3 Day Timeout

April 30, 2009

Delay – zadyershka

This about sums up how we feel after the news we got today.

Well today is another sunny day here in beautiful downtown Taraz. We were picked up at our usual time and driven to the orphanage. Lukus Anton was dressed in perhaps the worst color combination I have ever seen, but since he didn’t seem to care, we didn’t. We played for a few minutes inside, but then we were kicked out to make way for a music lesson.


We bundled Lukas Anton up as directed for the brutal 70 degree temperatures and headed outside. We took our laps around the building and eventually found our way to the tiny stream that runs through the back of the baby house. Lukas Anton found a stick and began to smack the water rather violently, each splash bringing joy to his face.




We decided to sit in one of the little shelters for a snack. But before were could begin we were swarmed over by Lukas Anton’s class. A minor dispute erupted as several of the children began to look through our bags. They were beaten back by Lukas Anton as he grabbed the bags and shouted something at them. So we made for the gazebo were Kara, Quentin, Symbot and Janetta’s daughter were hanging out. We tried to give Lukas Anton some crackers, but he did not want any. He began to lie in Papa’s arms as if he were going to sleep, but he just seemed to pout.


We then decided to take his hat and coat off and he was soooo hot he was sweating. He began to perk up so we think he was just hot. He ate some crackers and the big cookie we gave him then walked over to the stream again. Mama found a big stick and he proceeded to beat the back wall for a bit and have some words with a rooster and a dog.

When we returned to the gazebo, Janetta was there and she began to give us the bad news. Friday, May 1 is evidently Festival of Nations day in Kazakhstan, so it’s a holiday. That’s right a holiday. To boot, the baby house is being inspected over the weekend, so we can’t visit Lukas Anton until Monday. I would like to comment on the veracity of these statements, however for Lynda’s sake I will remain silent.

So here’s the scoop, we visit on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, sign some papers on Thursday, and have our guardianship council hearing on Monday May 11. We would fly home on Wednesday May 13 as our original itinerary has us doing. Janetta seemed pretty certain of this schedule but we will see.

So we have 3 days to spend looking at each other and to eat. The hotel is setting up their outside patio, so I think I am just going to sit in a chair, drink plenty of peevas to keep my strength up and hope for no more delays.

Paka,
Lynda & Wayne

Here comes the sun!!!

29 April 2009

Ya ne panimayu = I don’t understand

Today we awoke to bright sunshine, hooray! We met Kuralt, Janette and Aima at our usual time and headed to Umit for our daily visit with Lukas Anton. We are trying to use both names now so that he will hopefully get use to being called Lukas. On the drive over we inquired has to how many more days Janette thought we might be so we knew how many more days we needed to pay for our room. Wouldn’t want to end up homeless before we return home. Aima informed us that the head of the region is supposed to be visiting and the govt buildings would be closed. Janette was meeting with the MOE today and would be able to tell us more tomorrow.

Lukas Anton came in and did the daily dump of the toy bag, looked through some books, did some puzzles and then headed to the piano. Since it was so nice out today we headed outside. Once we got to our place out front it was time for the first part of our morning snack, banana. Then it was back to playing. Both Lukas Anton’s group and the 4 year old group were outside as well.

We learned today that Sasha has an adoptive family and is actually further along than Lukas Anton. Aima asked if Wayne would take some pictures of Sasha for her with his camera because she forgot hers and needed to get his passport picture. Lukas Anton didn’t seem to sure about what was going on and started his little pouting routine of walking off with a disgruntled look on his face. We just walked up and down the driveway in front of the play area. Mama finally tempted him back in with the other half of his snack.

He played with Papa for a while with the pinecones and then we gave him a special treat we brought with us, a cookie. He really liked that. He eventually fell asleep in Papa’s arms as Wayne rocked him back and forth. We actually got to spend a little extra time with him today.





Aima gave Wayne an update on our earlier question while Lukas Anton and I were walking around. According to Janette it appears that Lukas Anton’s papers weren’t “in centralization” (whatever that means) until April 20th so the official start of our bonding period has been moved from April 17th until April 20th. This means our bonding ends on May 3rd instead of April 30th. As far as we understand the process we would not go to Guardianship Council until May 4th at the earliest anyway. It just gives us 3 more days to spend with Lukas Anton which we had hoped to continue after the end of the official bonding period anyway. So we don’t know if we will be coming home early or staying with our original date at the time.

Since it was nice out we decided to venture down the other direction from the hotel and checkout the “Mall” (otherwise known as Tsum). We stopped at the restaurant Medvet (Russian for bear) to eat lunch. Again, no English menu, but we did ok. Kara thought with the use of her Russian phrase book that she had ordered a vegetarian meal. We began to wonder when the waitress pointed to her leg. Wayne ordered what appeared to be the dish Quentin ordered at yesterday’s outing and Quentin and I ordered what in translation was a meat dumpling. This is what our meals looked like…



My meal was a very buttery (Paula Dean would be proud) broth with little meat dumplings, mushrooms and chunks of lamb with a big dome of bread on top. Wayne pretty much got what he thought but said the sauce was better. He EVEN ate the mushrooms.

Kara’s was minced vegetables we think a leg of lamb. She said it was very good.

Both families picked up some Kazak items for our kids. We bought a fabric wall hanging that has a little representation of native Kazak things (yurt, dombra, mountains, horse, camel, etc), a stuffed warrior on horse back and a traditional Kaz coat. He’ll have to grow into the coat, they didn’t have a great deal in little boy sizes.

On the way back to the hotel we were stopped on the side walk by 3 female coeds that were curious if we were Americkaners. They said they had seen us a couple of times but were afraid to talk to us. Obviously they finally got their nerve up. At least one of them had participated in the same work/exchange program that Aima is doing this summer. The young lady had spent her 4 months in Silver Spring and Bethesda, Md of all places.

We noticed on our way in that they appeared to be practicing for the upcoming Victory Day Festivities with all the flags today. Kara, Wayne and I headed down to check it out and see if we could get some photos before heading back to our rooms.

I guess that’s all for today….paka,
Lynda and Wayne

Rain, rain go away…

28 April 2009

Peeva = beer


It’s starting to feel like the movie “Ground hog day” where we keep repeating the same day over and over and over. Janette’s daughter was with us again today.

Wayne decided to hide behind the pile of bears today for Anton’s entrance. He came in looking around and I pointed out papa. Anton walked over to the front of the bears and attacked papa.



We started with our regular piano recital. That must have worked up a hunger because we then went on a hunt for tamOOK (food). We looked through the white bag, then papa’s camera bag since that’s where it was the last two days. No luck so we decided to play for a while. Mama finally gave in and pulled some banana from her coat pocket. That sufficed for a short while. So he decided to go looking for his cookies. “She pulled the bananas out of here the cookies should be here somewhere too!” Fortunately he didn’t realize I had more than one pocket in my coat.





We made three trips to the restroom today. I think he just likes going in there and flushing the toilet and washing his hands because he didn’t really produce much.

He likes looking at the pictures on the camera. He discovered one of his group today and was pointing to the different children.

The dogs better look out when he comes home because he decided the Scooby-Doo stuffed animal was a horse to ride. I can see him trying to ride one of them.



Janette’s daughter asked us how many days of bonding we had left. We told her 2 and she said we would probably have guardianship council next week. So, we might be home a week earlier than originally scheduled if our travel agent, Eldo, can get our flights moved up. She also said Janette wanted to know if we were keeping his name or changing it. She needed to know. We told her we hadn’t decided for sure on a first name and could we have a little time. She said it could wait until tomorrow. We discussed it a little bit and decided to go ahead and give her the name now.

So, I know you have all been anxious to know what his name will be….we decided on Lukas Anton Robey. We wanted to keep his Kazak name as part of his full name. Lukas is Greek and the meaning is patron saint of doctors/artists; lighthearted. It fits him. Debbie you can tell mom-mom Shirley she can put Lukas on that stocking she made.



It has been really rainy today. Wayne said it was pouring down rain around 4am. We tried a new place to eat today. I believe the menu was in Kazak because we couldn’t really locate the words in our phrase books. We did pretty good choosing considering we were at the mercy of the waitress. After lunch the rain finally stopped and the sun is attempting to come out.

Last night someone had a party in the hotel restaurant. We think it was a wedding reception. Wayne and I were in our room (did we mention that it is one floor above the restaurant) and we heard what sounded like a band playing. It sounded like it was coming from the hotel so I wandered down to the lobby to discover the restaurant doors closed and loud music coming from that direction. We found out this morning from Kara and Quentin that as they were getting ready to leave the restaurant last night for dinner a DJ came in to set up and there were two women that they said appeared to be the mother of the groom and bride giving directions to the staff to make sure everything was set up properly. That is why we are assuming it was a wedding reception. The music played of and on until about 11pm. A little difficult to get to sleep with loud music playing directly below you. We were just glad they stopped by 11pm.

Our local grocer is closed for lunch so we will head back out in a while to buy some water and re-stock on some food items.

Hope all is well with everyone back home.

Paka,
Lynda and Wayne

Rainy Monday, pianos and somersaults

27 April, 2009

Pee-aneena = piano
panyedYElneek = Monday

The weather is on the gloomy side today. Not as cold as it was yesterday but inside weather. We were surprised when someone other Zema showed up this morning. It was Janette and Kuralt’s daughter. She was our translator for the day. She is a very nice young lady who speaks very good English. She said she is spending 4 months in Virginia Beach this summer on an exchange program. We told her to watch out for the young American boys. They will definitely be chasing after her.

I don’t think Anton was sure what to make of someone else coming to get him this morning. He got very shy whenever she was in the room. The first task of the day was to dump out the bag. I think he was looking for his snack. We hid the camera bag up on the other piano hoping to keep him at bay until later in our visit. He then decided it was time for a piano recital.

While papa entertained him mama went to change her camera battery. The little sneak saw me and figured out where his snacks were. Next thing we knew he was climbing up on the chair and onto the piano to get in the bag. After eating his tangerine and having a drink he got quiet and somewhat withdrawn. Then the telltale sign of pulling at his pants. It was off to the toilet. Sure enough he needed to go potty. He came back to the music room in a hurry and was ready to play.

Papa had blown up the ball while we were gone. Anton decided he wanted to play catch with the bear on top of the bookcase. He couldn’t quite get the ball up high enough so Mama gave him a boost. I would put him down to get the ball and he would look up at me and give me a look to say pick me up. He thought it was great fun to have Mama turn him upside down to get the ball. We then discovered that he knows how to do somersaults. He just kept rolling over and over. Mama tried but wasn’t so graceful. He thought that was pretty funny.

After a while he decided he wanted the rest of his snack and trucked back over to the piano to retrieve it.

Today we also learned how to take the batteries out of the ipod speakers and to punch holes in the paper with the scissors. He is definitely a quick study.

Not sure what the afternoon holds in store since the weather isn’t the greatest. Here is a snapshot of our visit with Anton today. We have some video of him playing the piano that we will share when we get home.






















Just some side notes on Taraz- they don’t appear to have lawnmowers of any kind. Everyone seems to cut the grass and weeds with a scythe and then rake it up and dispose of it. By the time they finish all the play area at Umit it will be time to start over at the beginning. They are making slow progress of clearing the playground. I’m amazed at how quickly they get it done.

Most people here seem to have leather coats or jackets. Even when it is in the 70’s everyone seems to wear coats and sweaters. They must have the same type of internal thermostat as Kara L. back home. The rest of the clothing is almost like being back in the 80’s or early 90’s, a lot of synthetic clothes and synthetic track suits (adidas, reebok, etc). The little kids wear more bright colors than the adults. Adults seem to either wear shades of black and grey or really way out patterns/colors. It’s mostly the young adults who wear jeans on occasion. The women seem to like the high stiletto heels (Jessica H would fit right in) with pants or dresses/skirts. I’ve also seen a couple of women wearing fishnet hose. Unlike the states and Europe, women seem to all wear pantyhose with their dresses. It will be interesting to see if that is still the case in the summer.

I guess that’s all for now.

Paka,
Lynda and Wayne

Lazy, lowkey Sunday

April 26, 2009

Galodnee = hungry

Anton appeared today dressed in a very Russian looking vest, his Honda outfit and pink socks. He immediately went for the huge stuffed animals on the floor and began dragging them and piling them up. He did his now daily dump of the tote bag so he could get a good look at everything. We all got a thorough hand cleaning with the Lysol spray.

He then went to Wayne’s bag and began going through it and came out with both containers of treats. Crackers and bananas were on the menu today. He has eaten kind of fast before but nothing like today. We don’t know if he missed breakfast or not, but he acted like he was starving. When he was done we decided to go outside into the courtyard.

He ran through the flowers a bit and papa picked him up like an airplane and flew him around, which he seemed to like. He tried to pick up a piece of pipe and was told no, so he did his customary turning of his back to us, but just for a minute. As he was walking around papa noticed he was tugging at the rear of his pants. “Poopka?” we asked, and he started to head back towards the door. Mama caught up with him and he led her to the bathroom. He needed little help and when done flushed the toilet and went to wash his hands. He came back out in a good mood, which I guess we all can relate to.

He ran around a bit more and then became very quiet. So mama picked him up and held him for a while and he began to nod off. I think mama was in heaven. As he began to wake up he started to whine, and eventually started to cry. So mama put him down and he stood with papa for a while and seemed to stop crying. But he was still not to happy.
It was time to take him back and Zema let us come up to where his groups room was and they were all sitting down to eat. When Anton saw that, he was back to his old self. We think he was just hungry. He tried to walk in but was quickly told by one of the caretakers to go back and take off his shoes. He trotted back out and sat on a bench and took his shoes off and put them in a cabinet and then put on a pair of sandals and ran off to eat. Lynda had made a card for one of his group, Sasha who was turning 4 today. Zema told the caretaker what it was and hopefully he will get the card.

It’s cloudy and a little chilly today, we went to lunch with Kara and Quentin and we will probably just chill in the room this afternoon and read. Hopefully tomorrow we will get some details on what’s happening next, because we only have 4 days of bonding left. But as we have learned, you just never know.










Paka,

Lynda and Wayne