Lilypie Waiting to adopt Ticker
"No I didn't give you the gift of life, but life gave me the gift of you!"

Monday, December 31, 2007

Happy New Year from Aqtobe

Happy New Year! Today is one of Kazakhstan’s most celebrated holidays so the city is buzzing with people shopping in preparation for this evening’s festivities. From what I hear there will be much life in the city and many fireworks at midnight……..can’t say that I will be up that long, too old!

This morning I was able to see Z from 10-noon but was not able to see her this afternoon. Tomorrow is a total day off, so I will not be able to see her tomorrow either. Big Frown! Our morning was filled with some play, a bit of cuddling and a new little treat. This morning I brought Zahri in a pacifier looking treat holder; how is that for a description. This thing is shaped like a pacifier but where the nipple should be, there is instead a net where you put a treat for your teething babies. I put a piece of ripe banana in there this morning, and in Z’s not-picky-at-all-I-just-want-to-eat style, she ate it right up. She loved it!! Here is a photo of her with her banana filled pacifier looking net treat. hehe

The caregiver from Baby Room #2 also stopped up for just a bit to chat with us, and she let Bayana know that when Z was in her group, she used to cry a lot and always wanted to eat. Zahri, Cry? Z never really cries. I can only think that maybe she was teething, or hmmmmm possibly she was flippin’ hungry? I would cry too! I say this with a little laugh as she is such a wonderfully content baby that it surprised me to hear that she cried a lot. The being hungry comment didn’t surprise me at all, she is a growing girl for goodness sakes.

Well, it is official, I have switched hotels and am now slumbering at the Hotel Dastan. My translator said that she never knew of this single bed dormitory style room, so for all upcoming single travelers that prefer to stay in a hotel, but don’t want to pay hotel prices, this is a great fit! I think that I am paying about $50 a night! Rock on! I was paying $110 a night, so this is saving me huge. The location here is much better as well, I am now near the Mosque Mall and within walking distance to the indoor Market & several restaurants. I am sure I will be just fine here. My room is clean, I have internet, a TV and a fridge. As for the smoky smell that I was worried about, I must have been smelling something else when I viewed the room, the room is not smoky at all. Feweee! I even have an outside sitting deck, just in case I want to hang my laundry out to dry. Bonus! Hehe












Last night I was told something very interesting that I want to share, but please don’t take this as the Bible since I haven’t yet double checked the stats. I met a group of people that work with the Oil Fields, imagine that (the Amsterdam is the place where the higher ups with the Oil Fields tend to stay and hang out) and I was told that the ratio between men and women here is 5 women to every 1 man. I asked why this was??? And I was told that it is due to WWII. This gentleman had said that during WWII some approximately 1.2 million men left and nearly 875,000 never returned. In each city in Kazakhstan you will find a statue of sorts with a forever burning flame (a true flame that always burns) in remembrance of those killed in WWII, so I know there is a lot of truth in what I was told. I was also told that this imbalance between men and women has lead to the men being very dominant over the women, possibly the women have learned that there is little choice of men so they become submissive to the men they have? This would kill me! Hehe Now this is only my own thought, nothing of research or statistics, but might it be possible that this is why the women here are always dressed to the nines? This is how you find a man, to look the best and be the most attractive? I guess it is no different anywhere in the world, but it just surprises me so how these women are so darn cute and trendy and always dressed up, even in these insane temperatures and conditions. Just a thought. Hmmmmm to ponder it. Seriously, the women here are amazingly beautiful!!!!!!!!

Sunday, December 30, 2007

Great Day - Big Post









Today has been a very good day, thus a big post! Tons of great photos from today thanks to Evy, she and her husband Davy are adopting little Illian (I posted of photo of their family of 3 on today’s post too), they are one of the two Belgium couples here adopting. Sundays we are only allowed to see our babies from 10-12:00 but it was a happy 2 hours. Zahri was in a great mood, and she was a bit more lovey today too! Z tends to want to go go go, but today she combined her need to go with a little quiet loving for mom, and it was so nice! We sang a couple songs, played the piano, rocked with a bottle of juice (still she has not been picky with flavors – today we had a combination fruit juice and she loved that too) and then we played ball with the other babies. These babies love the blow up beach ball, so we sat in a circle and kicked and hit the ball back and forth; the kids had a ball (pardon the pun.) The caregivers have asked me to bring in some medicine for Z’s cold, so we need to go on a hunt for something to make her feel better; the last thing I want for them to do is give her that cough medicine again, the medicine that nearly made her drunk………no kidding, I hated it!

I must also tell on us again………Laurie and I went shopping for baby lotion for her, so we ended up picking some up at the baby store where Laurie purchased some toys, bottle, and a nook. Yesterday Laurie mentioned that Kyson was breaking out on his face, could he be allergic to the lotion possibly? Yes, I had been using this same lotion on Zahri as I gave my lotion to the caregivers to use on Z while I was away. Today Laurie’s translator looked at the lotion for us and come to find out we had purchased the wrong type of lotion……………it was in fact for nursing moms to use for stretch marks on their breasts. Ooooops! Let’s chalk that one up to a new mom too? Or maybe our lack of being able to read Russian? It did have a pink lid so we assumed baby store + pink lid lotion = baby lotion.

TIP: Never assume that a pink lid on baby lotion = baby lotion. hehe





Well, I think that I have decided to stay the entire trip, that is unless something crazy happens around court time to push the time past a 2 month stay. Bayana took me to see a single bed room at the Hotel Dastan today, thanks Laurie for the heads up on the single rooms, and it looks like I can stay here for about $50 a night – this is less than ½ of what I am currently paying for my posh room at the Amsterdam Hotel. Bayana had called the Amsterdam Hotel yesterday for me to see if we might be able to get a reduced rate if I stayed for one trip, and they wouldn’t be able to run that by the manager until after the new year, but from what Bayana says, it is rare for them to do any discounts, at least not a good enough discount to make staying financially comparable to doing the two trips. Laurie had mentioned that the Dastan had single dormitory style rooms for around $50, but Bayana did not know of such rooms so she called for me this morning and an hour later we stopped by to view the room. The room is simple with a single bed, TV, little fridge (something I really still wanted to have), armoire, and a small ¾ bathroom. It will do just fine I think and it saves me a butt load of money! Score! Plus the Hotel Dastan is in a great location, it is next to much shopping, restaurants and Laurie’s apartment is just around the corner. Maybe for New Years, tomorrow night, we will go out them since we now do not need to worry about drivers taking us each to different locations! I will be your local tour guide of all hotels and apartments. I will take photos of the Dastan now, plus Margo is staying at the Hotel Asia so I can get some exterior photos of this hotel as well as photos of Laurie’s apartment. Hopefully this will be helpful to future Aqtobe families! The menu at the Dastan is less expensive too, so this will help as well! The room was a little smoky, so that is the only thing that kind of worries me, I can’t do smoke. Bayana is set on getting me an ‘Adoption Discount’ too, so we will see if this is possible. This is all for you little Zahri! Now that I have my internet card with cheap internet access($1-$2 per hour versus the $5 an hour I was paying through the hotel), my hot plate (which I will leave here for future Aqtobe Hotel bound families) and a cheap, safe, clean place to stay things should be good! I will absolutely miss my posh Hotel and my robe, fresh towels, built in blow dryer, clean sheets and piece of gum that I get after each meal, but I think the trade offs are worth it.

This afternoon Laurie, I and Bayana went to the indoor market by the stadium and it was neat! If you are looking for more reasonable shopping, this mall is a better bet. Here they have everything from medicine, to diapers, to clothes, purses, coats, toys, food and there is a large area with slabs of meat on butcher tables and fresh frozen whole fish as well. Yuck! The smell in that area was terrible! Raw meat sitting out on tables? Who would have thought, so of course I want to take a picture, and do take that picture, and not 30 seconds later I was greeted by a security guy. Ummmmm I can’t understand him. Yikes! I get Bayana, my translator and he tells on me for taking a photo so she said that I didn’t know any better and he left it at that. Do they think that we will steal their idea of a market? Or was it their brilliant plan of selling slabs of meat that I might steal and bring to the U.S. to duplicate and make millions? Why no photos???? Bayana couldn’t really answer this either, she knew of the rule and thought it was silly too. Ooops! We then had lunch at another indoor mall just next to the indoor market; this was a cafeteria style place in the basement of the mall.

TIP: Always check out the basements of buildings, it seems that this is where all of the good stores and restaurants are.

Here are photos of Mr. Frost / Freeze, the Outdoor Skating Rink by the Football Stadium and two photos of the indoor market; one photo is showing the 2 levels of shops and the other is the meat and frozen fish tables (hard to see, but I got in trouble and couldn't take a second photo. :)






Anyhow, we got a really yummy veggie soup, potato type salad, rice and sweet and sour beef dish + juice for only about $6.00! This is the best deal in Aqtobe! Then Bayana had to leave so she told us to please bring our dishes up to the front to wash them. We were going to do it! And then she started laughing, and kept laughing for quite some time, she was of course kidding. Shheeeesh!

When we finished lunch we walked back to the Mosque Mall and went to the souvenir shop again in the basement and we found the best things ever………….they had kids books in Russian and English, and they are books about Kazakhstan & Kazakhstan life, I am so pumped! I bought all 4 books that they had! Score huge! Do visit this little store; it is right by the carpet / dining table store.

KAZ LIFE: They love our American music here, especially 50 cent, Justin Timberlake, Brittany Spears, J-Lo – really anything hip-hop!

There also doesn’t seem to much of a middle class here, there is the Oil money that is driving up the prices of everything from food to housing making it very tough for the local residents to live. Bayana says that many older kids still live with their parents because housing isn’t affordable. Truly the prices here are crazy – most things we can buy back in the states for less! I am really not sure how people make it here as the wages are low bust cost of living is high. How do those girls then buy these fur coats and leather stilettos is my question?

I best get to packing up my room for the big move to my dormitory at the Hotel Dastan!

Saturday, December 29, 2007

To Stay or Not to Stay?




Z seems to be feeling better and better each day, but I fear that she won’t completely kick this bug until she leaves the baby house. Z is at that stage where if she is down on her tummy, she wants to roll over, and if she rolls over she wants to then stand up, and if she is standing up she then wants to peak around to see everyone, and then she wants to down to get something, and then up again………rarely is she content with just lying there and being lazy………geez do you think that she has done that enough in her little life already.

I am feeling a bit emotional today, very undecided on whether to stay one trip or come home and do the two trips. There are so many pros and cons each way. I hate to leave Z, I don’t want to break this bond or any trust that is being formed, and I don’t want to be jet lagged while bringing her home either. On the other hand, it is more expensive to stay (which is something that I inevitably have to consider) and I know that I will desperately miss home………soon. As great as bonding is, and as wonderful as my hotel is, just being around other people that understand you is a wondrous thing. It is a crazy feeling to be a total minority and to be at the mercy of your interpreter. I am absolutely free to do whatever I would like, shopping, going to the bakery / coffee shop, site seeing, etc. but when you are here alone you just aren’t as adventurous, especially as a woman. I do have Laurie, which is nice, but we are with different agencies, have different drivers and are living in different parts of the city, so it isn’t like having a husband here with me. What to do? The biggest part is my sadness for leaving Zahria here. She is now used to being played with at least once, if not twice (on most days), times a day; for her to then go to nothing for 2-4 weeks will kill me. She needs stimulation! Her little brain is growing like crazy right now and she needs more than eating, changing and sleeping. Her little laugh needs to continue to pop out more and more and his will not happen if she is in her little Room #3.

On another note, yet kind of the same, it is too funny to get into Ceric’s car (when our interpreters are not with us) and between the three of us, Ceric (Russian), me (English) and Margo (Spanish) try to communicate. We are all laughing and doing quite a bit of sign language, it ends up being a messed up game of charades each time the 3 of us try to communicate. Tonight Ceric was trying to tell me about his daughter that is at the Academy in Almaty and how she has a black belt in Taekwondo, and he would do sign language for Taekwondo, then said Academy Almaty, then said Negro. Oops! That was one of his Spanish words that he knows and he was using it in English, oops! He realized his mistake and started to laugh looking for the English word for black. Good thing I know some Spanish, so I caught it and said, “Oh she has a black belt?” Then I showed Margo my belt and she said belt in Spanish, and we all laughed. We can communicate, see! It is just so darn hard and takes so much energy to get one sentence comprehended that you almost say screw it and become a mute while here. Earlier today Ceric was making Sheep noises looking for a word, so I said Sheep? Nyet. No. Ummmm okay, what else could it be? Then he made the sheep noise again and signed like a goatie on his chin, Ahhhh I said, Goat? Da. Yes! He is a riot! When we leave his car we say, paka – meaning bye (not sure of the real Russian spelling but this is how it sounds) and he responds with See Ya. Haha, you expect him to respond in Russian and he pops out the English version, it is great!

Friday, December 28, 2007

Mom is an Idiot!


The past couple days our translators have been decorating our visitation room with party favors to celebrate the new year, it is looking very festive and the babies are having much fun staring at all the shinies in the room. Today we had an unexpected gift when many of the daytime caregivers visited our play room, soon we were having a little dance party with the kids and their caregivers, it was great fun! We were able to take many photos of the babies with their caregivers, wonderful memories!





The New Year is a huge holiday here in Kazakhstan! They celebrate as a family with an evergreen tree, fireworks, food and gifts; truly it sounds a lot like our Christmas gatherings. They even have a Mr. Freeze or Frost that comes to deliver gifts to the children even…….hmmmm sounds awfully close to Christmas.

Every day I adore Zahri more; I know that I say this often, but it is true, she just blossoms more and more everyday. Today she gave up many laughs, she just loves to be tickled and thrown in the air. I can tell now that she is starting to attach to me, which is a wonderful delight. After this afternoon’s visit, I had one of the translators hold her while I put on my boots and she looked down at me and started to whimper a bit, soon she was crying for me to hold her again, it was such a great feeling. She prefers me! After only 7 days of bonding (we are ½ way there to our mandatory 14 days of bonding – yahoo) this little girl is starting to attach to me and that is the most wonderful feeling! Z continues to adore her bottle and her nook, today she had Banana juice & so far so good, she doesn’t seem too picky. Okay……….here is where I tell you what an idiot her mom is…………..I started to feed her a bottle this morning, and she kept sitting up and looking around, she never does this, she usually devours her bottle and is intent on just looking at mom, but she didn’t seem to have any interest in her juice. Hmmmmm so I tried again, as she kept laying back, I knew that she did want to drink so I would try again. Soon my translator Aina came over and laughed, she grabbed my bottle and took out the travel stopper that was preventing any juice from coming out. Oooops, mom is an idiot! Poor little Z was trying to get that juice and mom hadn’t taken off the travel stopper. Oops! Once that was off, she was her normal juice drinking machine and all was good. Hehehe Zahri continues to love the boys in the room too, which is such a relief since she really hasn’t been around many men in her little life. I also gave her a teething biscuit today and she loved it! Within minutes her little face and fingers were filled with dissolving cookie, I am sure that it felt great on her little teething gums! But my favorite thing of all is how she reaches for me when she wants to get up, which is often, she puts out her little hands reaching for my fingers to help her to her feet and I just love it! She is so darn smart already! And Grandma, Z loves ‘You are My Sunshine,’ I told her that this was Grandma’s favorite song!

I also confirmed that Z has all 10 of her toes today, yes today was the first day that I was able to see all of her toes and they are there and perfect!




I am still unsure if I will stay for one trip or leave after about 4 weeks and come back for my ‘Gotcha Trip’ about a month later. Should I decide to stay, I will be in Kazakhstan nearly two months, which is a darn long time. Should I decide to make 2 trips, I would be here a month, back in the U.S. about a month and back to get Zahri for my last 2 week trip. I just can’t imagine leaving this little bean!

No bad experiences with food yet. Laurie and I have now gone out 3 times and have had great luck each time. Our first meal was at the Hotel Dastan where we ordered Potato Skins for an appetizer and then Fajitas for Lunch, these were super yummy. Next we had the Shashlik at the Hungarian Restaurant, and today we tried Pizza at a great restaurant in the basement of the Business Center and it was awesome! I know these don’t seem all that adventurous, but in a new country ½ way around the world you just never know what they think of as pizza, and it was so yummy! Really it was very similar to our pizza but it had more of an authentic flavor, and the cheese was a little different and of course they added dill to the top, dill is on everything here, and I mean everything……….even my chicken noodle soup had dill. We are planning to go to an Armenian Restaurant as a group on January 2nd and from what I hear it is all about MEAT in this culture’s cooking, so we will see about that. Bayana also showed me where a good restaurant is that has wonderful Kabobs, a popular meal here in Kaz, so I would like to try this as well. Here is a photo of the Chicken Fajita at the Hotel Dastan, super yummy!


Washing clothes in the bathroom sink was fun, tonight was laundry night and I felt like a girl on the prarie washing her clothes in a wash tub and hanging them to dry on a makeshift laundry line in my bathroom. I thought about hanging them out the window, as everybody else does here, but I wasn’t sure that it would look very inviting outside the entrance of the hotel.???!!!... I still can’t figure out how their laundry doesn’t freeze.

TIP – Do not forget to bring a really nice size blanket for the floor at the play room, the carpet is pretty yucky. I brought a little afghan and it has worked well, but many families just brought their comforters from their beds in the apartment and this is perfect! It is really nice having a big comfy blanket to play on and those tend to take up a lot of luggage space. Many of the apartments have 2 or 3 bedrooms, so if you know what size apartment you will get, you can probably count on stealing a comforter from one of the beds and making it into a floor blanket at the baby house.

Thursday, December 27, 2007

Day 6 of Bonding







Our bonding was great today, as usual. I must say that I am so happy with the caregivers in Baby Room #3. Yesterday I gave the caregivers a bottle of lotion and even today Z’s skin looked better, her little face is so darn dry, it almost looks like it would hurt. It doesn’t help that she tends to suck on her bottom lip and drool is everywhere……….all of the time, so to help her quit that nasty habit of sucking her lip, we have introduced her to a nook……….and she loves it! It is so cute, when I take the nook away, she looks all around for it, just as she does when I take her bottle away. The caregivers are also taking pretty good care of keeping Z’s nose clean of those nasty boogs and she seems to always be in a clean outfit with a clean little face. We have one baby in our group that has been in the same outfit for 5 days now, needless to say that his mommy is quite unhappy about this, he is not in our baby room so his caregivers are different. I did also bring Zahri a new outfit today, and it was a perfect fit! I think it is a 6 month outfit, it will not be long before she is into 9 month outfits. And yes, it is pink! You can see it in the afternoon photos from today, she has on her pink Osh Kosh jumper and the brown hat, which I also brought for her. She looks so darn cute. We also learned today that she LOVES the frozen teething rings; I brought a little giraffe rattle and his body is a liquid teething ring, so Laurie took it to her apt. last night and froze it for us, it was an absolute hit!

Here is little Z studying the pictures of her cousins, Ty, Izaak, Elijah and Kolter.














At this Baby house they ask that the parents bring 4 diapers each day, and today I learned that they want the diapers to be Pampers. Ooops, I bought 2 bags of Huggies, so next time I promised to get them Pampers. Diapers are easy to buy here, so do not bother packing them. I was also told to bring 4 outfits for her, be sure that they are super warm outfits or the caregivers will give them right back to you with a scolding that they are not meant for winter…….yep, got scolded yesterday for this, thus the cozy Osh Kosh getup Z is wearing today, this was approved. Hehe Baby clothes are very expensive here, so bring several outfits from home, it is worth packing baby clothes! Other items that I would bring for your baby on the first trip if coming to Aqtobe:

*Liquid Teething Ring (if adopting under 2 years)
*4+ Warm Outfits (they layer so pack 4 warm outfits and 4 lighter ones for underneath – you can either get these outfits back when you leave or donate them to the orphanage.)
*Baby Lotion (2 bottles – one for the caregivers & one for you)
*Bottle with several nipples (possibly a tipee / bottle combo)
*A couple types of nooks / binkies (if you agree with them – some babies will not take them)
*Burp Cloths (good for teething, drooling babies too)
*Those suction nose boogie getter things (that would have been super nice to have!)
*Several fitted little hats for the baby
*You can easily buy baby food & juice here to supplement their feedings

Ceric, my driver, also picks up Margo each day before coming to get me and we take her to the older baby house where she meets with her 3 year old daughter, Nadya. Margo is a single mom from Spain in her late 40s, and I believe that Nadya is her first. I love Margo, she is so darn excited about this little girl! It is nice because I do know just a bit of Spanish, at least enough to communicate some with Margo, and she is hysterical about this little girl! It is nice because I have been able to see where the Hotel Asia is and I am able to see the older kid’s baby house too!

Other than that, yesterday my translator set up changed just a bit, in the mornings I will have Aina and now in the afternoons I get Bayana. I adore them both! I must admit that for just knowing Bayana for 2 days now I can say that I love her! Smile! Today she took me to buy a hot plate (cooked Mac & Cheez tonight in my Hotel room), she hooked me up with an internet card from “Kaz Telecom” (the building that we visited was in front of the Mosque Mall just across the street, I hear there are several Kaz Telecoms throughout Aqtobe though) and now my internet bills will be hugely less. I was paying $5 hour to use the hotels dial up and now, depending on the time of day that I use it, I pay between $1-$2 an hour! Score! So I purchased a card for 5000 tenge (about $42) so that should last me a bit. Bayana also told us where some really good restaurants are, and she recommended that we try an Uzbek & Armenian Restaurant. Fun! She said that once we try the Uzbek Rice we will be hooked. She also let us know, us meaning all the parents currently bonding with our babies, that she has 3 taxi drivers that will pick us up if we want to go out to supper or our on the town. That was great to know! We never go out after our 4-6:00 bonding time because we don’t have a way to get back home; my hotel is fairly far away from Laurie’s apartment, so we tend to shop between visits so our drivers just pick us up in different spots. Since we only have a morning visit on Dec 31 and no visits on Jan 1, maybe we can go out somewhere fun that night for New Years!!! It is probably the biggest holiday they have here and it is very celebrated! Bayana told me that it is tradition to spend New Years with your Family, they open Champagne, eat special meals, and do fireworks as a family! Fun! This year however, since she is 21, she has decided to go out with her friends. Yesterday I posted a photo of Bayana and Z, so if you look up you will see who she is.

Here is my 'make shift' kitchen in my Hotel Room. :)

Wednesday, December 26, 2007

Glad she is Mine!





How does a girl go from 8+ hours of sleep each night to an average of possibly 2? I have no idea either, but I am still functioning so I will just go with it! Last night I didn’t get a full hour of sleep, in fact I am not sure that I ever fell asleep. When will this change? Makes a girl really consider doing this adoption in one trip versus two; I will be useless if I have to go ½ way around the world twice in 2 weeks.

Our day: Zahri is starting to really recognize who I am when caregivers bring her up to the playroom, it is great! Today I did try out some of your suggested songs with Z too, she loves Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, I squeeze her close and sing in her ear and she just chills. Thanks for the suggestions Beck, Matt & Suzzanne!! I have also found that I can nearly put Z in a trance by blowing on her neck, immediately she pauses from whatever she is doing and just sits there with her eyes ½ closed, she loves the cold air on her neck. I am sure she is a bit toasty with the 7 layers on. We also have our ‘up’ game figured out, when she is lying on the blanket and is ready to get up, she puts out her arms and grabs on to my fingers and I help her up to her feet, I really can’t believe that she is already that strong. I tell you the first day that we bonded, I am not sure that she even knew that she had any legs, seriously they were jello and now she wants to stand and dance all the time. It is quite amazing what just a couple days, and only a couple hours each day, can do for a baby! She is the only one in our group of 4 babies at 9 months that initiates standing and is trying to get up on all fours. Go Girl! I have also found another favorite of Z’s, I am not yet sure if she is bound to be a t.v. head or if she may be a tad bit vain, but she loves to look through the photos of us on my camera. After we look through a couple of our pictures, I put down the camera, and she peaks around me looking for the camera. She loves looking at those pictures, it is so cute!

You know what is great? Today I looked around and I thought, I wouldn’t want to have chosen any other child in this room, I am so glad that Zahria is mine! And the great part of that is, I think that all 5 sets of parents would say the exact same thing! It is weird how that happens; I had heard that this is the normal feeling, but I worried that I would feel differently somehow. Thank heavens all worked as it was supposed to & Z is mine! Z is in group #3, here is the door to her sleeping / hanging out quarters. :) I also added in a photo of our playroom, the stairway heading up to the playroom and the waiting room, this is the room that you first see when you enter the baby house.






Between visits today Laurie and I ventured out shopping again and we stopped into a Ukrainian Restaurant for lunch. We decided to share the “Shashlik” which is a combination of barbequed (not like our bbq – no sauce) Chicken, Pork and Lamb. I must say that it was quite tasty. Good luck so far on all of my food selections, no tummy aches yet, and I have a really sensitive tummy! I have drank their milk too and no problems. Lucky? The Ukrainian Restaurant that we visited is right by the Mosque and the indoor Mall for future Aqtobe families, and they do have an English Menu. Score!



My team here in Aqtobe has been great! Marina is my translator / head coordinator in Almaty and she initially met me in Almaty at the Airport to help me buy my tickets for my Aqtobe flight. My flight was a couple hours late and then my connecting flight was delayed about 7 hours and she stuck with me, sitting on the airport floor due to lack of space, for the entire time. And now, even though I am in Aqtobe, she still calls every couple days to ask how things are. Aina is my translator here, and she is just great too! For past Aqtobe families, Aina has her son that is now 2 and a little 6 month old daughter, yep a girl! Her son just started Kindergarten; this is what they call daycare. Aina said that her job is to keep her families happy, and they do a good job of that! Ceric is my driver, and for those that know Ceric, he is wonderful. Ceric is that person that you just know is a good soul, he makes little jokes here and there, both in broken English and Russian. Good man! And today, I started working with a second translator too; Bayana will now be with me on my afternoon visits to the orphanage and Aina with me in the morning. Bayana is in her early 20s and full of life, I loved her energy today. She talked with all of the other families in the play room and was down on the floor with the babies, it was great to see.

Things that I love about Aqtobe:

*The little kids are so bundled up they look like little marshmallows!
*The parents pull their little kids (bundled like marshmallows) around on those old time wooden toboggans.
*People hang their laundry out to dry (?) in -30c weather.

Izaak, Elijah & Ty 'Bear'

Izaak, Elijah & Ty 'Bear'
Cousins (Izaak wants to name my daughter (his cousin) Isabella, Sant (for 'Santa') or Hershey (his friend's dog's name.) Hmmmm I told him that if we name her 'Hershey,' that would mean that we get to give her a lot of kisses.

Kolter Matthius Simon

Kolter Matthius Simon
Littlest Cousin......possibly. Kolter may indeed be the same age as his little girl cousin in Kaz. :)