Court

Tuesday, 29 May

So….we’ve been doing a lot of hanging out with the kids, and many of you are probably thinking “why aren’t they doing anything that’s actually related to adopting Masha and getting back home?” Yeah, we’re thinking that, too.

In the Ukrainian system, once we “meet” the child, there are some documents to prepare, and then a court date is requested, and the hearing is usually held about a week later. Because we got to the region on a Friday, and we weren’t able to do anything over the weekend, our documents weren’t ready until Tuesday of last week. Since then we had been asking about our court date; the answers were always pretty vague, but seemed to land on “Maybe Wednesday.”

We had at one time been told that there was a possibility it would be on Tuesday (today), and that regardless of the day, it would be at 11:00. I find it very very strange that we could get a solid time, but not a date, but I’m learning not to ask questions about these things….things are just done differently around here!

The risk manager in me kicked in when I woke up this morning, and I thought, “Gee, I have some free time, perhaps I should iron our clothes for court now rather than wait until the last minute.” And boy am I glad I did.

As I was finishing up Mark’s shirt at about 10:00, our phone rang. Mark was in the shower, taking advantage of working hot and cold water, so I answered it. It was Sasha calling us from Kiev to tell us that our court hearing was in one hour, and that Sveta would be calling us to arrange to pick us up. ACK!

Sasha prepared me a little for what to expect from the hearing, and then as I hung up with him, Sveta called to tell us she would pick us up in 20 minutes. We kicked into overdrive! I’ve never done hair, makeup, and dressed so fast in my life.

We arrived at the courthouse at about 10:45, and we were surprised to see Masha arrive with the psychologist from the orphanage. Sveta had told us that she had written a letter to the judge, and would not be present for the hearing. Turns out the the judge had called the orphanage that morning and wanted to speak with Masha himself…so there she was!

Our official translator arrived and gave us another quick briefing on what to expect. The hearing should last 15 minutes to a half hour, and we would be asked some basic questions. We were advised to keep our answers SHORT (you all know how hard that is for me!). We were told that if there were any problems, we wouldn’t have reached this point…that all of our documents were in order and that everything should go smoothly.

Our translator did a great job of keeping us informed of what was going on and what was being asked of us throughout the proceedings, but things were not quite as quick as we had expected. After asking us some basic information, and clearing up some confusion about where Mark was born (seems there’s no good Russian translation for “Kankakee”), they moved on to Masha. Masha’s history is a little complicated, and the judge had to read it all into record from the documents first. Then he asked Masha to stand, and asked her several questions about her family and the conditions she lived in before coming to the orphanage, whether she preferred the orphanage to living with her relatives, and whether she wanted to be part of our family. It was very difficult for her, but she is a trooper, and she handled it very well.

After Masha, the orphanage psychologist testified again about Masha’s history and how she came to the orphanage, how it affected her, and how being in our family would be good for her. Next was the assistant to the Mayor of the city, who had been very involved in the court cases to protect Masha. She again rehashed the history from her perspective, and explained how she had met us and was very happy that Masha had found a family to love her. Masha’s social worker then testified about how we had met and that she recommended that the adoption be approved. Finally, the prosecutor (who looked very bored) explained that everything was in order and he had no legal objections to the adoption.

After an hour in a very hot, stifling courtroom, the judge approved our petition to adopt Masha, and told us that the decision would be final in 10 days. As people stood up, everyone finally smiled and congratulated all of us, and we were able to hug Masha as her almost-real Mama and Papa.

In the whirlwind of arrival and the rush to get out of there, we didn’t get any pictures of the courtroom. We had wanted to get a photo of us with the judge, but it just didn’t happen….Oh well.

After court, Sasha took us back to the apartment to change clothes (Mark was dying in an undershirt, long-sleeved dress shirt, and jacket), and then we headed back to the orphanage. We hung out while Sveta worked on some more documents, and then we found out that the girls had dance rehearsal mid-afternoon, so we wouldn’t be able to take them out for lunch. We all played outside for a bit, and then Fred, Lisa, Mark and I all went into town for pizza. We were attempting to order for ourselves when we heard a voice boom “You guys need some help??” from behind us.

An American man and a Ukrainian woman walked up and introduced themselves…they were engaged, and he was in town for a few months working on getting a fiancée visa for her to come back to the States. They helped us order our pizzas and we exchanged phone numbers. There aren’t many Americans around here, so I’m guessing that he was even more excited to hear English than we were to hear him! We were careful to not tell him exactly why we were here…we’ve been advised to not share too much, but I suspect that he can put two and two together and figure out why two American couples are “tourists” in a far corner of Ukraine….
After lunch, we walked around a little shopping “Mall” and bought another couple of Frisbees (our goal is now to actually purchase every Frisbee in town, and we’re making progress), and then met Sasha for a drive back to the orphanage. Just after we got there, Sveta was able to talk with the Director, and got permission to take the girls out later than usual so we could go see Shrek III at the local theatre. She gave us the OK just 10 minutes before the show started, so we raced back into town, bought tickets and settled in just as the show was beginning.

Side note: Movie theatres in Ukraine have assigned seating. Confused the crap out of us when they lady was asking where we wanted to sit, and even more when we got into the theatre and people were sitting in our seats. We sat where we felt like sitting, and all was well.

Following the movie, we took the girls back and then headed home, exhausted. We made dinner, watched a movie, and crashed.