The Meltdown

I am sure you are all wondering which of the 3 of us is melting down. It could be any of us really, given the state of things. And in our own small (or perhaps medium) ways, we have all been melting down a bit. In actuality there are 2 meltdowns happening. And neither of them are among Bruce, Jaden or myself. The first is happening outdoors, but isn’t your garden variety meltdown. As the temperatures here push just above freezing, the thaw starts and stops in fits. One day we are wading through slush, pools of water a foot or more deep in some areas. Several of the streets are clear of snow now, but run with water from the melting snow and ice. Water runs everywhere, in rivulets and trickles, in gushes and swathes. In other areas, the packed snow and ice is so thick, there is still a solid, quasi-frozen surface to walk on. There are ice and snow ledges 12-14 inches high turning onto some streets. And there remain piles of snow 4-8 feet high in areas, some seemingly drifted by the endless winds that buffet the steppe during the winters. On alternate days, the temperature dips back below freezing, and the slush congeals into hard, crunchy trenches, the pools of water ice over the tops, and the mud bogs become passable.

Oh yes, the mud. Acres and acres of it. I have been in many ski towns during ‘mud season’, but have never seen anything like this. The only places you can step and not be in mud is where the snow is still packed or where a few feet of sidewalk have cleared. The roads are covered with running mud and silt, as are the sidewalks. The field through which we shortcut every day to the orphanage will be impassable within a day or two. We return from every outing with mud spattered on our pants, and mud clogging our boots. Bruce went to the market and bought a pair of rubber galoshes for about $8, a purchase he swears is the ‘best he ever made’. With his jeans tucked into his black boots, and his black Fate ski jacket with it’s Pirate-inspired logo, he looks a cross between a Maine fisherman, a cowboy and a Raiders fan. He turns heads in Arkalyk for sure. He wondered today whether we would be the cause of a traffic accident before our time here is over, as a driver was so busy studying Bruce he nearly failed to notice the car coming right at him….

Not that we are sorry to see the snow melting. But as the trash emerges from the snow, I wonder if Arkalyk WITH snow might not be the more pleasing… And when I say ‘trash’, I don’t just mean wrappers and cigarette butts and the like. Don’t get me wrong, those are here too. But it’s the other mysterious items that have caught my interest. The entire proximal landscape is suddenly an archeological site, as artifacts left over from another, warmer time poke up through the receding cover. The assortment and quantity is astonishing. Bits of cloth, in every size and shape. Bones of animals; a skull, vertebra, ribs and other unidentifiable parts and pieces. A naked Ken doll. Pages of books. Mickey Mouse playing cards. Chunks of rusty metal, glass and broken roof tiles litter the sidewalks as they clear. The blackest, fattest crows I have ever seen populate the town now, by the thousands. They make their contribution to the scattered detritus by picking anything edible or shiny from the trash and taking it to a branch or field to examine. Hundreds of cigarette package foil liners dot the landscape. Stray dogs pull bags of refuse from the rubbish cans to get at the food, and leave what they can’t eat. Remember the crying Indian commercials we used to have in the U.S.? That guy would need a Valium if he saw this place.

The second meltdown is of the indoor variety, but no less dramatic. Our soon-to-be youngest child has yet to stop crying at the sight of us. He is just two, and that sure doesn’t help. But apart from that, he is so conflicted. He is scared of us and mad at his caregivers. He calls all of the caregivers ‘mama’, and now they are telling him I am ‘mama’. He isn’t buying it for a minute. They also tell him we are going to take him. What a set up that is. They leave us in a room with him, and then walk through at intervals. If he has stopped crying (unusual) he starts again. If he hasn’t stopped, he cries the harder. He feels betrayed by them, you can see it in his face. How could they walk by and see him, and not come to his rescue? If I put him down, he stamps his foot and wants me to pick him up, but only because there is no one else to do it. There are no male caregivers, so it’s tough for Bruce to get much play from him right now. He wants to get down, be somewhere else, but realizes there is no where else he can go. He won’t take cookies from us, or chocolate, or books, or toys. We are the enemy right now.

The side effect of all this is that I have mastered saying “it’s OK” and “don’t cry” in Russian. Although I am really thinking, “OK, cry all you want. I’d be pissed too.” I don’t think I can work that out in Russian though, and don’t know how comforting it would really be to a two year old… I can say about 10 other words, including “bird” (there’s one in the room), “cat”, “snow”, “big”, “little” and “car”. I am sure he thinks I am mentally deficient in some way, as I spend a lot of time talking about birds and cars in pidgin Russian. Big birds, little birds, big cars, little cars, “Where’s bird?”, “Where’s car”… you get the picture.

The other day he chilled a bit when we went down and all hung out with his group. As long as he could see one of his caregivers, he would let me hold him, but I had to be insistent. He actually fell asleep on me for a while. I think he is perpetually tired. He is just barely 2, but is hanging out in the group with the 3 and 4 year olds also. He gets one nap a day, and it obviously isn't enough, as he is wiped out every time we see him. Plus the group is rough, as are the caregivers. I can't imagine the level of stress and adrenaline these kids must have in their bodies, all the time. Hopefully we are making progress, and I guess there is no way around the trauma for him, but it's hard on all of us. Jaden tries to interact with him a bit, but he usually isn’t in any condition to be social. Some of the other, bigger kids want to play with Jaden, but their version is to hit him, run into him, have him chase them, etc. Jaden doesn’t want to play rough with them, and tries to get them to stop, but it’s hard, they are insistent. So he has to check himself out of the situation so it doesn’t escalate. That is definitely wearing on him as well.

We’ve been trying to communicate the challenge we are experiencing, but haven’t had a translator with us, as we are not ‘officially’ there. I think they thought maybe we were exaggerating. Yesterday we walked in and found Habiba (our coordinator/translator) and the head doctor there. We were expecting to meet them tomorrow. They said now was better. This was our chance to ask all of our questions. All? Well, all for me was about 6 pages. I thought we might get through a good part of it. Then they brought Tuma in. We are always prepared, because we can hear him coming. We start hearing him when they are dressing him to come upstairs, where the room is that we meet in. The sound gets louder, and louder, until the sound and it’s source are in the room. Usually, I walk over and take him from the caregiver. He puts his arms out to me now, knowing it’s better than nothing I guess. And then the sound is in my ear. The conversation with the doctor becomes impossible for me. And Jaden is having a rough day, which doesn’t help. After about 15 minutes of Tuma crying with me trying to calm him, Jaden tries turning on some music to help Tuma calm down, but now nobody can hear anything. Bruce asks him to turn it down, and Jaden gets upset, he’s only trying to help he says. Now HE starts crying.
And suddenly Tuma stops. He looks stunned. Confused. He watches Jaden for a few minutes with interest. Then he remembers that’s HIS job, and starts wailing again. The minute the doctor takes him from me, he calms down. She takes him back to his group, and finally we can have a conversation.

‘Are we sure we really want this child’ they wonder? Because he’s two and he cries? Well, if that’s all it took to scare us away, we would have never made it this far. We find out he cries a lot. He took over a month to adjust to his new group they tell us. They moved him from the under 2 group to the 2 and up group just 2 months ago, where he just went from one set of ‘mama’s’ to a whole new set of ‘mama’s’. No sooner had he acclimated then we showed up. Apparently he also doesn’t like to be shut in a room by himself for punishment. He cries. Now I am seriously worried, but not about Tuma. More about the idea that these things are not normal for a small child. We also find out that his mother had originally said she would come back for him. This was when she left him at the maternity hospital after giving birth to him. And so he has never really been exposed to people outside the orphanage staff or prepared in any way for the idea he might be adopted. ‘What else hasn’t he been exposed to?’ I wonder. They say he cries at new things. Wow, that should make taxi rides, train rides, airplanes, airports, hotels, the American medical clinic in Almaty, the Embassy, et. al, quite the joy ride. How to make a 2 year old feel safe, protected, etc, by someone he doesn’t trust, fears, and is snatching him away. I need a guide to “How to exploit Stockholm Syndrome for your own gain” or something along those lines.

Today he cried for about 30 minutes and then stopped. We were able to get him to play a little, drink a little juice. He was quiet and relatively engaged for over an hour. No one walked through the room for most of the time. Maybe they are catching on. About halfway through he peed. (They insist the kids “potty train” REALLY early) I stripped him down and Bruce got new clothes and a rag for the flood on the floor. While he was crying his nose was running and he puts his fingers in his mouth and wipes both all over me. Then, toward the end, the leg he was sitting on suddenly felt warm, and I smelled something familiar… sure enough, poop. That was the end of the visit for today. And when we got home I said “Well, I was snotted on, peed on and pooped on today.” Bruce said, “Yes, and it was your best day yet!” He was right.

There is some talk about us being able to bring him here, to the flat, for our visiting time, maybe even before we are ‘official’. We were told they had a staff meeting just this morning to ‘discuss our problem’. It seems like it might be a good idea, but we point out that we will need a driver for the 3 block trip, as the 3 of us carrying a screaming Kazakh child through the streets is bound to attract SOME attention. We will try again tomorrow, and again the day after that. Between the 3 of us, we say to Jaden “OK, it’s time to go and torture your little brother” and laugh a little. But between Bruce and I we continue to worry about what trauma, what additional fears, what nightmares this small child will harbor far into the future as a result of his experience, but also know that we will be there to help him through it, whatever they may be.

Jaden Quote: “Jaden, your listening skills have gotten worse since we’ve been here.” “I know Mommy, but my trooper skills have gotten much better!”