SUCCESS AT COURT!!!!

Tonight was awesome! Tonight, as a group of 6, we decided to go out and celebrate. Really celebrate our appeal periods. Sarah & Geert (and Ganna), Davy & Evy (and Ilyan), me (and Zahria) and Bayan. It was so fun. We went to the ‘BAP’ which reads ‘Bar’ in English at the Hotel Asia. There were 2 floors of pool tables (my great friend Sherree would have loved it!) and many tables for people like us to sit and drink Vodka and eat smoked string cheese. It was so fun! I needed tonight! When I walked into our afternoon visit, everyone asked, ‘How was it?’ ‘How was court?’ and I said, ‘It was great, in and out in 10 minutes, and I need a drink!’ It was true for goodness sakes, this was a stressful week, for all of us, and to go out with friends was what I needed. Thankfully they listened and agreed and we all decided to go out to the Hotel Asia for some Vodka. Now I sit here eating left over Fritos Chile Cheese chips from Laurie for supper and writing my blog entry. Probably not a good idea after a couple shots of Vodka and Orange Juice, but it is real and it was a fun night, so I write here on my single bed having had a bit too much of Vodka tonight (I am a middle child for goodness sakes so I can say this as true and know that my friends and family will laugh and still love me for the crazy me that I am.)








This last photo is how we were all seeing each other after just 2 hours and only a couple shots of Vodka. :)



At the end of my court hearing today, which was a total of maybe 15 minutes, I got the a-okay to adopt Z. She is mine considering that our 15 day appeal period goes without a hitch. I feel really good tonight. I love these people here. They are truly good people. We are all first time parents and it is such a wonderful thing to share this experience with such good people. Ganna will get Sarah and Geert! Ilyan will get Davy and Evy! I will get Zahria = Perfect! I must admit that hearing Geert and Davy talk about their babies tonight, I envied these two married couples. These men love these babies! They love without condition and I really admire that! Really admire that! I will have this too, Zahri and I will have this! I promise baby, we will have this! You are my absolute priority now!

Court went well, it was maybe 15 minutes at most. My judge was actually a woman, so I loved that! In Kazakhstan, this was an unheard of, and I totally appreciated it! Go Women! My prosecutor was a man, he was serious, asked a couple general questions and then shook my hand at the end as to say Congratulations, which I truly appreciated! I really thought that they would ask, “Why are you so young? Why aren’t you married?” But he did not, she did not, they treated me like any other adoptive family, which I was just not prepared for. I know that I am a stretch here, being young and single and all. I know that I go against their culture, so to agree that I was a good mom for Zahria (Zukhra) was a tough call in the way of culture. If you are an unwed mother here in Kazakhstan it is a really tough life I hear, the culture just isn’t yet accepting of this. It can be very trying to find a husband if you are a single mom, and it can be really trying to be a single mom in their culture in general, so I really applaud the court system for understanding that life in other cultures is beyond this thought / this idea. Man am I so fortunate to live in the United States in this year of 2008 where woman can be independent young mothers, without being married, and still be beautiful! I know that it is still a stretch here, but at least there is a choice, I can choose to parent as a single mom, and a man can choose me as a single parent to still be amazing, beautiful, independent and yet so worthy of the love of marriage and family. This will be me! This will be us!

The first photo is of the court house and the second is a photo of my court room, the 3 women in the photo (with their fur coats :) are Gulnara my coordinator on the left, the orphanage head doctor in the middle, and the lady from the Department of Education that helped me in the selection process.















When I met the Director of Education before I selected my child, she asked me why I was so young, didn’t I want to birth my own child. I answered honestly, as I cannot lie, I said that adoption has always been in my heart. It just has. At this point in my life I didn’t feel that push to ‘birth a child.’ My push was to adopt. I am not sure how to explain this, but I have always known that Zahria was out there waiting for me, she is my child, she was meant to be my first! I know this! My heart knows this! I know this sounds crazy to some, some people have no idea how I could be so heart set on adoption, how I could long for a child that was not in my tummy, but I just knew, I just knew that she was mine! This is my daughter, and she is absolutely beautiful! I know that someday she may need to find her roots, and I will always support this, without hesitation, I will support that she may need to see where she came from and who she got her smile from. But for now, for the next many years, she is mine, my child (and she will always be my child of course), whom I will raise with my wonderful, pure values, to love all those that are good, to understand that we all are unique and good, and that she can be unique and amazing and challenging and exactly who she is, and I will love her always. I appreciate her birth mother. She was a very strong woman! She made choices that I will never know, some that maybe I will never have to understand. It just amazes me that I am a young single woman in the United States adopting a little girl that was born to a young single woman in Kazakhstan and our lives can be so different and yet so the same, we both love this little girl named Zukhra/Zahria so much that we promise to do what is absolutely best for her. Her birth mother promised to carry her, protect her, keep her healthy in her womb & give birth to her and I promise to take care of her, love her and bring her up as a wonderful loving human being. I promise to love her always, to raise her like she too was in my womb and to love her so completely that she never questions what true love is. She is my daughter! My first!

This is the most amazing, and challenging, part of adopting in Kazakhstan, you really get to know your child’s culture. Living here for nearly 2 months, truly being immersed in her culture, I will feel that I have a good sense of where she came from, who her people are and I will then be able to communicate with her what I experienced while living in her region. Her people are good people. Quiet. You need to really get in before you are respected and appreciated. Until then you are just another person on the streets, not worthy of respect or appreciation. They may cut right in front of you in the line at the grocery store, they may look at you and whisper, they may look at the exterior of you and not what is on the inside. But once you get in, you are in, you are family, you are loved forever. Until you leave your bubble of what you have known for your life, and meet new people, to understand a new culture, you cannot truly appreciate, appreciate a new people, you just cannot understand what it is to be raised in an entirely different culture. Life is so different here. People are so different. Not worse, not better, just so different. And I have grown to like it here. People are not fake. You are not an immediate friend. You are not presumed to be good. You are just you. And you need to prove that you are good, and until then, you are just a person.

Gymast Perhaps?

Okay, I promise not to push her, but I am thinking that maybe Z will be a gymnast.......what do you think? :) And I didn't prompt her to do this, she was just laying there playing with her stellar fur boots.

Zahria gets faster and faster by the day, it won’t be long before she is crawling. It started out as an army crawl, no legs were used, and then she was scooting around with her arms and legs, and now she is full speed ahead motivated to move toward something. She almost has the crawl down, but she needs to learn to keep her butt in the air for just a bit longer. Who ever would have thought that I would say that. Haha

Okay, look really close at the photo where Zahri's face is on the beach ball, you can see through the ball that she is slobbering all over it. :) That is my girl!






















Z has two caregivers that really seem to adore and love her and she in return loves them back, it is so nice to see. When they come to get her, she is smiles. It is nice to leave and know that she is in loving hands. I know that they cannot give her the one and one that she gets when she is with me, but I do know that she is being cared for by ladies that adore her. When I left this afternoon, one shouted out the baby room window, ‘Good Luck at Court.’ In Russian of course.

So, while we were just driving home from my afternoon visit I noticed 3 school aged boys ice skating on the sidewalks. I am not kidding you either!!! They had their normal ice skates on and everything, and it seemed to be working out just fine for them. Too funny!

INTERESTING KAZ TIDBIT: When you are at a stoplight and it is about to turn red, the green light first blinks a couple times to warn you, then it turns to yellow and then red. I found that interesting.

ANOTHER INTERESTING TIDBIT: A couple weeks ago we were coming to pick up Margo at the older baby house and just before we entered the grounds, behind an apartment complex, there were 2 men skinning a sheep. Seriously, I about freaked out, but I kept my cool, did a double take, and yes in fact they had it tied by its’ hind legs to a clothes line and were skinning it. YUCK! How in the world could they be doing this right out there in the open? But then I thought, we do this with deer. When I grew up my dad was/is a hunter and he would bring home the deer and elk and hang them by their hind legs in our garage. Well, they don’t have many garages here, so right out in the open it is. I guess it is what you are used to, what you grew up with, because Ceric and Aina didn’t even look twice or comment. It just makes my stomach turn thinking about it again, but really it is just life.

YET ANOTHER WHILE I AM AT IT: There are many stray dogs and cats here. Here, because there are so many apartments, there are also a lot of dumpsters, dumpsters that are overflowing with garbage. At these dumpsters you will always find stray animals. At first I was so sad about it, but again, dogs were historically wild animals, so I think they make it just fine here. I haven’t seen that they bother people at all……oh but there was one time that I now do recall……it was at the skating rink by the stadium, a dog had gotten a hold of a young man’s hat, he was probably 20 something, and he was chasing the dog all around trying to make him drop it. Finally he scared the dog by pouncing right down on the ground in front of the dog, yes, he was totally on the ground, his entire body, and the dog dropped the hat and jumped back in fear. It worked. It was quite funny really, the dog was just playing.

Slobbery Pooh Beach Ball Day

Today Gulnara, my coordinator, verified that all is good for my court hearing on Friday. All needed documents are signed and prepared. This has been an unusually emotional week, and I cannot wait to breathe again once I get the judge’s final decision on Friday. I will be in court at 11:00 am. Remember to breathe until then Christy!

Z is more amazing each day! I adore this child! Today we took a lot of really cute photos while we were playing with the blow up Pooh beach ball, she loves this thing. Davy deflated it a bit and she loved being able to hold on to it and toss it around……..I must add that she loved to try to bit and thus slobbered all over it too. Good thing for Pamper wipes!





















Between visits today Bayana met all of us at the basement of the Business Center for some amazing Pizza! This place rocks! It is a very moody, dark restaurant with stellar pizza, really, it tastes just like home………if not better!








And then we all went to the Museum for the Aqtobe Region; the Museum is considered to be in the old section of Aqtobe, and this region still has an unusually Soviet feel. The building that is now the Museum was the oldest biggest Hotel in Aqtobe. We had a wonderful guide who did the entire presentation in English. Rock on! I don’t think that I would have enjoyed it quite as much had she spoken Russian. Hehe This lady was a wonderful story teller. She told us of the history of Kazakhstan, showed us some of the local protected animals and plants, & talked with us about Kazak traditions. She mentioned that there were many good things about being part of the former Soviet Union, but one of the negative aspects was that each country was not able to research their own personal heritage and culture. Kazakhstan is now really researching and celebrating their culture as they had lost that for so many years under Soviet rule. Kazaks believe strongly in color, so when they are creating rugs, tapestries, coverings for their homes, etc. they do so with color in mind. Red = Life, Green = Food, Brown = Earth, Yellow = Fire and white is most important of all, white = milk. White is so important because it is the color of the mother’s milk that gives life and health to the baby. The Aqtobe region is well known for their oil and gas fields. She also made mention of how stupid their people are, her words exactly, she said that they sell the hides of animals for $5 each to Turkey. Turkey then turns the hides into beautiful fur coats and sells them back to the Kazak people for $500. haha

Another amuzing & interesting tidbit of our tour was when our tour guide told us that Japan is the most brilliant country in the world. She insisted that Japan is just an island with no natural resources such as oil & gas, they didn't have any sheep, goats, horses or camels to hunt, eat, use their bones for weapons, jewelry and such, help them haul and build, etc. and yet they have really made something of their country; they are indeed the smartest people in the world. Very interesting thought.














The Kazak people also follow the Chinese Oriental Calendar. When we go shopping there are mice everywhere, so I knew something was up, and yes 2008 is the year of the mouse. Because this is the year of Zahri’s adoption, I picked up the cutest little cream mouse. I also purchased a kid’s book on the Oriental Calendar, and the year of the Mouse reads:

This year the Mouse proved
More resourceful than the Camel.
It stored enough this summer
For people and livestock to be full.

Last year, Zahri’s birth, was the year of the boar, and the year of the Boar reads:

The last year in the cycle
Is called the year of Boar.
It brings abundance,
So we’ll be prosperous ever more.

Last year was indeed prosperous as my daughter was brought into this great world!

Success at Court X4

I am happy to report that 4 out of our 5 couples here have made it through court and into the 15 day appeal period with great success! Just me to go! So far, so good, it looks like all of the ducks are in a row now for Z and I too, so hopefully Friday goes well! Today during visits I wrote up my 3 minute speech that I am to give to the judge, it is all about facts, no fluff. Who am I, am I educated, do I own a home, how long at my job, annual salary, why adopting, am I in good health, why did I select Zahri, etc.

If all goes as planned, my mom and sister will be heading to Aqtobe on February 9th, arriving here on the 11th. I am so excited to see them and share Z with them! It sounds like we may only have a day, maybe 2, here in Aqtobe and then we are off to Almaty for a couple additional days. I am hoping to be back in Minnesota by the 18th of February, but as we all know, flexibility is the key.

So, what am I doing right now? Well, glad that you asked. I just washed up some burp cloths and bibs in my tiny pedestal sink and hung them to dry on my make shift clothes line that is strung from my armoire to the window, a total of maybe 4 feet. The left side of the string is tied to the knob of the top cabinet of my armoire, so when I hang something a bit too heavy, the cabinet door swings open and causes a bit of chaos, Hehe I am also making butter noodles on my hot plate that sits on my lone Dining Chair, drinking a glass of Kazak wine, and listening to the BBC. I must be honest and say that I am so much more educated now on foreign affairs and the U.S. race for president. I never quite realized just how ‘stuck in my own little bubble’ I have been. You live your life going to and from work, making supper, doing laundry, cleaning your home, paying your bills, and that is about your life………oh sorry, forgot one really important item in my old day to day, watching HGTV, can’t forget that. It is hard to really take in what is happening in the world around you when you are so consumed with your day to day.

It is Official - Z Doesn't Like Brittany Spears

At this afternoon's visit, it was just Z, me and Bayana; the two Belguim couples were at court this afternoon(fingers and toes crossed that all went well.) Since Zahri is such a little dancer, Bayana played Brittany Spears' new song on her cell phone, and nothing, not even a little wiggle out of Z. Looks like Z doesn't care much for Brittany or her recent antics. Then, Bayana played another song, and Zahri gave up a little boogie. :) She is just so darn cute! Whenever we laugh at her, she stops dancing, so it took all that I had to hold it in. She is definitely a girl after her mom's heart, her mom loves to boogie too!



Court is still set for Friday. Life is still good. Still camping out in my Dormitory. Amazed that I am 1/2 way around the world immersed in Zahri's culture learning about her people, region and customs.

INTERESTING KAZ TIDBIT: I have been wondering how in the world the cars start in the mornings here. It is so desperately cold here, and they don't have garages and don't plug in their cars either. There is just no way that they can start on their own in the morning. And today, I found out their tricks.......every night they take the batteries out of their cars and take them inside where it is warm, then come morning they re-install their batteries and off they go! Obviously they don't own a VW Tourag as I do, you can't even find the battery in these cars. :)

One Tough Little Cookie

So here she is, at her best, my little Z who refuses to give up very easily. :) I hope you enjoy this tiny little clip as it took me one hour to upload on my dial up connection, that is after a 20 minute failed attempt to upload. Zahri is playing with Davy in this clip, and Davy is trying to take her stacking ring, but she just won't have it. And no, Davy is not one of the other babies, Davy is a 30 some year old man trying to take her toy. :)

Tour of the Mosque

Z continues to grow each day. She is a tough little girl. Today Davy tried stealing her interlocking play rings (let me remind you that Davy is not one of the other babies, he is a 31 year old grown man from Belguim – hehe) and Z held on for dear life, she had only 2 little fingers grasping her beloved toys and she held on until he gave up. I continue to be so proud! I also took a cute video of Davy trying to steal her stacking rings and she hangs on so tight that he starts to pull her along the floor, really it wasn’t mean, it was so cute! She was serious, those toys were hers!















Zahri is growing more and more in love with Bayan everyday. Bayan is so great with the babies and the other families, she gets down on our play blankets and interacts with the kids in such a real and loving manner and the babies respond. Z just adores anyone that speaks Russian, when she starts to hear someone talking in Russian she pauses and looks for them, you can tell that she is fond of her native language. Thus when Bayan speaks in Russian to the other translator in the room, Zahri pays close attention. Check out these sweet photos of Z and Bayan, they are some of the best photos yet. It is so nice to take photos of Z interacting with others, and it is nice to get photos of Z and I interacting as well, something that is tough to do when you are a one woman family.











Oh yeah, I am drinking Vodka and O’Juice right now and eating a piece of fresh Banana Cake that Laurie left me, and might I add that I am doing this while computing on my single bed. Hehe

Between visits today, Bayan, Davy, Evy and I went to the Mosque and were treated with a personal tour. When we entered the Mosque we were asked to take off our shoes before walking on any of the carpets, and then we (the 3 girls) needed to please take a scarf and cover our hair before entering the temple. The Kazak people are Muslim, so this is one of the 3 Mosques in Aqtobe and the only Mosque that is connected to a Mall in the world. This Mosque was built in 1999 and when under construction one very important building requirement was forgotten. Traditionally, all men and women are supposed to enter through separate doors and then worship on separate floors, but a mistake was made and this was ‘forgotten’ so men and women enter this Mosque through the same door but do essentially have separate worship areas. We were told that it is not that men are more important than women, just that when both men and women worship alongside each other, men have a harder time concentrating on the worship thus it is traditional for the men to worship on the main floor and the women have a separate room upstairs. Children are also allowed to worship here. True practicing Muslims are to take time to pray 5 times a day, thus you will hear a prayer broadcast from the Mosque 5 times each day. I can hear the broadcast from my Hotel room which is about 2-3 blocks away, it is a wonderful sound. The gentleman that showed us around the Mosque made sure that we understood that Muslims do not believe in terrorism, despite what has been said, he has read and re-read the Koran and done much research and nowhere does it ever say that killing people is okay. This is a group of disturbed people that do these things, not a religion. On another note, it was so cute, when Bayan, Davy, Evy and I went up the stairs to see where the women worship, Davy was stopped by a young man, no older than 12, that told him that he was not allowed upstairs, this is an area for women only. Bayan explained that we are only there to tour not to worship and he let Davy up to see. Then while we were up in the worship area, this same boy pointed out that you read the Koran, written in Arabic, from right to left not left to right as we typically read text. He was pointing to words in his Koran, and I believe that it was Evy or Bayan that said, “Oh, can we see your book?” And he shut the book and explained that we are not allowed to read the book. It was so great, this young boy was studying his religion and was very intent on following his religious customs by the book. Every Friday they have worship and about 2000 people show to worship at this Mosque alone, so many get there 2 hours early to get their place. There are no pews, no chairs, only carpet on the floor that has individual prayer areas that outline where each worshiper is to kneel. Another interesting tidbit we learned was that the head of the worship room in every Mosque faces Mecca, the holy city.

When we left our tour at the Mosque, Evy said, “You are so lucky, had we come to see the Mosque on our own, we would have just looked around and not been given the tour as we were today. You are so lucky that you have the translators that you do!!” It is true, not all in-country teams are equal. I know in another post I talked about this and someone (sorry can’t remember who this was) commented that they thought it was normal place to have a driver take you to supper and pick you up after words, have your translator take you to see the sights and go shopping, etc. I am not sure of other regions, but in Aqtobe this is not commonplace. Other in-country teams are told that they are to take the families to and from the baby house for scheduled visits and that is it. The translators are told that their job is to just sit at the baby house in the play room to be sure that the families are there and are bonding with their children; they do not need to take them out to see the sights, give them advice on places to eat better yet go with them to the restaurants, etc. I would have to imagine that those teams that tend to go above and beyond do so because they are being ‘taken care of’ by the adoption agencies in the States, not because they are just kind hearted people that know it is a nice thing to do despite their wages and relationships with the agencies. Some drivers have second jobs, so taking their families to supper or shopping, etc is not even an option for them. Some translators are taking care of multiple families from multiple agencies so they don’t have time to go the extra mile with individual families. I am not meaning to demean any other agency or the in-country teams here; I just write my posts to help educate those who have not yet traveled, I want to post the information that I couldn’t find on blogs before I traveled. These are only my experiences here, so please don’t take all that I post as fact that applies to all regions, all agencies, all in-country team set-ups and all family’s experiences.