Saturday, 9 June We are coming to the realization that we’ll be leaving soon, which is met with both anticipation and panic. We’re not too worried about the “We’re gonna be parents” thing…that’s settling in well. The panic is actually related to shopping for souvenirs and packing them for the trip home. The chances are good that we’ll never be in Ukraine again, so we feel compelled to bring home the entire country in our suitcases. Mark went out first thing this morning for another pass through a shopping area near our apartment. He found several things he wanted, and […]

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Friday, 8 June This morning, I found Nirvana. Or at least as close as possible in this town. Mark and I rode into town around 10:00 this morning, dropped a couple of things off with Lisa, and then started walking around. The plan: buy some CDs, get Mark’s watch fixed, pick up some small gift bags and cards for the gifts we need to give on Monday. The plan was modified when we discovered a Western-style café… I knew I was missing my coffee—tea has adequately provided my daily caffeine fix—but I didn’t realize how much until I spotted the […]

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Thursday, 7 June The cries of a thousand warriors filled the air as darkness enveloped their underground lair. OK, so it was more like about 40 teenage boys hollering when the power went out at Com.bat, the internet café we’ve been frequenting. The first version is so much more poetic, dontcha think? Today’s internet time was nearing its end. Lisa was copying some photos, and I had just finished uploading the last couple of days’ posts (I hope), and I was preparing the email for distribution to y’all when, in an instant, the room went dark. Gone were the sounds […]

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Wednesday, 6 June It dawned on us this morning that our time in Ukraine is almost over; we only have five more days in town. On Monday morning, our 10-day waiting period will be over, and the court decree for our adoption will be final. We will be able to pick up all the court documents and then go to the orphanage and pick up our daughter!!! From there, we will drive to the capital of the region to get Masha’s new birth certificate and passport, and she will officially be Maria Elizabeth Niles. We hope to get this completed […]

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Tuesday, 5 June This morning, we witnessed one of the strangest aspects of Ukrainian culture we’ve seen to date. There are no dumpsters in/around our apartment building, and it took us some time (and some interesting conversations) to figure out where to throw out our garbage. We finally found that in each stairwell, there is a chute, down which the garbage can be flung. This chute is not quite wide enough for a pizza box, we learned, and on our floor, there is a “pusher” for garbage that gets stuck. Until today, we had no concept of what happened to […]

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