Wow

Day 7 – Saturday, 19 December

We must feel like this is our second home, because for the first time in a week, we both slept well and long. I woke around 8, made a cup of tea, and found a nice warm spot at the kitchen table next to the radiator to write. Mark and our translator both rose a short while later.

“We have small problem.” Um…uh oh. That’s never a good thing to hear. Our translator proceeded to explain to us that the holidays in Ukraine begin on 31 December and then run the full first week of January. While the Ukrainian courts continue to hear cases up to 30 December, at least in our region, they stop taking new cases on 21 December. Yes, that’s Monday. Yes, we have many documents to prepare before our court application. Yes, we still must get the application submitted on Monday. No, this isn’t really possible, but yes, we will get it done.

Ultimately, everyone connected with our adoption process here in Ukraine is just as motivated to get us done and home as we are to get there. Even though today is Saturday, the assistant director very generously agreed to come in and prepare the necessary documents to hit the ground running early on Monday. The side benefit of that…we finally will be allowed to visit Lena at the orphanage!

We dressed and our translator suggested that we bring with us the gifts for specific kids and the Assistant Director), but that we leave for later the general orphanage gifts and the one for the Director. We gathered these together and then chatted as we waited for our driver to mush through the snowy streets to our doorstep.

Our hearts quickened as we travelled the well-known route from the apartment to the orphanage. Everything looked the same, yet very different in the cold snowy morning. We glimpsed familiar buildings and intersections through the fogged car windows, and cheered as we made the final turn down the lane to the Center. The legendary blue van rested in the snowy parking lot, and we carefully made our way up the icy walk to the bright yellow entrance.

The Assistant Director greeted us warmly, and quickly ushered us into the green room to wait while she found Lena. Our translator held the camera, and we jittered in anticipation…the last 3 minute wait was the hardest! But at last, the AD popped her head into the room and then everything else melted away as Lena ran into our arms.

Tears streamed down our translator’s face as she clicked away, capturing the first moments together again so we can cherish them forever…Lena kept repeating, “I can’t believe you’re finally here and this is real.” We just hugged her as tightly as we could.

The time finally came to let go, and we shifted to a sofa in the corner of the room. Lena sat between us, and we went through the photo albums we had brought. She ran up to her room and brought down a collection of family collages that she had made from photos we had sent to her; she and her friends had worked very hard to compose a card in English for us, filled with love and well-wishes.

She also brought down a large photo album containing many memories of her life, including a few photos of her bio parents, several photos from when she was very small (3 or 4) and many more of her friends and of adults from the church that the kids attend. As she explained each picture, we discovered that she had been studying English; her knowledge of English now completely surpasses my knowledge of Russian!

We missed her 14th birthday by just a few days, so we presented her with a set of bangle bracelets and a silver cross necklace. We then spent at least a half hour passing the necklace back and forth, each of us reducing the knot in the chain a little more before passing it on in frustration…Team Niles finally untangled it, and I was able to fasten it around Lena’s neck.

As we finally settled in, we pulled out a card game we played a lot when Lena visited us a couple of summers ago: Set. A matching game with shapes, colors, and numbers lends itself well to language-less play, and Lena had gotten pretty good at it while she was in the US. But when she started nailing sets instantly, we both just looked at her, stunned. “Every day,” she replied to our questioning faces. The cutest part was when she would see a set, but wait for one of us to find it…just like a parent waiting for a small child to see it and then feel triumphant! Needless to say, her practiced eye kicked our sleep-deprived tails: 14-5-4.

We chatted as much as we could without a translator; we discovered that school was closed, not for the holidays yet, but because of fear of a Swine Flu outbreak. We showed Lena photos of her new room and shared paint chips so she could pick a new color.

Through all of this, our translator was working in the Assistant Director’s office, preparing documents for Monday. They finished, and she came in to sit with us for a while. With a translator present, Lena’s inner chatterbox emerged. She talked about the movies and music she liked (she loves Twilight, but hasn’t read the books yet! Woohoo!), and asked for some DVDs and books to take back to America with us. She asked about school and what grade she would be in, and when she would start school, and how it worked for Masha, and how her teachers would teach her English. She asked about Masha’s career ambitions, and shared that she still wants to be a journalist. She brought down her notebook and her English textbook, and talked about what she was learning in school and what she thought worked and what didn’t. She talked a lot!!

We had noticed the guards wearing masks, and had seen very few kids in the hallways. From our translator, we learned that the orphanage was actually under a quarantine to prevent spread of the Flu, and that it was likely that our contact with the other kids on the Center would be pretty limited. We were not able to personally give the gifts we brought for the two other kids (or take pictures or pass on hugs and kisses from their American families). Huge, huge apologies to J. and R., but know that your gifts WILL of course be passed on to the kids.

We also learned that there will be a big celebration to honor the anniversary of the Center. Similar to the 1 June Children’s Day celebration that we saw last time we were here, there will be a big program, and many of the Center’s supporters will attend. We know that we’ll at least have an opportunity to see all of the kids then, and take many photos!

After a couple hours there, the AD appeared, all bundled up and ready to go. Our translator popped up and announced that our visit today was over, and that sadly, we would not be able to visit tomorrow because it was Sunday, but we would be back on Monday after all our paperwork was complete. We collected up all our things, hugged Lena about 30 more times, and waved “Paka!” as she disappeared up the stairs.

We drove the AD back home, then turned our thoughts to our bellies…we were starving! The cupbords in our apartment were totally bare, so we decided to go to Amstor, a Wal-Mart-like megamart with a cafeteria as well as a grocery. We filled up at the cafeteria, and then proceeded to overflow our cart with the groceries we would need for the next week as well as a huge bag of chocolates and various Vodkas to take home. Thank goodness Amstor takes credit cards!

Note to those of you following us…I’ve mentioned before, and will again. You can buy just about anything you need here, with one glaring exception: You cannot purchase plain potato chips. You can buy sour cream and onion chips. Or cheese-flavored chips. Or Crab-flavored chips (yes, yes, I said crab). But no plain ones. For an addict like me, that’s a tough one, but I’ll survive. You will too.

Once our American consumerism was sated, we returned to our apartment as darkness fell over the town. Even 600 miles south, the sun sets around 4:00 here in mid-December. We shuttled our heavy grocery sacks upstairs and quickly unpacked everything. After a large late lunch, none of us was very hungry, so we snacked, washed two loads of laundry, read a little bit, called home and fell into bed completely exhausted.