's sister, Nazee-gul (means "gentle flower" in Kazakh) dished us up salad and meat and cake - well, Veeka snarfed down everything she could get her little mits on. I could not believe how she was packing away huge quantities of rice, corn and whatever candy she could grab off the table. She's also into dairy products big time - loves cheese and yogurt. Anyway, she also managed to talk Sasha, Nazeel-gul's Russian husband, out of a green stuffed bunny.
Stuffed bunny in hand, we then got back in the taxi and zoomed to Madina's place where her 11-year-old son, Jangeldy - who is a national judo champ for his age category - and Madina poured more food, ie gummies into the Little One. Veeka bounced around and talked Jangeldy out of one of his stuffed toys as well - it plays music. You should see how this kid adores any tune at all. Every time I take her to the local supermarket, she starts swaying and smiling to the muzak. The clerks get the biggest kick out of her. So today I went to a used CD place and got some New Age music and some classical. Need to prep her for that harp.
I do however need to teach her some discernment. The trashiest English-language MTV videos get played everywhere here and she loves to watch them all. This morning while eating breakfast in the hotel cafe, we got to watch Pink Floyd's "I Don't Want No Education;" - over the top, I thought.
Sunday morning we also went out to visit a small evangelical church south of town. Veeka let it be known she would implode after 2 hours - in fact as the sermon dragged, she got restless. So I took her into the church office where I saw some really interesting evangelistic literature, including a child's Kazakh Bible. A lot of the evangelical Christian stuff gets printed in Germany, then shipped here. For you historians, remember Stalin exiled a lot of Germans to Kazakhstan way back when. Finally, circa 1989-91, they were permitted to leave the country and go back to Germany, which most of them did. You can still see remnants of Germany culture here - several restaurants; buses with German signs on them but most of the Germans are gone.
Things are going well. Saturday night, we sat down for a mother-daughter movie night, courtesy of a DVD someone loaned me to play on my laptop. So she sat there with her apple juice and me with my hot tea and we watched "Finding Neverland" or "Leaving Neverland" whatever the name of that movie starring Dustin Hoffman was. Tonight, we'll watch "Princess Bride."
Oops - she is starting to stir...it is very tough, like I said, to get her in a long enough nap in her stroller to allow me to come here. Today, after going to the local mall to get her some PJs (she wet the only pair we had last night), I brought her here but instead of going to sleep in the nice, warm Internet cafe, she started to screech. So I finally took her for a walk in the 35-degree weather and she dozed off. Go figure.
For those of you having difficulties posting comments, I am sorry - blogger.com is being ornery with me as well. Am trying to solve these difficulties.
Am enclosing 2 photos - one of our interpreter Valentin admiring a belly dancer we saw at a restaurant a week ago. The other is of Yulia - the cute 3-year-old who was dumped at the orphanage was well. Yulia has spina bifida so she cannot walk - her legs are folded under her so barring a miracle, she is confined to a wheelchair for life. But she's the sweetest thing - very smart and talkative - and she's shut in with the mentally ill kids cuz she's been assigned to the disabled wing. But from the waist up, she's great! I've included a photo of her so that if any of you know someone with a heart for adopting a disabled orphan, let me know and I will send you more details. The orphanage director said she'd be happy to put Yulia's name on the registery...she had given up hope of finding anyone who'd take her.
Veeka is stirring...Auf Wiedersehn!

My big day

Well, folks, I woke up this morning (Friday) with a little person sleeping beside me!
Let me go back 24 hours: At the crack of dawn on Thursday (the 25th), I got up and put on a nice dress (a change from the several layers of jeans and winter underwear I usually wear) and caught the van to Rudny at 7:45 a.m. Although I'd been slated for the afternoon hearing, it was moved to 9 a.m. the day before, so I was dropped off at a non-descript building which was the regional courthouse. My court-appointed interpreter, Alyssa, came up and introduced herself and I learned mine was the first case she was to translate. She'd just been hired. Well, okaaaaay, she and I and Rima, the orphanage director and Natalia, the court-appointed guardian, walked up a few flights, then showed up in the judge's chambers. The building was what you'd expect from a former Soviet republic; kind of shabby and run down.
But the judge was dressed in a tailored maroon robe which was kind of pretty, I thought, and across from her was a court reporter (who wrote in longhand!) and the prosecutor, whose job it was to ask me any tough questions.
The whole thing took about an hour. First the judge read outloud from a booklet listing some of the local laws; basically reading me my rights. Then I was asked: Why did I want to adopt? And why Kazakhstan? Then the guardian stood up and talked about how Veeka's mother abandoned this poor prematurely-born child in the hospital; how she never even bothered to call and check up on the child and how things were touch-and-go for a long time and that she was so tiny and thin, she wasn't even put on the adoption register until this past fall. Then Rima said how they had watched me interact with Veeka at the baby house and how she and I took to each other and how I'd turned down 2 boys in favor of Veeka, what a loving person I was, how Veeka looked forward to seeing me; then the guardian chimed in about how I make such a good salary and although I am older than most new mothers, I will be excellent with Veeka, etc. etc. - I raised my eyebrows at some of these things but knew it was best to just smile and nod. The one very odd thing was how the judge's phone would ring in the middle of someone's testimony and she'd interrupt the hearing to answer it.
The only thing that caught me unawares was our discussion on the birth certificate; they asked if I wanted to put myself down as the mother and my mind went blank - couldn't remember what other adoptive parents did in foreign countries. Kazakhstan will change the certificate if you want. And the interpreter was a bit confused at this point as well; we were both kind of looking at each other until the guardian stepped in and in very brisk Russian tried to set me straight. So finally I said yes - put me down as the mom - then they wanted the name of someone as the dad! Hmmmm. Finally I said to put down her grandfather (!) so there is a "Robert Duin" listed as the father of little Veeka in the Rudny courthouse.
Finally it was all over and I had to wait 20 minutes until the judge gave her opinion. We all shuffled back into her office where she said she had agreed with the orphanage's opinion that I should be given custody of Veeka and that herewith according to Rudny's district court I'd be known as her mother. It was about 10:30 a.m. I was so happy to have it over, that I lined up several of us involved in the hearing for a photo on the ground floor of the court house (from left to right: me, Baha the adoption coordinator, Rima and Alyssa) until the guard yelled at us - no photos allowed, apparently. Then some of us went out for lunch at a Korean restaurant to celebrate.
I spent the afternoon at the orphanage waiting for Mike and Carol to get through their hearing. Igave out gifts to a few of the people I'd worked with (Baha, our driver and Valentin the translator). Mike and Carol didn't get back til after 6, so we each then got a list of the childrens' schedules and what foods they liked to eat. Then we got a quick tour of their sleeping and play rooms. Unfortunately all the other kids were asleep by then (7 pm.) so it was pretty rushed.
Then, we bundled the 2 kids in their snow suits and then, the falling snow, we took them out to the waiting van for their last trip out of that orphanage. It was dark, of course, but the kids were wide-eyed the whole trip back to Kostenai. Veeka was totally bewildered at being dumped in my hotel room but I got her to sleep by pushing our beds together and holding her til she dozed off.
This morning, I got a call from Gail - thank you! - and the hotel restaurant was closed for some odd reason so breakfast was Chocolo-Chips or some odd Soviet cereal - anyway, got much of it down Veeka. She let me know she preferred a trail mix bar. Well...I poured some kefir down her instead. The little thing then walked out, totally destroying my hotel room and getting into all sorts of things she shouldn't. BUT she knows how to use the kiddie potty so we're halfway into toilet training - kids at the baby house are just plunked on the toilet at set times, so they learn how to go.
It was obvious I needed more clothes for the munchkin - everything I brought was too large - so off I went to a baby clothing store where Veeka began to scream and scream. I could not make my wishes (wanted to buy a pacifier, some shoes, 2 shirts and a woolen hat) known to the women in the store but who should walk up but 2 English majors at Kostenai State University. They were so helpful - plus one of the women in the store knew kids REALLY well and distracted Veeka with toys and a candy bar. The two college students, named Masha and Anya, then accompanied me to the supermarket where they helped me with the stroller and translating some of the items. It is the worst weather out - about 40 degrees and raining. Then I treated them to lunch at a local restaurant and Veeka acted beautifully - sat there and gulped down pizza and apple juice and didn't whimper a bit. Then while I was trudging back to the hotel in the slush, she conked out in her stroller SO I detoured to the Internet cafe so I could post this. She is still snoozing - were she not, the cafe folks would eject me, I'm sure.
Anyway, I will post when I can but dragging the stroller about 5 blocks away and timing my visits with Veeka's naps is difficult! Anyway, I am so enjoying having my own daughter and she's behaving beautifully considering she's left the only home she has ever known. The photo you see of her - snowsuit and striped socks and fluffy hat - is what she looked like as she waved goodbye.

Countdown

A future musician?

Tomorrow (Thursday the 25th) is a big day: Up at the crack of dawn to go to the Rudny courthouse where Mike and Carol have their hearing at 9 a.m. Then we hang out at the orphanage, then go to lunch somewhere in town, then back to the orphanage and then I have my hearing before the judge at 4:30. Then it's back to the orphanage to pick up the children, get a list of all their foods, their daily schedules and whatnot and then I dress Veeka up in the clothes I bought (she takes nothing with her) and then back to Kostenai we go. It's a very long day. By then she'll be getting tired so I will put her to bed as soon as I can. Fortunately I get to use the hotel's one crib. I don't have a kitchen, so it's hard to fix the porridge (they call it kasha) she has for breakfast. Lunch is whatever I can persuade the canteen 2 floors below me to microwave (must ask them in Russian). Dinner - have only planned through Friday at this point.
Am posting photos of Veeka's purple dress day listening to music and posing by some toys. Today is sunny and comparitively warm. I have just learned the local pigeons here really like my cat food. Tonight Madina has invited me over to her cousin's place for dinner; my last childless night! Maybe my last night to get some decent sleep but we won't go there right now. I've already assembled gifts for the driver, Veeka's chief caregiver, the interpreter, etc.
Wish me well...

Siberian wind

Today Miss Veronika wore a pretty purple dress and was in a very good mood. This made things pleasurable for me, as I brought her for the first time a little pink CD player w/kiddie music on it. As soon as I put the earphones on her, she smiled and smiled. She'd never heard such music before. She swayed and swayed and told me to thank Karen Forsyth for giving it to her. Yes, I think I'll get her started on the harp when I get home.
I finally broke down and bought a 220-volt hairdryer w/European-style plugs which has improved my appearance considerably. Today, there were gale winds out, so I searched out 2 stray kitties and left food for them. Yes, I've discovered both their hideouts. Will try again to post a photo of the male tiger kitty - dedicated to my father WHO HAS YET TO GET A CAT. He's pretty roly-poly - must be lots of mice underneath these buildings but then I found a far scrawnier young black and white kitty. Was approaching the little furball when a gust of wind hit, almost knocking me over and sending the poor cat flying to the nearest crawlspace underneath a nearby restaurant. Went and searched out said cat, who was mighty grateful for the kitty kibble I left him/her in a little alcove out of the wind.
Am totally out of touch with what the news is around the world although did hear Bill Richardson is going for president. Knowing him from New Mexico days, that'll be interesting. Fortunately the religion beat has been more or less quiet.
I appear in court 4:30 p.m. Thursday which should be a quickie before a local judge. I have already filled out paperwork saying yes I want to take Veeka home with me and fatten her up with 4% milk and mom's fruitcake and sausage from New Ulm. Barring something unforeseen in court, we pick up the children Friday morning, after which time it will be considerably harder for me to get to the Internet cafe so posts will be far less frequent, I am afraid, until the modem my dad sent me arrives in the mail and I can post from the hotel. The connection speeds here are less than stellar and AOL seems to crash once a day on me. Sigh.

Meeting Madina

Today I'm feeling better, as I spent the weekend trying to get over a nasty cold. Today for the first time, Veeka did not cry when she was handed off to me. That is a victory. I continue to meet people here; Madina is the name of a woman I met at the internet cafe who speaks English! Not too many people do that here but Madina teaches English to teenagers here. I'm always grateful for anyone who can help me translate as I continually flub up here ordering things in restaurants, etc.
They say Kostenai is having a heat wave now; temps today were in the 30s which is considered postively tropical here. I am slowly meeting people; have extracted a promise from Madina that she'll have dinner with us later this week. I am slowly stocking up on food in my room for the Little One, as restaurants here have no baby seats. I bought some chocolate (!) breakfast cereal at the local supermarket as I was so sick of eating the odd breakfast at my hotel with the waitress who kind of throws the food at us. She is a bit grouchy. The couple traveling with me tried buying milk at the supermarket; when they returned to the hotel room, they found out they'd purchased fermented mare's milk. We're still laughing about it - however I did cajole Valentin to take me to the market and explain the difference between milk, butter, kefir and yogurt. The mare's milk is in there along with the rest of them.
Am including photos of the Russian kitty and me with Veeka in a good mood.