Minorities

This is a photo of the Ymit Baby House, this has been Zahria's home for the past 8 months. Z's Baby Room is on the main floor in the far right wing, there are 3 wings in the babyhouse but the third wing is hard to capture in the photos. PS - That is Ceric's mini-van outside the Baby House. :)

Today totally got away from me, too many snuggles, and I didn’t end up taking many photos. Sorry to all of you that look forward to new Z photos daily. Today Zahri was a complete doll, as always! Today we took her height & head measurements again as well as her weight, and she is the biggest of all 4 babies in our bonding group. Rock on, my girl is pretty darn healthy! Looks like Zahri is now nearly 17 Lbs & 28.8” tall. Both her head circumference and her height are near the 90th percentile on American growth charts, but her weight is pretty low. You just want to start feeding them full of fruits and veggies, juice, baby food, teething treats, etc. but then you hold back because you know that it is just too much for their little tummies to take all at once. Today 2 different people held Z, and after a short time she looked at me and started whimpering, I just love it! This is such a healthy sign of attachment right now. She doesn’t wail, she doesn’t whimper right away, but she is partial to mom! She likes her caregivers too and doesn’t whimper when they come to pick her up, so that is positive to see as well. Here is a photo, the one and only today, of Z and Kyson (Laurie's little man.)

Congratulations to John Jacque and Marie, today was court day and it sounds like all went well and that little Lila will soon be home with her parents in France.

Laurie should have court this coming Thursday and she hopes to the fly back home to Illinois on Friday, Laurie is doing 2 trips. Both Davy & Evy and Geert and Sarah (our Belgium couples) should have court this coming Friday and both couples will be staying for one trip just like me. Here are photos of 3 of our 4 families, tomorrow morning I will try to get a photos of John Jacque, Marie and Lila. :)





Today was Day #14 of our Bonding, so tomorrow is officially the end of our mandatory 15 days of bonding. It sounds like I will then have court on the 18th of January. From what I hear, I will either hear just after court or the next day if all went well at court and the judge will grant the adoption. If I am okayed to be Zahria’s mommy, there is a mandatory 15 day appeal period following our court hearing; in this time, anyone in Z’s birth family can protest the adoption. I feel fairly confident that once the judge okays Zahria’s adoption, that all will be okay and that we will soon be a family. I know that my coordinator is now contacting Z’s birth mother to get her relinquishment letter, this is an additional step required by the courts here in Aqtobe (the children are of course relinquished once before coming to the baby house as well.) I am not sure that this is the same procedure in all regions, it sounded like it is an extra step that very few regions are implementing. If we receive the relinquishment letter, I am not so worried about any appeals from family following court.

I remember reading many posts before traveling about the people here in Kazakhstan; I read that the people here are very direct and abrupt. If you are not fluent in Russian you may think that people are angry when speaking when in fact this is just the normal tone used. It is true, people do seem angry a lot when communicating with each other & people do cut in line here, you could be standing in line at the grocery store and someone will just come in and go in front of you. Twice we were waiting to exchange money and people cut right in front of us. It is quite crazy and frustrating; however, today, while waiting in the unheated entryway of my hotel (it is a small area just before the official entry of the hotel) and 3 people came in to the hotel. All 3 people opened the outside door and then started into the hotel, as I waited in the small area, and all 3 people looked back and noticed that the door to the outside of the hotel was not shutting, so they came back and physically shut the door so I wouldn’t freeze. I was so amazed at that kindness. You wonder if people here are kind, as you can’t speak their language so you really aren’t sure, and this showed me that there is absolutely a kindness here.

On a similar note, you are never quite sure how people will take you when they hear you speaking English either. It seems that most people are aggravated by us, you hear them talk and whisper and look as you are in the stores; but are they interested or are they frustrated by us? I just wish that I knew Russian! I am getting better, I am really trying, but it is so interesting to understand first hand how it feels to be the absolute minority. It really makes me appreciate those living in the U.S. (or even visiting the U.S.) that don’t fluently speak English. You are suspicious of everyone. Are they trying to cheat you out of money when you get your change? Are the prices higher because they can tell that you don’t know their language? (Many items are not priced, so you wonder if your price is the same as the price quoted to others.)

I swear to you that people know that we are American just by looking at us here. I would think we could semi pass as Russian, but we do not. There are so many times that people look at us and say, ‘Hello, Where are you from?” in English. It is crazy. Today at the market an elementary aged kid looked at Laurie and I and said, “Hi!” So I said, “Well hello there.” And he replied back, “My name is ________________.” I chuckled inside knowing this is the first sentence you learn in class when learning another language, so I replied back with, “Good to meet you, my name is Christy.” He was so happy with himself. How did he know that we were American? I tell you it is strange. I had another young man, elementary aged as well, taunt me at the Mosque Mall. He was with a Jr. High or early High School aged boy, and when they learned that I could not speak Russian, he kept coming back and talking to me and laughing. I felt like an idiot after awhile. This little kid was taunting me and I couldn’t say back nicely, ‘You know son, that is really not polite and you should be nicer to people’ or something like that. I would have liked to really surprise him with a nice Russian statement back to throw him off and make him double think what he was doing. It was quite embarrassing. And then there are those people that are so excited that we are American so they can practice their English on us. Today 2 college girls heard us ordering Pampers and they said, ‘Where are you from?” Come to find out they are studying at the University and were so excited to talk with us, in fact we are meeting with them next Monday to go to the University with them. They then helped us find those boogie sucker outer things at the mall (try to explain needing this when you don’t speak the language), and one of the girls, tried to pay for our 2 items. She was so kind! I think they were just so excited to practice their English on us and help us out. They are studying to be translators.

In the end, what I have learned, is that sign language (not even formal sign language) just the charades kind is such a nice tool. Hehe We tend to use our hands a lot to explain what we are trying to convey, and often we are successful. I then take out my Russian / English translation book and add that to our sign language and we get by just fine. hehe