The Day of Reckoning

Today was the day. Our court date. The day every family adopting in Kaz approaches with a combination of anticipation, excitement and apprehension. The judge stands between you and your child, ostensibly the guardian of the child’s best interests, but perhaps more truly the guardian of their own bureaucracy, as everyone works diligently not to make any mistake that might come back to haunt them in the future. The judge is responsible for rendering a decision about your fitness as a parent to this Kazakh child, and for giving permission for the adoption to proceed. If the judge ‘agrees with the petition’ to adopt the child, the court date is followed by a mandatory 15 day waiting period before the adoption is finalized. The waiting period is mostly a formality, to ensure that birthmothers have adequate time to consider their decision, although it would seem best this be done prior to a court date… in reality, most judges require either the birthmother appear in court, or submit a signed and notarized letter (referred to as a petition) stating their intent NOT to appear in court and giving their approval for the adoption to proceed. It is, of course, not always possible to find the birthmother, but in a country who’s population numbers only 16 million, and for whom community ties are so strong, it’s tough to get lost in the crowd. Almost invariably the birthmother is found, but not always with a happy ending.

In our case, this birthmother petition bit proved tricky. Tuma/Milan’s birthmother was difficult to find, and when she was found, didn’t have the proper documents to allow a petition from her to be notarized. There was a lot of discussion about how to proceed, and faxing of documents back and forth, and many, many phone calls. In the end, it required people going to her house and taking her to the court in the city in which she lives, so that her petition could be witnessed by the judge. Then the judge there was to send a telegram (yes, a telegram- not a fax, not an email, a telegram) to ‘our’ judge confirming her answers to the questions. After that was received, our coordinator would call us (or so went the plan) and tell us when we would have court. And then we would pass the secret code word to the… well, suffice it to say it was convoluted.

We had our first indication of trouble when at 10:15, Habiba still had not arrived for her 9:00 appointment with us. We headed over to the orphanage, figuring if she need us, she knew where to find us. When we returned home, she still had not been heard from, so I called. “I am sorry, I am very busy,” was the answer I received. The court hearing with the birthmother had not happened in the morning she informed me, but would happen in the afternoon. She would call later with more information. At 1:30 she called to tell me that we would be ready between 4 and 6pm to go to court, that the judge would call as soon as she had the telegram, and we would race over to the courthouse. Habiba would arrive at 3pm for our debriefing.

At 4pm there was still no Habiba, but we were dressed and ready to go, and Marzhan arrived to hang out with Jaden while we were gone. We set Jaden up with a movie, and sat down to wait. Habiba called about 4:20 to say that she would come at 5:30 and we would go to court about 5:45. We sent Marzhan home for an hour rather than her wasting time hanging out. Five minutes later, Habiba called to tell us Ceric would arrive in 10 minutes, and we should meet him downstairs. Now we had a problem, as Jaden hadn’t been planning to come with us, and we had told Marzhan she could leave. Habiba couldn’t find Marzhan, and asked if Jaden could just come along, but would have to stay quiet. Not a trivial thing for Jaden. We quick-talked Jaden into coming, while spraying his un-ironed clothes with wrinkle-releaser. He wanted to wear his tie, and although he was concerned about staying quiet for even the 10-20 minutes we were told it would take, he was going to give it his best try. We raced downstairs. Habiba and Ceric pulled up with Marzhan in the front seat. Habiba told Jaden it would better for him NOT to come now, and he should stay with Marzhan. Well, that resulted in an insta-melt, as he now had himself primed to come, and could not be dissuaded.

We piled into the car and off we went, repeatedly emphasizing to Jaden the need for silence in the courtroom. We hustled into the courtroom, a stark affair, with roughly painted wooden floors, crude wooden benches, and ‘Some Assembly Required’ furnishings. On one side was a defendants ‘cage’, built from welded re-bar, and painted Kazakh blue. The Kazakh flag hung behind the judge, with a Kazakh coat of arms next to it. The windows were covered in white lace curtains, which are de rigueur for all buildings here. We took our seats in the front row with Habiba and Jaden behind us, a slight which was not lost on him. After a few minutes the prosecutor and court stenographer arrived. The judge swept in behind them, wearing a burgundy robe with white vinyl go-go boots. She was in her late 50’s or early 60’s, with bleached white hair, which was a startling effect on a woman with strong Kazakh features.

The proceedings were very formal, with the judge asking many questions of us. “Why did you choose to adopt,” “why did you choose Kazakhstan,” “You already have a boy, why did you not come to adopt a girl,” “Will your other son be jealous,” “Why did you bring your other child, is it because you have no relatives to leave him with,” and “If he gets sick when he is older, will you want to give him back?” During many of the answers, she gazed out the window, leaving the clear impression that while she felt she needed to ask the questions to consider she had done her job, she already knew the answers. She wanted to know why we had been in Arkalyk for so long. No good answer there….

She asked additional questions of the head doctor from the orphanage, who was in the courtroom, and the social worker assigned to our case. She found one document in our 3 inch stack that was not to her liking, and after 10 minutes of deliberations with Habiba, Habiba left to go and fetch the original. It was hard to imagine this happening in a U.S. courtroom, where judge, prosecutor, witnesses, etc all sit and chat while someone runs out to fetch a document…. During all of the back and forth in Russian and the waiting, I found myself looking at the busy scene in the street and courtyard outside the courthouse. The window glass is rippled, cheaply made. It created a fun house effect as people walked past, alternately elongating and shortening their legs, their bodies, their heads. It seemed a reflection of the machinations that have taken place to get us to this point.

She was back after another 10 minutes or so, and we continued. More questions, followed by a break for the judge to consider her decision, which Habiba declared meant she was ‘drinking tea’. She returned about 5 minutes later and proceeded to read a long document outlining the proceedings of the entire hearing, the laws of Kazakhstan regarding international adoptions, the process required to get the birthmother’s signed petition, the way Tuma had come into the orphanage, etc. At long last, she got to the end, which was a rather abrupt announcement that she ‘agreed with our petition’, as well as our request to change his name to Isaac Milan. Then she said ‘congratulations’ and walked out of the room. That was it, it was over. She was halfway out the door before Habiba finished translating what had been said. We suddenly were parents of another child, for all intents and purposes. I turned to hug Jaden who blurted out “But I don’t even know the decision!” He was not happy to be in the dark. I told him the news and he started to cry. When I asked him what was wrong, thinking maybe he was upset he hadn’t heard the judge say it or Habiba translate it, he said “Mom, I am crying because I am so happy!” Even in a kid as emotional and sensitive as Jaden, it was an over-the-top moment.

We came back to the flat to drink tequila with Habiba, the head doctor, and the other American couple here adopting. Toasts were made as were plans to spring Tuma/Milan from the baby house. We will bring him here Wednesday around lunch time. Bruce and Jaden will board the train Wednesday night for Astana, and then on to home. Tuma/Milan and I will see them off, and then come back here to introduce a child who has never seen the inside of a real home to the mysteries of appliances and flush toilets and neighbors. And freedom, to pee when he wants, eat when he wants, and sleep- well, hopefully that will be more when I want.

A Small Fortune

Just when you think you have a handle on things around here, something goes completely off the rails. Bacha, who was our cook for the first month, had a rotten experience recently. And while we felt really bad about what happened, the way it played out was so completely turned around from what we would have expected, we also had a good laugh about it. Here’s the story: We have been paying Habiba for food and lodging in 10 day increments, roughly. It was time for us to give her the next installment, and she wasn’t planning to come to the apartment until later in the evening. So she told Bruce to give part of the money, about $400, to Bacha so she could go shopping. He did, and we went off to the orphanage. When we saw Bacha later that day, she seemed like something was wrong. Now, Bacha doesn’t speak a word of English, so there wasn’t much to go on, granted. That evening, she was also subdued. Habiba said she wasn’t feeling well, and had a headache. We suggested she go home.

Then the story came out. Habiba told us that earlier in the day Bacha had gone to the hospital for something. She works there as a nurse, so it wasn’t clear if she had gone as a patient or for work. At any rate, at some point she needed to go to another floor, and left her purse sitting where she had started out. I am sure you can guess the next part- when she went to change money later in the day, two of the four $100 bills were missing from her wallet. This seems like a lot for most people, but this is a substantial amount of money for Kazakhstan, where a 2 bedroom flat will run you $20,000 and a days work might yield $10 if you have a decent job. It represented nearly 3 weeks of work at the wage Habiba was paying her to cook for us. She was devastated, and we were devastated for her. It was what transpired next we couldn’t have guessed though.

After discovering the money missing, Bacha did what anyone would do. Anyone Kazakh that is. She went to the fortune-teller. More on her later. Me, I would have picked the police station. Apparently that never came up, despite the fact that Habiba’s husband is a police officer. The fortune-teller tells her “The money was stolen by one woman at the hospital, and although she feels guilty, she won’t give it back.” We could have told her that for free. This was relayed to me with a totally straight face, so falling on the floor laughing was not an option, despite being my first instinct. There was no question that what she was told was taken with great seriousness, and that they believed there to be deep insight behind the words. It was right up there with the rockets changing the weather. And not whistling indoors, as you will never have money if you do (Jaden is particularly disturbed by this idea, since he just learned to whistle and wants to do it regularly). Or not drinking a cold drink or you will have a sore throat.

Superstition runs deep here, despite the years of Soviet pragmatism. Or perhaps because of it. Jaden and I have been discussing survival strategies of plants and animals a lot lately. Humans put into inhuman situations are faced with the same scenario: develop a survival strategy or perish. The Kazakhs did just that, integrating their folk beliefs and rituals into the everyday, as their religion, culture and language were stripped from them. And although the Russians have pulled out of direct political supervision of the country, their influence is still felt. Many people of Kazakh ethnicity have married people of Russian descent. The result is that Kazakh is no longer spoken in many homes. Islam is making a comeback here, and most people identify as either Muslim or atheist. Just don’t ask them to give up their vodka. The clan units, which were comprised of very extended families are disintegrating, the members no longer being rely on each other as the once could, in a post-Soviet every-man-for-himself survivalist culture.

The reactions seem to me to be two sides of a similar coin. On the one, you focus on the small, the controllable. Don’t drink cold drinks. Don’t whistle inside. On the other side you focus on the mystical, the things that cannot be controlled. People wear amulets to protect them and hang up talisman’s to ward off the evil eye. I was told to put one on Jaden because Kazakh people fear beautiful children, and might put an evil eye on him. It was the fortune-teller who told me this, mind you. Feng-Shui is very in vogue here. And people’s business is kept on the down-low. You don’t talk about your business, you keep a low profile. Every question has 3 different answers, nothing is as it seems. They still refer to the Kazakh version of the FBI as the KGB, despite the fact that the KGB has not been a fixture here for over 15 years. It is akin to a child who has been mistreated and has learned to look over their shoulder and protect themselves, and continues long after the need has passed.

Bacha went to Almaty to escort a child who is being adopted, and who’s parents are picking her up there after the paperwork is all finished. In her absence our new cook is none other than the fortune-teller. Who also happens to be the vice-principal of the largest school in Arkalyk. Her school is 1st –11th grades and has over 1100 children and 70 teachers. And the director of a very big summer camp near Astana. She employs several of Habiba’s friends and family at the summer camp. She took a week off of work to be our cook. Habiba says she simply wants the chance to work with Americans. Zoula is a big personality, full of fun and laughing constantly, a great spark in our days. She analyzed our birthday’s one day with the Enneagram. After looking at Jaden’s and with the help of the dictionary she announced he is an “energy vampire.” I was laughing for days. 15 minutes with Jaden will tell you that. She has a son Jaden’s age, and has taken to Jaden. She calls out to him constantly, and he will hang out and talk to her, although her English is very limited.

The other night Jaden and I went to Zoula’s apartment so Jaden could play with her son, Batik. While there, she asked if I wanted my fortune told. I would never pass up such an offer. She whips out a plastic page protector for a 3-ring binder, filled with scraps of paper from books, cards, coins and the like. From this came a deck of Special Fortune-Telling Cards and she asked me to cut them. Then she laid them out and looked for images that fit together between the cards. This she repeated 3 times. After which she carefully consulted the cardboard strip that the cards had come in and wrote a list of words in Russian. The next step necessitated the dictionary, and lots of muttering and thumbing. When she finished, she proudly presented me with a list of words: Road, walk, disappointment, regain sight, happiness, wealth, and money. Naturally, I felt most enlightened by this list.

To get a better read on things, she needed a blue pen and my palm. Zoula traced my lifeline carefully, bending my hand this way and that to make sure of accuracy. There were two triangular shaped areas on my lifeline that she informed me were ‘operations’, the biggest will be when I am 65 she says. I know you are all relieved to learn I will survive the operation, and live to be 86 years old. I know I was. Not so thrilled about the surgeries though. I am going to start looking into alternatives as soon as I get home. Feeling that there was still territory unexplored, she told me to throw the I-Ching coins. Or the 3 10-cent Tenge pieces, in this case. She counted carefully, and consulted some pages she had ripped out of a book with the descriptions of the results. At this point it became necessary to call Galina, who was our first translator, as you may remember. She asked Galina to translate, and proceeded to read her the words from the page. I had images of her buying a “Tell the Future and Amaze Your Friends!!” booklet in a dime store.

Apart from the translator, it was like a goofy evening you might have spent with a friend back in high-school. Without the beer. In the end, it turns out the coins say “everything will turn out alright.” According to Habiba, Zoula is ‘never wrong’. Of course, Habiba called Bacha in Almaty the other day to ask her to ‘throw the peach pits’ to see what will happen with our family, as she is nervous about Tuma’s mother. Apparently this is Bacha’s method of foreseeing the future. And she just so happened to have her peach pits with her in Almaty. Habiba said she has done it for ‘more than 10 families’ and is very accurate. She also says everything will be OK. So it must be true. We go to court on Monday, to face the judge and her decision about whether we will be allowed to adopt the child formerly known as ‘Tuma’ (for more on Tuma and his new name, see Jaden’s post at http://www.kazbrother.blogspot.com/). I hope the Fortune Teller’s arts are as magical as everyone here believes them to be. We will let you know on Monday night. Cross your fingers for us!

"You expect me to answer to WHAT?!?!"

Loved Ones

I don’t know where to begin. I’ve never written anything as personal as this blog has turned out to be for Lynne, Jaden and I, not even in a journal of any type. Now I feel compelled to continue to express some of what’s going on in my life.

The reality of a new son is drawing near, but still so far. Yesterday, Tuma let me hold him, he laughed with me, he stared back at me, showing no signs that he wasn’t going to love me soon. He obviously is feeling more comfortable with me, he even peed on me, which I believe is the true sign of letting it all go. He’s only peed twice while with us, the first time was the day he really began to connect with Lynne and then yesterday. It’s so obvious to us now that Tuma is going to be fine. He smiles brightly and has a playful spirit. When he gets to Boulder he will continue to improve exponentially, his future is bright, and it’s almost like he starts to see it.

But still we have so far to go, as we have the new hurdle to jump over. The judge has found his birthmother, grandmother and SISTER (9 years old). (Will he ever meet his sister? We would be in favor of that when the time is right, his mother too, but not for years…). They are in Astana, which is the capital city of Kazakhstan, the city that is a 15 hour train ride away. This is the city we have to go through to take him home. Our adoption coordinator is trying desperately to find his birth mother and have her sign (another) petition that states that she wants to see Tuma adopted. We should know more in days, or hours… The paperwork saga continues and we are amazed at what’s going on in the background. (If I tell the whole story I would have to swear you all to secrecy and I don’t even know who you all are). The papers we need from the states are with DHL and we have tracked them in Brussels as of 3am today, due to arrive in Astana on Saturday where they get to take the train ride to get to us on Sunday so we can have our court hearing on Monday. If all goes well, Jaden and I leave on Wednesday from Arkalyk to Astana. Then on Thursday we fly from Astana to Almaty, and then on Friday at 3am (yes am) we fly to London, and catch a flight from London at 3:30pm to Chicago, and then on to Denver for a 9:40pm arrival. It will be so bittersweet to be home, without Lynne and Tuma. Lynne has another 30 days or so in front of her, mostly here in Arkalyk, and then 3-5 days in Almaty.

As Lynne wrote in her last post, my oldest friend’s father passed away this week. Len was buried in Philadelphia yesterday. I wish I was there. He is in now in peace at the same cemetery as my dear mother and sister, may they all rest in peace. Len was one of my earliest sports mentors. You who know me know my passion for sports, all sports, playing sports and watching sports (unfortunately more watching these days then playing). Len had season tickets to the Philadelphia Eagles games, and when one of his friends couldn’t make it, I often got the call as his sons weren’t as into football as I was. I have vivid memories of Franklin field on freezing cold Sundays drinking hot chocolate and watching Roman Gabriel try to lead the Eagles out of the basement that they often dwelled in. Then, in the summer, our families spent a few summers together in the Pocono “Mountains”. Len would always ask me to go check on the Phillies scores and report back while he and his wife and my parents played bridge or whatever their activity of the evening was. This was the early 70’s, so again, it was fruitless, the Phillies were terrible, but we always held out hope, kind of like Rockies fans these days, although I think most of us have given up on that…but hey, I hear the Nuggets are actually on a hot streak, and remember how terrible they were just a few years ago? Len was a kind, gentle man, with a big smile and great laugh. He will be sorely missed by his family that now has roots in Vermont, California and Australia as well as the Philadelphia area.

Today I learned that my aunt Adrienne passed away. First I hear about Len via an Instant Message, then I hear about my aunt via email. Adrienne was my mother’s only sister, her only sibling. She had been sick for a few weeks and in bad shape, so this was not a shock, but it hurts, it really hurts not to be there with my cousin and the rest of the family. I am saying this publicly – Jeff – it will be hard for me to come visit you as soon as we get home. You need some time for yourself, come to Boulder. You’ve been promising me for years. We’ll bike all over town, we’ll laugh, we’ll cry, we’ll make each other feel better.

I have one story I want to share about Aunt Adrienne that will help to capture this wonderful woman. When I was about 8 years old or so, my parents went on a vacation and Adrienne and my cousin Jeff came with us to stay for the week. I was a rascally kid and when Adrienne said it was time for me to do something, I never made it easy for her. She asked me to take a shower, and of course I said “No!” After a few rounds, she threatened to pour chocolate syrup on my head. Of course I dared her to, never believing she would. And of course, I wouldn’t be telling you this story if she didn’t. She always made us laugh. She always made everyone around her laugh. Adrienne and my mom would laugh together for hours, I usually didn’t know what they were laughing about, they just loved life and I loved them.

My Aunt Adrienne was one of my favorite people in the whole world for most of my life. Why didn’t I see her more often, or speak to her more often? But won’t we always think that about our favorite relatives that live far away? Phone calls are almost free, emails are free, it’s the time that’s the problem. But what is time for if not to stay in touch with our loved ones?

I am very sad today.

Peace,

Bruce

A week on the Roller Coaster of Adoption

News from this weeks’ section of track has it’s ups and downs, as any good roller coaster should. I remember as a child, going to the original Elitch’s Gardens in Denver, and riding the wooden roller coaster. The thrilling twists and turns, the curves and hills, and the terrifying yet exhilarating rides down, hands in the air, half-sure you are going to fly out of your seat at any moment and find yourself airborne.

But ask yourself this, at which point on a roller coaster are you ‘up’ exactly? Is it the climb, as you feel the car slowly pulling you up the hill, followed inevitably by the descent? Is it only that brief moment as you are balanced at the very apex of the hill, knowing that within seconds you will race dizzyingly down the other side? Roller coasters have their ups and downs to be sure, but as metaphor, I am not sure it holds up. We hope that the ‘ups’ in life will last longer than a few moments, and that the getting there will be less arduous, less filled with the anticipation of the drop to follow. And when the downs come we hardly lift our hands and shout with glee, reveling in the adrenaline pumping through our bodies….

This week seems it was filled with moments, both gleeful and arduous, sorrowful and stress-filled. I will give you the run-down. First, we have struggled with getting some revised paperwork we need for our court date. The frustration comes because even after 5 weeks in Kaz, we still don’t have it. We finish our official bonding period tomorrow, incredibly, but can’t have a court hearing until the paperwork arrives. And until the court hearing, Bruce and Jaden can’t leave, and the 15 day waiting period can’t begin, and none of the paperwork necessary to Tuma and I leaving can be started. And the paperwork is not, of course, as simple as running a few copies and faxing them over. Documents must be official. Very official. Copies must be notarized. Notaries must be authenticated through something called an Apostille, which must be done by the Secretary of State for the state in which the notary is licensed. The entire thing must be translated. Then it must be sent to the Kazakhstan Embassy to be authenticated yet again. Never mind that Kaz is a signatory to the Geneva convention, one article of which is designed to eliminate this last step. Everyone is mainly intent on covering their collective behinds, so the more official stamps and signatures they can collect the better. We have waited for over 10 days with no word on when the documents would get here or whether there was any ‘work-around’ or when we might be able to have our court date. Definitely a down. Now, word is that the documents will be here by Sunday, with court tentatively scheduled for Monday. That will give Bruce and Jaden time to get to Almaty by Wednesday, for the next step of their journey home early Thursday morning. That would be an up.

As for Tuma, that has been mostly an up. When I go to pick him up from his group now, he runs over with his arms up to be lifted. He no longer cries. He has actually begun to venture away from the couch, and as long as I stay in one spot for the most part, he no longer needs to be glued to me every second. He has discovered things he has never had the chance to before. Like eating something when he feels like it, not just when it’s time. And drinking just a little from the bottle and then putting the top back on, just because he can. Running to get the ball by himself, kicking it with his foot to see what happens, and throwing back to his papa or his brother. Imagine an environment where you never get to see what happens when you kick a ball, because as soon as you do, someone else has taken it…

He loves upside down tickles and being swung around. He giggles and giggles… it’s so sweet. We still don’t know what his voice sounds like though, because he still doesn’t talk. But he will go to get the bottle when I ask ‘do you want a drink’ or ‘do you want juice’ (in Russian), he will bring me an object when I ask him to (sometimes, he is 2 after all). He will not answer to his name when we call him unless he feels like it, which is not often. He is learning to drum on stuff. We have jam sessions with markers and various objects- his bottle, a Tupperware full of rice as a shaker, the marker box, whatever. We all bang away together. Throwing tantrums remains a fixture. Nothing like the bird day though. These are mostly of the ‘noodle’ variety. You know, where you go totally limp and lay on the floor trying to get yourself worked up. The mind of a 2 year old is a mysterious place.

(Hmmm.... what does daddy taste like?)
He is learning new things so quickly, remembering from day-to-day. He will ‘drive’ a car on the floor now, not just idly spin the wheels with his finger. He won’t let Bruce hold him still, but will let him throw him up in the air for a few minutes, and will let Bruce give him treats and play ball with him. He still wants to clock the bird with just about anything he can find, but will actually stop himself sometimes now when I say ‘nyet’. Believe me, it will take more than the opinion of a 2 year old to turn me against the bird. But thanks to everyone who worried about me/us!

Today, he and Jaden played for the first time really. They played like brothers, running around, Jaden throwing the ball for Tuma and Almira (another little girl who’s adoptive parents are here for the bonding period). Jaden hugs him, kisses him, bops him on the head, and bugs him. Mostly it is the sweet and awkward attempts of a 6 year old to connect with this child, this kid that is suddenly (only not SO suddenly) his brother.

We did not see the Cosmonauts or the rocket landing or even the capsule parade through town this week, despite what the first picture might lead you to believe. We did see the huge trucks the Russian military takes out to the landing site with support personnel and equipment to retrieve the capsule though. The came rolling through town one day as we were out for a walk. Bruce and Jaden and I discovered them an hour or so later, parked in front of Arkalyk’s one hotel. The trucks were very impressive. Huge, with lots of gadgets. Each had stickers from the various missions they had been on. The stickers have the year, the flags of the countries involved, and the names of the Cosmonauts/Astronauts that were on the mission. Jaden and I hung around long enough that a few of the drivers came out. One of them spoke a bit of English, and we were able to find out when they were going out for the landing, and that it would be a 5 hour drive. Bruce wanted to know about taking a tour in their cushy bus-type vehicle. He joked that it would cost $25 million. There was some miscommunication about their plans, and we hoped they would be back here with the Cosmonauts and the capsule, but neither transpired. We did get a picture of one of the drivers in his Russian Milatary Space Program uniform. This was one of those whoop-de-whoos you find on the tracks every now and then.

We discovered the local masseuse about two weeks ago. I have ongoing shoulder and neck problems, and trying to corral a squirming two year old while sleeping on a bed with a sleep number not found on any mattress I have ever seen has turned my muscles into a network of steel cables. Bruce has been spending long hours bent over his laptop sitting on a wooden chair seriously lacking in ergonomics. Habiba sent over her massage therapist in response to my request. Apart from the bruising, her work is excellent. She rubs something on called Bom-Benge that lists ‘vasaline’ as the main ingredient. It smells just like the Ben-gay of the arthritis commercials, and greases up nicely. The best part of the experience is that the total tab is 500 tenge per hour- about $4.00. Definitely an up.

Habiba dropped a bomb on us today when she told us they have found Tuma’s birthmother. Kazakh courts require that the birthmother appear in court to agree to the adoption, or send some type of petition stating they will allow the child to be adopted. After checking quite a few places, there had been no success in finding Tuma’s birthmother. However, apparently there was a ‘breakthrough’ and it turns out she lives in Astana with her mother and her 9-ish year old daughter. Now, one would suppose that if she was planning to raise her child she would have come to get him before moving to Astana (the grandmother and daughter left for Astana only 2 weeks ago!). However, we won’t feel settled until we have her decision about the adoption. Until then, this is a twist and a turn, hopefully neither of which will lead to a down.

Bruce learned tonight that the father of a very close friend passed away. He grew up with this man and his family, and the loss is very personal and very deep. It’s funny how we hold a space for certain people in our hearts, even those we really aren’t in touch with anymore. We don’t view them as being out of our lives. The passage of time doesn’t change how we view them or remember them or feel about them. It feels like a thread you can pick up again at any moment, only you don’t. And then you can’t. His aunt has also been very ill, which has been, and continues to be difficult. She is his mother’s only sister, only sibling in fact. It is hard to be here, doing this, to feel so removed from and unavailable to the people in our lives. This one needs no label. It serves to remind us that regardless of the joys or suffering we experience, it is all temporary. We must enjoy the moments we are given and experience them fully whether they be ups or downs, for as they pass, we have seen the last of them.

A Very Bad Mommy day

Ok, so today I did the thing you should never ever do to a child. At least not to a two year old child. I didn’t want to do it. I tried really hard not to do it. I knew it was a dodgy thing to do. I tried to do anything but IT. In the world of baby thoughts, it made me a Really Bad Mommy. But in the end, I had to. I said ‘Nyet’. And he made me live to regret it. It all started with the darned bird. The orphanage has a pet cockatiel, and Tuma finds the bird endlessly fascinating. The bird is a nice bird, or a ‘tai tai ptitchka’ in my pathetic pidgin combination of Kazakh and Russian. It likes people, it likes to fly figure 8’s around the room, it likes the crumbs Tuma drops when eating. Her name is Katya.

The trouble is, that Tuma’s method of interacting with the bird is primarily based on throwing things at the bird. The kids in the group throw things a lot. They all have bruises and bumps on the them from being beaned by each other with flying toys. It’s interesting to observe that it happens so frequently, that when a toy or a hand comes toward the head of one of these children, they don’t even flinch. I have learned to say “Don’t throw” and something that seems to me like it should mean “Don’t throw toys.” I usually follow this up with “throw ball,” hoping he’ll catch on. I try to put together words to mean “Don’t throw at Katya,” but either it isn’t having the desired effect or it doesn’t mean what I think it means. I could be telling him not to throw the bird for all I know.

But while I would prefer in some ways to place all the blame on my rudimentary language skills, my sharply honed instincts as a mother tell me different. The thing is, I kind of get it. You throw something at the bird, and the bird flies away, or at least hops up and down quickly. Birds are interesting. Flying is really interesting. You do it again, you get to watch the show again. Eventually the bird will get fed up and fly off to another room. There is only the remotest chance of him actually hitting the bird. How bad can this be? But in principle, it just isn’t the right thing to do. Plus, I have horrid visions of a newspaper article one day in the future “Mass Murderer found to have tortured pets as a small child.” So Mommy Guilt definitely plays into this. That and I know that the longer I let it go, the tougher my battle will be in the future. The self-serving element.

Today there was a twist though. He wanted to see the bird, and in fact, threw himself backward and grunted and pushed on me with his little feet until I took him to see the bird. Then he wanted to open the door to the cage, and so we did and let her out. And then he wanted to go over to the table where she was to see her more. Now, the amazing thing is how this all gets communicated with no words. It’s like a game of “Hot”. You know, “You’re getting warmer, warmer, warmer, HOT!” The warmer I get to what he wants, the less he cries, grunts and shoves on me with his feet. Invariably it leads either to the bird or back to his group of kids. I have tried to outlast him to see if I can get him to talk, just one word. I ask him “What do you want?” in Russian. He has more willpower than do I. I give in to the grunts and fussing before it hits the tipping point. In the end, the grunts had us sitting in a chair a foot or so away from the bird. And now he decides that since he has nothing handy to hurl at the bird, perhaps he could just smack her. I can’t remember the word for hit, so I am saying ‘don’t throw at the bird’, which was less than ineffective. I tried saying ‘nice bird’. But then I hit the end of my repertoire. I just ran out of things to say. So I said it. I said ‘Nyet’. The result was an instantaneous nothing. He tried to hit the bird again. So, I said ‘Nyet’ once more. Only more firmly. On the third count, I got up and moved away from the bird.

And then it was on. A battle of the wills with a two year old is not a pretty thing, or a quiet one either. He squirmed and fussed and grunted himself into a tizzy. Then he went to straight up crying. He is not a child who will be distracted. He pushes everything you offer away, either that or he grabs it just to lead you on, and then…. You guessed it, he throws it. The crying was a focused and intent MAD crying. He wanted it very clear, this DID NOT WORK for him. He wanted to hit that bird, darn it, and how dare I stop him? In fact, how dare I a lot of things! They crying escalated further. When he approached hysteria, I tried the trick of getting him to look at things, one after the other to focus him. You know, “Look at the ball, look at the bird, look at the car, look at the whatever.” I have found this to be a very successful technique. However, it does assume you know the word for ‘look’, as well as the names of more than 3 objects. It probably goes without saying that it did not work this time.

Finally, one of the caregivers from the baby group came through the room. Tuma is sobbing and heaving, and is nearly hoarse from displeasure. The nurse was carrying an infant, and told Tuma he should stop crying. Then she told him that if he didn’t stop, I would take the baby instead of him, and made a motion of handing me the baby and taking him (I was standing up holding Tuma next to her). What a message to send a child in this position. If you are not good, your mama will leave you at the orphanage and take another child. Now, in Tuma’s case that might be a selling point. But either way, not the message about parents you want your child to have. Fortunately I suppose, in the end, the message had little result. The tantrum continued, with nothing I did helping in any way. In a few minutes she returned. She took Tuma and within about 3 minutes he had stopped crying. She talked and talked to him, but he really wanted nothing more to do with me. I finally bribed him by saying I would take him back to his group to get him to come to me. But I learned my lesson, which I think was his plan all along. He is a stubborn little guy, with a temper to boot. I will think twice before using “Nyet” so lightly in the future. So what if my kid is a bird beater? At least no one will come in looking at me like maybe I am beating him.

I learned this week that the largest space launching site in the world is in Kazakhstan. Not terribly far from us, as the crow flies. It is to the South, nearer to the Aral Sea, several hundred kilometers North of the border with Uzbekistan. It encompasses thousands of square miles all told. It has dozens of launch sites, for every conceivable type of rocket and satellite. Last week it even had Martha Stewart, as she came to see off her ‘friend’, billionaire Charles Simonyi, as he became the 5th civilian in space, to the tune of $25 million dollars.

Baikonur Cosmodrome is the largest launch site in the world, encompassing thousands of square kilometers of the Kazakh Steppe. In fact, the entire center covers 6,717 square kilometers and extended 75 kilometers from north to south and 90 kilometers from east to west. [i] Baikonur is the heart of the entire Russian space program. They launch dozens of times a year here. And the ones that return to earth land on the vast empty Steppe outside of Arkalyk.

The Kazakh Steppe is a perfect location because of it’s remote nature and the dearth of inhabitants. During the early days of Baikonur, it hosted the testing of missiles, and secrecy was paramount. As the ‘Race to Space’ took off, it was again critical to the Soviets that the site remain secret. As a result, Baikonur was named after another Kazakh town of the same name to create confusion about it’s location. The first launch from the site was in May of 1957, and in October 1957 the world’s first artificial satellite was launched from here. The first person to travel to space left from Baikonur in 1961 on the Vostok-1 spacecraft. Over the years, hundreds of ballistic and other missiles were launched from the 15 to 20 different launch pads at the site. The site also contains facilities for the construction and fueling of the rockets, as well as extensive communications facilities and roads and rail facilities. The center was under the control of the Russian Defense complex well into the 1990’ s, even after ‘independence’ was declared by Kazakhstan. The Russian civilian space agency has slowly been taking over the center, but Russian military personnel remain. Despite this, you can get remarkably clear pictures of Baikonur on Google Earth.

So, what all this leads to is me wondering exactly where that Charles guy is going to land. You would think it would be big news in a small town like Arkalyk, when a rocket is going to come crashing back to Earth. I started asking around. “Well,” I was told first, “the Cosmonauts come to Arkalyk after they land and stay at the hotel” (there is only one in town). “Cool,” I thought. “We could see actual Cosmonauts.” “What about the actual rocket, do they truck it somewhere? Is there a parade or something?” Now, I guess realistically we don’t do this in the U.S., why should they be any less jaded about space travel here? But a town with one movie theater and nothin’ else doin’, I was hoping to hear they jumped at the chance for a celebration. Nope. With a rocket coming back to Earth on the Kazakh Steppe every few months, the days of Cosmonauts holding bouquets of flowers in front of their adoring crowd are over I guess. But maybe we could still see the Cosmonauts. I try to find out when they arrive in town after the landing. “I don’t know.” I wonder how long they will stay. “I don’t know.” I am curious how far it is to the landing site. “I don’t know.” This wasn’t going the way I had hoped.

So, Bruce tried asking Habiba one day in the car. She asked her cousin Ceric, who was driving. “Oh,” came the reply, “it is very far, 30 or 40 kilometers.” When I heard this I thought “Wow! Only 20 or 30 miles?!? That’s so close! We should definitely try to go!” So I tried Habiba again. “Can we hire a driver to go and see? Can we find out where this is?” The answer was evasive, like so many here are. She remembers when she was young, and the airport in Arkalyk functioned. They were part of the ‘Young Pioneers’, the communist Scouts. They dressed in their uniforms, with their red ties. Her father was the first assistant to the Mayor of Arkalyk she tells me. They went to the airport with flowers, to meet the returning Cosmonauts. The first Kazakh Cosmonauts were among them. It was very exciting. But no, she doesn’t think anyone will give us permission to see the rocket land.

She is, however, incensed that no money from this space program goes to Arkalyk. “This man paid $20 million dollars,” she tells me, “Why should he not pay $1 million to Arkalyk? The orphanages, the hospitals, the common people see nothing,” she informs me. “Kazakhstan gets nothing from this. It is Russian.” “But surely the Russians pay the Kazakh government something?” I wondered. “Yes,” she says, “But I think it is from their President to our President.” And there the conversation ends. I wonder why they should pay something to Arkalyk, as nothing actually happens here, other than maybe a hotel rental and a meal. And I can’t think of another way to ask about going, or anyone else who might have information. The landing date and location have changed because of the incessant rains I tell her, for no particular reason. I have Googled it and can find nothing about where the new location will be. Or where the old one was for that matter.

This last bit of information about the rains raises another point she needs to make about the rockets landing here. They change the weather. I am not sure whether she is joking when she says this, and I want to laugh, but I have a horrible suspicion she is serious. She is. She tells me next, “We say that when one day it is shiny, and the next day raining, there will be a rocket coming.” “Really?” I asked, “How do they do that?” “I don’t know how they do it, but many people talk about this, the weather did not used to be this way before the rockets. And they give people sore throats and they have strange thoughts.” Well, the last part seems plausible at least. Now the conversation really is over. I don’t know if we will see the Cosmonauts, but I haven’t given up trying!! Anyone have any connections out there that can give us a lead? We will give you naming rights to the Blog post that ensues as result- how’s that for a deal?!?

For more information on Baikonur, check out :

http://www.russianspaceweb.com/baikonur.html

Photos are of the space capsule outside of the Arkalyk Museum. No information about it's date of launch or destination is available, oddly.

I see London, I see France,…

Thinking of sending us mail?
Jaden gets bored occasionally, like most kids. But not often. He is a kid that wants to ALWAYS be doing something. Sitting and playing quietly by himself doesn’t often count as ‘something’, but he can be quite creative about thinking of things to do. Enlisting mommy or daddy to play with him is something he considers a personal quest. So, when he decided tonight to play dress up, well, you know who was along for the ride. Tonights' activity stemmed from two things. The first was a classic illustration of life in an orphanage environment.

Today, when we went to visit Tuma, he was wearing these thick stockings they dress all the kids in. They were dark blue with flowers and about 6 sizes too big, but at least they didn’t smell of urine, which was the case a few days ago. The excess fabric was wadded around his ankles and stuffed into his shoes, which were a pair of white Mary Janes with flowers on the toes. They were Crayola brand, and so probably came with another adoptive family at some point, who had a vision of how cute they would look on the little girls. They were at least a size too small, and the extra folds of the stockings made it difficult to get them on his feet at all. The back of his stockings were sliding down in the back as I picked him up, and I noticed he had no underwear on. I thought it was a bit strange, but who knows. A few minutes later, he was on my lap and I noticed a lump in the stockings about mid-thigh. I decided to investigate. Turned out he did have underwear on, only they were upside-down, both legs were shoved through one leg hole, and they had his legs pinioned together at the thighs. I undressed him and re-dressed him, and he had these red marks on his legs where the underwear were cutting into him Bruce, Jaden and I laughed pretty hard as we re-dressed him, wondering how hectic it must be to cram a little kid into his underwear like that and not even notice, or maybe not even care, while realizing that it really wasn’t all that funny in some ways.

The second thing that inspired Jaden tonight, was a story we have been reading. It is about a superhero known as “Captain Underpants”. He stands for all that is clean, white and cottony.

Now, for those of you who don’t have boys between the ages of 6 and 20, or have somehow managed to avoid the whole Captain Underpants thing, here’s the deal. It is a series of books written to appeal to boys specifically, and with the goal of getting them to read. There is a bit of controversy, not just about the subject matter, but also the fact that they use words like ‘gonna’, and ‘oughta’, and the spelling is meant to be that of a child’s in places, so what it does for kids learning to read is a little sketchy according to some. But he has seen and heard of these books, and they revolve around the kind of humor little boys find funny until they grow up and… well, the kind of humor boys find funny I guess. A superhero in his underwear is hilarious. Two little boys who have lots of misadventures that involve toilets and fake dog-doo, hysterical.

So, I secretly bought a few CU books to bring along on our trip, thinking they could be key in helping through the boredom of long weeks. We broke our first one out last week. Jaden finds the whole thing very entertaining, and it has thoroughly engaged his imagination. So, of course, he decided he needed to become Captain Underpants for the night. Actually, I don’t know that it will only be the one night, he enjoyed it so much. There really are few things as fun as shooting underwear at mommy’s head.

He put on his whitest, cottony-est, cleanest underwear, and we tied our red laundry bag around his neck as a cape. First he was going to take the extra pairs of underwear he planned to shoot and stuff them down the front of the underwear he was wearing, but I convinced him perhaps he could just tuck them in the sides…. After ‘loading up’, the game was on. It involves saying ‘Tra-la-laaaaa!’ in a sing-song way a lot, and telling me I am ‘under arrest’ while pointing a pair of underwear at my head. Better underwear than a gun, in my book, but I was glad there were no Kazakh people here to witness this game. The neighbors may be wondering about all the ‘Tra-la-laaaaa!’.

Jaden has been really wanting more people to visit his blog, so rather than posting the pictures of Captain Underpants Junior here, you will have to link over to Jaden’s blog to see them- clever, eh? www.kazbrother.blogspot.com Just think how happy you will make him. He tracks his stats very carefully....

Boredom hasn’t really set in for any of us, but there isn’t much to do outside the apartment, which is past wearing thin and is downright threadbare. There is rumored to be a swimming pool in town, brand new and with a slide. Believe me, we would like nothing better than a few hours at the pool. But in true Kazakh style, nothing is that easy. When we asked about going to the pool, we were told we would need ‘medical forms’. The orphanage pediatrician would write them up for us. As it turns out, the form needs to state that you do not have TB, which is fairly common in this part of the world (along with a host of other things). Now, I guess I can understand how not swimming with TB patients would be a good thing, However, it strikes me as funny that they aren’t allowed at the pool, but there is nothing keeping them away from the food shops. Or the movie theater. Or the streets, for heavens sake. And while I suppose you could catch TB while swimming, it seems that there would be other, scarier things you could be exposed to at the pool. Like Typhoid or Hepatitis, or something.

In addition to the medical forms, we need an escort. We can’t be trusted to figure out the workings of a public rec center here. We barely made it through immigration as you may recall. And the other day I went to the store for apple juice, and although I know the Russian word for juice, I don’t know the word for apple. But I do know that Almaty was formerly known as “Alma-ata”, which means ‘Apple place’ or something like that in Kazakh. So I asked for ‘Alma sok’ which the lady thought was funny, only not ha-ha funny, but odd funny. So, when I came out of the store I told Bruce and Jaden the story. A few days later, Bruce went to the store to get apple juice (apple juice is a big hit with Tuma, as well as Jaden). Now, Bruce remembers my story, and doesn’t know the word, but remembers it has to do with a city name. So he asks for Astana juice (which is the capital of Kazakhstan, and means, well, “capital”). Like a game of telephone gone bad, only over the course of days…. All this by way of explaining why there is reason to prefer an escort to the pool, at least the first time.

While we wait for medical forms and an escort to be found, we mostly hang out in the apartment. We were going for walks daily, but had to send our passports to Kustanai to have our visas extended. In the meantime, we have been warned not to walk further than the orphanage without our passports. We don’t tell Habiba we have never carried our passports when we walked, as no one ever told us we should. I have a bungee cord exercise thing I found at a Ross store for $6 and brought along. It’s hooked over our door, and Jaden and I take turns working out. It’s something.

We play card games, Blokus, and board games with Jaden. The three of us together celebrated our 10th anniversary this last week. Jaden insisted on pouring our wine, and Habiba brought us a cake. We have all been learning Sudoku, something I never would have found time for at home. We are reading. Bruce finally finished ‘From Beirut to Jerusalem’ after 3 years, and I read an amazing book called ‘In Siberia’. Jaden has been reading the ‘Magic Tree House’ books, and the Moffats, and of course, Captain Underpants. Jaden is doing ‘homework’ in a writing/reading book and doing some math work. Bruce stays up every night until 3 or 4am working, although he tries to insist it is only 2am. He squeezes an hour or two in during the day most days. I blog and take notes for future musings. I am writing a journal for Tuma to have when he’s grown. I am reading grant applications for a committee I am on. They have been good enough to scan and email them to me.

We watch the occasional movie. If your kids have never seen “The Gods Must Be Crazy”, it is a great movie (except for one violent scene, towards the beginning). We have watched both I and II. I try to sit and meditate, but am instead being enlightened by noticing how I am having trouble ‘finding the time’. We are learning some Russian, just not the word for apple, still. We sometimes have visitors, mostly young people who want to learn English. Jaden goes out and plays soccer and Monkey in the Middle with the local kids. I watched him the other day, trying to get a soccer game together. It reminded me of him on the playground at school. The kids here all love to play though, and since they can’t speak to each other, they can’t argue about rules or teams. They just play.

And twice a day, at 10am and 4pm, we visit Tuma for 2 hours. We were told to show up at 10:30 for our 10am visit, and leave at 11:45. We are supposed to show up about 4:15 for the 4pm and leave at 5:45. We are continuing to work on getting Tuma more comfortable, more engaged, less anxious. He needs to sort out this 'mama' thing. As Habiba is now joining us at the orphanage, he is newly confused. When she brought her daughter and he heard her say 'mama', suddenly he thought it was she he should be going to. When she didn't pick him up, he cried. I picked him up and he cried more. She looks right, speaks right, and the idea of each child having a different mama is completely out of his frame of reference. But he calmed down finally, and didn't tilt his little head to the side for 'nyet' when I said Habiba was Nurbike's mama, and I was his mama. Another American family comes tomorrow to adopt a sweet little 4 year old girl, so maybe another example will help. Slowly I feel we are seeing results. Which makes all of the board games worth it.

International Adoption

I became aware this week of some friends who are following this blog who are considering adoption. We really have no idea of who’s reading the blog, except for those that send us emails or leave comments, although we do know that over 1000 people have viewed it from a wide variety of states and a number of countries.

So let me share a few views (from my limited perspective) on adoption. Please Note: All views expressed herein are my personal views and may not be factual!

So many people have asked us, “why Kazakhstan?” We were asked this before we left, and continue to be asked while we’re here. We ask ourselves this question too, and I don’t know if there’s really one right answer. For us, it was a matter of reviewing the different options available for adoption and deciding on Kazakhstan between the other options we considered. A while ago, we thought about the Foster-Adopt program in the U.S. but really didn’t want to go that route. We recently had friends that suffered through a year long heart-tugging process with that, and our fears were confirmed. Foster-Adopt is designed to try to reunite the child(ren) with their birth mother, as it should be. But that is so painful for the adoptive parents to be, especially when the situation doesn’t work as it appears it should.

So we looked at international adoption options, beginning early in 2006. We were looking for a son that would be Jaden’s little brother .We thought about Brazil, as Lynne has lived there, loves the culture and speaks the language (Portuguese). But somehow, the U.S. hasn’t implemented the Hague Convention for International adoption, and because of that, Brazil makes it almost impossible for U.S. citizens to adopt children less than 6 years old. Next we considered Nepal, but they have a policy that if you have a son already, you are not allowed to adopt another boy. Other main countries we thought about with adoption programs for Americans included Guatemala (mostly infants), China (mostly girls), Ukraine (the adoption program for U.S. Citizens was shut down in 2006), Russia and Kazakhstan. After hearing about a friend’s experience in Russia, the necessity to make two trips, and having concerns about Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, we were concerned about Russia and started really looking into Kazakhstan.

The first thing we liked about Kazakhstan was that we heard their orphanages (baby houses as they’re also known) are well run and the kids are well taken care of. This has really proven to be true. The orphanage Tuma is in does seem to be very well run, they have an excellent caregiver to child ratio, the kids all look healthy (well the healthy ones do), there seems to be no shortage of food, clothes, toys, and it is very clean. So I have nothing but the highest regard for the work they are doing here at the orphanage, given the limited resources they are provided.

The second think we liked about Kazakhstan was our understanding that the incidence of FAS would be lower than other countries. I don’t know the stats for Kazakhstan or other countries, but I think the fact is that kids in orphanages are all at risk for FAS or FAE (Fetal Alcohol Effect). Mothers who have to give up their babies are just more likely to have alcohol problems, it makes sense, right?

The third thing that has its plusses and minuses is the whole bonding period process. This is different in every country, but I believe Kazakhstan is unique in that the requirement is this 14 day bonding period. While this is challenging as far as the time in country, we thought it made sense to have the chance for the child to get to know us while he was still in his environment instead of coming in to swoop him away like he was being kidnapped, which is done in so many countries. We’re convinced that was the right thing for Tuma, although it varies for each child. The extra 2 ½ weeks we had with Tuma (2 hours per day) before the actual bonding period turned out be necessary to get him to accept us. The two week required bonding period, with two, two hour sessions per day, might have worked as well, but the extra time turned out to be a blessing for this sensitive little boy. So we are now into day 4 of the required 10 days, and counting down to the “Court Date”. The Court Date is when the Judge rules that we can adopt Tuma. Then, there is a required 14 day waiting period where the birth mother and grandparents still can show up and petition the court not to allow the adoption.

So here’s one of the crazy parts: One of the requirements of the Judge is to use their best efforts to track down the birth mother and her mother. (Fathers seem to have no bearing here). This makes sense, before the child is adopted and taken away forever, the birth mother and her family should certainly have the right to change their mind. But this child has been put on the “registry for adoption” for Kazakh families for months now, and was taken “off the registry” so that the child can be adopted internationally on April 12. It makes no sense to us that they wouldn’t try to track down the mother and family BEFORE the child goes on the registry. So that way, when the child is made available for adoption, the effort has already been made to track down the family and they have made their final decision. The way it’s done here, they don’t really start looking for the family until the bonding period starts. How crazy is that? We start bonding with the child and vice versa, and there’s a chance the birth mother or grand mother can show up and change their mind after not visiting the child since he was 8 days old. It’s happened, and then it becomes ugly. We’ve heard that the orphanage gets involved and sometimes visits with the family and says if they don’t allow the adoption, they want to charge the family for the 2 (or however many) years that they have cared for the child, basically trying to pressure the family to let go. What a conflict of interest! If the birth mother, or grandmother is prepared to take care of the child, that is possibly in the best interests of the child. Sure, we can provide a better life in many ways, but we’re taking away a piece of his life as well. Anyway – the timing of this search needs to change. Last week, our adoption coordinator was trying to find the birth mother’s mother (the birth mother is no where to be found), and after the Court Date, the Judge is required to wait 14 days before the adoption can become official while the search goes on.

We’re one quarter of the way done the bonding period. Tuma is done crying every time he sees us, but it does seem like he’s hit a plateau where he’s just very mellow and only willing to sit with Lynne. He won’t let her get more than a few steps away from him, won’t let me or Jaden hold him at this point, and won’t really engage in too much activity. So, we know it’s going to be baby steps for a long time, but we remain confident that bringing him home and having him 24/7 in our world will bring out the sweet, little boy that we know he is. Pictures shown above are from today (April 15) with Tuma showing us his strong left handed throwing motion and a smile that is finally coming out once in a while, and another in his favorite position, wrapped around Lynne.

A funny story:

We were at a party about a week ago, celebrating Zhana’s son Ruston’s 12th birthday. But this was a Friday night, which is still usually work time for me, and I had pre-scheduled 2 important business calls before I knew about the party. So during dinner, before I started drinking vodka, I had to leave the party and walk back to our flat for my phone calls. One was at 8:30pm (10:30am EST) and one was at 10:30pm (12:30pm EST).

The walk was literally about 3 minutes. It was dark for the second one and our coordinator, Habiba, was worried about me making the walk on my own. Now, we haven’t been out at night at all, but this just doesn’t seem like a dangerous place. I told her I would be fine. She really wanted someone to go with me, so she said that Ruston (her nephew) would come with me. Now, not only is Ruston the birthday boy, so why should he leave his party, but Lynne and I were wondering how a 12 year old boy is going to protect me on this 3 minute walk? I was able to convince them to make the trek on my own, have my two calls, and start drinking vodka with them after about 11:30pm. (This is when I realized that I no longer get a Friday night here, since Fridays are still workdays with my schedule, and I’ve been trying to work Monday – Friday from about 8pm to 2/3am.) It was a nice party that was a typical Kazakh dinner, followed by toast after toast of Kazakh vodka. When someone wants to drink more vodka, they get up and make a toast and everyone drinks. By the end of the night, a few of the guests were making toasts every few minutes and the party (only 3 couples by the end of the night) was getting pretty hilarious as we needed a dictionary to translate once Habiba left. The final story involved using fruit to act out how Bruce, Lynne and Jaden were going to go home and whether we needed them to accompany us, again to keep us safe. We used lemon slices (they put lemon in shot glasses with the vodka) and showed them that we could make it home without the help of the oranges….

Peace, Out,

Bruce

That which doesn't kill us...

The human body is amazing, it’s strength, it’s resiliency. It is amazing how delicate the balance it maintains. Amazing how food for one becomes the source of suffering for another. How the physical systems respond to the psychological input of cultural norms and acquired tastes. How one man’s horsemeat is another man’s dog food.

I will tell you this; Kazakhstan is no place for vegetarians or the gluten intolerant or Jack Sprat. Or even those who dwell too much on sanitation or the basics of safe food preparation practices. It’s not that there is anything wrong with the food. The people here appear well nourished, healthy, robust. But for our Westernized palates and sensibilities, it has it’s tough moments.

First, there is the sameness. Now, this is true in much of the world, not just Central Asia. We are nearly unique in the North America and Europe, in the variety of tastes and cuisines we have at our front doors. We go out for Chinese, Mexican, Indian, Ethiopian, French, Italian, Spanish, Greek, South American and Japanese. The majority of the world eats the local cuisine, day in and day out. There are some foods that have circled the globe, pizza being the easiest example, with regional variations. But generally, in Mexico you eat Mexican food, and in China you eat Chinese food, and in Kazakhstan, well, you eat a blend of Russian and traditional Kazakh food. This consists mostly of meat, potatoes, pasta, onions, cabbage, sausages, cheese, mayonnaise, jam and bread. Eat and repeat. Tomato sauce, tomatoes, cucumbers, sweets, and tea are thrown in to ‘break up’ the monotony, along with a few odd offerings such as the fake crab meat known in the U.S. as ‘surimi’.

We have our own cook, which is a luxury in some ways. She is here for breakfast, lunch and dinner. She gets paid $10 a day. She is a good cook, and spends long hours in our kitchen preparing homemade doughs and spicing meat and frying things. Lots of time frying things. But more about that later. Portions started out enormous, as quantity is evidently 'synonymous' with 'hospitality' here. Bacha’s ‘day job’ is as a registered nurse. She no longer works full time at the hospital, but occasionally leaves us to reheat our dinner or sends over a surrogate when she is called in to cover for someone. Her profession also leads to some interesting moments, such as when I discovered the source of the banging in the kitchen was she and Ceric, Habiba and Zhana’s cousin and our ‘driver’ (we walk everywhere, but Ceric appears to be the only one in the family with a car) hammering a nail into the back of the kitchen door. The nail was going into the door for the purpose of hanging an IV bag which ran into Ceric’s arm. Of course. Bacha said something about his heart, but it remained unclear what necessitated this treatment. For a number of days following this, I would come across Ceric sitting at our kitchen table, receiving his medication via IV. Whatever the medication is still sits in bottles in our kitchen cabinet.

Now, given Bacha’s true profession, you would think she would be up on sanitation and the issues that can arise as a result of unsafe food handling. But it seems not. We have a small, unheated balcony just off the kitchen that doubles as food storage and extra food prep space. With the sun the temperatures probably climb toward 50 degrees during the day, but are considerably lower at night. I often find chunks of meat sitting on the counter, uncovered, or a chicken sitting in a bowl awaiting dinner. This is also where bags of stale bread and food scraps are gathered in bags, pending some unknown fate, and bags of onions and potatoes and heads of cabbage are stored. Later, that same chicken is chopped up on the kitchen table. I am sure the table gets wiped down, but I am guessing no bleach solution is used. I feel like we are always one meal away from a case of food poisoning here. I am guessing the human body develops defenses to the things to which it is repeatedly exposed, but I hope not to be here long enough for that. Dishes get washed, and there is dish soap. But when the dish soap ran out, the dishes still got washed without it, for nearly a week. Many dishes are served ‘family style’. Now at home that would mean you take some and put it on your plate. Here that just means you stick your fork in and eat right out of the bowl. There might be 8-10 people at the table, and the dishes are simply passed back and forth. We stick to the main course a lot in those circumstances. And a visit to the butcher's area was enough to put you off your feed for a few days, according to Bruce. I know my limits, I didn't look in.

Then there is the issue of water, apart from the question of Typhoid, that is. We were told by Zhana that the water here is ‘pure’, good to drink right out of the tap. Two things about that. First, this is a mining town. The bauxite mines literally ring the town. If you have looked at my link to the Google earth image, you have seen the slag piles and pools of unnaturally colored water that accompany them. Perhaps there is a filtration system, but it seems unlikely it is state of the art. I have no information on bauxite mining, but it seems many mining processes require chemical use on some level. Secondly, the water is all coming through these Soviet-era pipes that run throughout the city. The inside of the teakettle has a light brown crust of mineral deposits nearly an 1/8” thick, which flakes off into the water. The emergency jar of water kept by the sink for when the water goes out, has a brownish tinge to it. And when I do laundry, the run-off water comes out blackish, with sand and sediment in the bottom of the tub it drains into, unexplained by the dirtiness of our clothes. So Bruce makes his trek to the corner store every other day for a ‘water run’. There is no way to know where this water really comes from, but at least I can see through it.

Our flat has a refrigerator, but typically here food is purchased meal by meal, rather than in the ‘bulk approach’ most of us use in the U.S. If I have to go to the grocery store more than once a week at home, I am peeved. Here, Bacha runs out to pick up a few things before she makes dinner, and shows up with bags of food first thing in the morning. The refrigerator is used loosely, mostly to store milk and butter, alongside the plates of sliced sausage and cheese we never touch. Leftovers placed in the refrigerator are never covered. Dinners left for us to reheat are left out on the counter for a few hours, conveniently next to the microwave. And nothing is served really cold. In fact, cold drinks are considered a health hazard, as they are believed to cause sore throats. Our cook, the registered nurse, insists on putting Jaden’s juice glass in a tea cup of hot water before he drinks it, much to his consternation.

We all consider breakfast the one meal we can count on. It typically consists of “Kasha”, which is a porridge made of some grain. It could be wheat, corn, oats, buckwheat, etc. It is made by heating milk and sugar and then cooking the grain in the mixture. Generally the kasha is accompanied by something else, which can vary from blinis to fried eggs with a big chuck of sausage in the middle, to a frosted, dry-muffin type bread, to french toast with jam. Always, meals here include hot tea, served with cream and sugar, and drunk even by the youngest children. Bruce has coffee made in a single serving french press, both of which we brought with us. Jaden has trained Bacha to pour him juice with every meal now, and since we don’t know how to explain that he shouldn’t get it with EVERY meal, we just let it continue.

Lunch is the big meal of the day, as is typical in much of the world. The food is plentiful, but is treacherous with oil and poor cuts of meat. For the first two weeks or so, we got soup every day, along with another huge portion of food. The soups were generally cooked with liberal amounts of oil and salt, and often included chunks of boiled beef, which is where the menu took on an unfavorable cast for Bruce and Jaden in particular. It was the 5th grade lunch room on spinach day all over again. There was grimacing, groaning and kvetching. Lots of kvetching. They pushed the food around with the spoon and bemoaned their fates. Jaden was actually better about eating it than Bruce. Finally, we asked Habiba to tell Bacha ‘no more soup’. Also, no more boiled beef, served any way, as they would also come atop pasta, sometimes beside the soup, in the same meal. The funny thing about this was that Habiba told us that Bacha was making the daily soup for us because “American’s often have trouble with their stomach’s,” and she thought soup would be good for the digestive system. This picture is two weeks worth of oil and salt, and a year's worth of dish soap...

Besides the soup, pasta is a main feature of lunch as well as dinner, and always includes some meat, but little else. There may be a thin sauce, and there is nearly always a layer of oil in the bottom of the bowls. Other times Bacha will prepare a type of dumpling. ‘Manti’ are the traditional Kazakh dumplings made from a thin dough wrapped around ground beef meatballs and eaten with mayonnaise. There are Korean dumplings, which seem very similar to Manti, only different in shape and slightly heavier dough. There are fried dumplings, again wrapped around a ground beef filling, or occasionally onions or potatoes. These can come in a variety of sizes and shapes, and are good, but repetitive. Plates of a salami-like sausage and cheese are common accompaniments to the main course. There is also bread with butter and jam at every meal, and since we have asked, we now get tomatoes and cucumbers fairly regularly, and there is a bowl of fresh fruit. Don’t get the idea these are standard however, as fruit seems mostly reserved for special occasions.

As for dinner, it is much of the same. Meat and wheat being the dominant themes. I was told there is a Kazakh saying that a man needs “two cows and a half a horse” to survive the winter. Apparently this was the measure of the amount of meat a Kazakh adult would eat throughout the winter during the nomadic years of Kazakh history. Bruce has managed to steer the menu toward chicken and rice from time to time, his perennial favorites. We asked to be on our own for lunch twice a week, as we did bring some food from home: Tuna, peanut butter, mac and cheese for Jaden. Habiba told us that we ‘can eat that food at home. Here you should eat Kazakh food’. We tried insisting that we wanted to eat our food. She is under the impression that Americans only eat packed foods and foods with preservatives and chemicals. She wants us to have the ‘natural’ food they eat here, as she is sure it is better for us than our regular diets.

We have not yet figured out what exactly they eat in the orphanage, but do know it consists of a lot of pasta and kasha. We stuck our heads in the other night as they were making dinner. Jaden is fascinated by the big stoves and many pots. They told us they were serving kasha, bread, butter, and tea to the children. The pediatrician also told us they give them sweets daily- cakes, pies, cookies, all homemade in the orphanage. But they limit their chocolate intake to special occasions, and don’t feed the children fish or sausage. Fish because there is no body of water here that isn’t contaminated, and they don’t get fish from the sea this far inland. Sausage because it isn’t deemed ‘safe’ by the Health Ministry. But they assure us it is OK for us to eat. Comforting.

So, we try not to think too much about what we eat, and we try not to think too much about what we’re not eating. We have some movies and shows we brought on our computers, transferred from Tivo. The food commercials are the hardest. Jaden is psyched to come home and be a night owl with his Daddy for a few days as they adjust the time change. One of the things he is most excited to do when he gets back to Boulder is to go to the Lazy Dog on the Pearl Street Mall and eat chicken wings and play bubble hockey. So, anyone with some late-night time on their hands early May, look them up there. And anyone with some late-night time on their hands early June, and a yen for eating Sushi can look me up then. In the meantime, enjoy all of the culinary delights you have at your fingertips, and enjoy that little piece of the diversity of the world in which we live from the comfort of your own towns.

Love those comments!

Thanks so much to everyone who has left us a comment. We love hearing from you guys, even if we can't respond directly to everyone. One favor: Please, please leave us at least a first name last initial. We can't always figure out who you are from your user name, or even from just your first name, and we really want to know who you are!

Peace,

Lynne, Bruce and Jaden

Tuma lets his inner two year old out....

It turns out he can do more than just cry! We met this child over three weeks ago, and have seen him every day for the last 2 ½ weeks. Strike that. We have seen him cry every day for the last 2 ½ weeks. And finally, yesterday, he decided it was OK to eat a cookie from us. And drink a bottle. And play. And laugh a little. Just a little though. But SO much better than before! Maybe we just wore him down. I am really glad that we had this extra time, even though it’s been tough. If we were trying to bring him home to the flat with us now (which we would have been if the bonding period had started when we first met him), it would be really tough. As it is, he doesn’t want me more than a foot away from him most of the time. If we walk across the room to pick up the ball, I have to go with him and hold his hand. He is a child who is really in need of someone to attach to. The orphanage workers tell us he is a ‘sensitive’ child. We are OK with that, we already have one of those!

He no longer cries when I or someone else refers to me as ‘mama’. He is interested in our toys, what we have in our ‘green bag of tricks’ as Bruce has dubbed it. Today he took everything out of it, and tried it all out. Between toys, he ate. Cookies, crackers, chocolate. It was all good. He likes to share, so eating a cookie involves him taking a bite, and me pretending to take a bite while avoiding the slimy part he just took a bite from. He is really digging the bottle. I was worried about what’s known as the ‘suck-swallow reflex’, which can be problematic for orphanage babies. He was sort of slurping on his bottle, but today I showed him how to open his mouth BIG and stick the bottle in. He got it right away, and the rest of the apple juice was gone in about 5 seconds flat. He likes to stick his thumb in his mouth, so it seemed like he would be a natural for the bottle. I think the caregivers think we are crazy. Why would you take a 2 year old who has been weaned from the bottle so long ago they can’t remember what to do with one, and put him BACK on the bottle? Well, because it helps to build attachment as he gets the nuturing he missed out on in the beginning. Partly through eye contact, as it’s hard for babies to miss looking at whomever is doing the feeding! So, this is a big step. It’s all big steps for the little guy. But there are definitely signs of life in there Whoopee!

Bruce got a little papa time when we arrived the other day and Tuma was clearly sick. He had a fever, and generally felt lousy, it was obvious. This vignette reminded me of many days/nights when Jaden was a baby. Bruce still falls asleep with Jaden if he lies down with him at night! Anyway, on that front things are much, much better here. Another American family arrives in about 10 days to adopt a little girl, and they will be in the apartment next door. So it will be nice to have some diversion.

Jaden has been hanging in there, but is crazy homesick. He talks all day about the things he misses and the things he's going to do when he gets home. We got online the other day and ordered 'Monopoly Jr' from Amazon to make him feel better. It will be waiting for him when he gets home I told him. He is not having a bad time here though, and has made some new friends. He goes outside and plays 'Monkey in the middle' with them in the mud. The entire conversation consists of 'Who monkey?', 'XXX monkey!', and 'Pass, pass!' They have a great time. Most of the kids are 10-12 years old, and they are all the same size as Jaden. It's amazing. It was several days before they realized Jaden was boy. When one of them referred to him as 'our girl' in Russian, I corrected him and said, "No, our boy." His eyes nearly flew out of his head. Some of them want to practice their English with us. They all study English starting in the 5th grade. It is cute, but doesn't get to far conversationally.

That's about it for now. As usual, we will keep you posted!