Our Day

Tom is going to post shortly with our report on Veronika, so I'll post a few pictures until he does, and then let me try to describe to you what our days have been like. We wake early and are alone in our apartment to get dressed, drink tea and wait for Aunt Bacha to arrive and start cooking our 1^st meal of the day.

Each meal has 3 courses and has been delicious. I will certainly come home with a few additional pounds. I am not used to the quantity and or the variety of foods but I eat them happily and feel well taken care of in that respect. I shall blog later on “food”.

We are picked up after breakfast to go to the orphanage by our coordinator, Khabiba and her husband, who drive us over to the orphanage for our morning visit.

The weather has been fair and we have enjoyed being able to have our visits with Veronica outside while the workers are inside fixing windows before the winter comes. We brought a few simple toys and so far have been able to amuse Veronika and not yet tire her of our selection. When we see the other children in the yard, they seem content but without much stimulation or variety of toys to play with. We have not spent much time with the other children but will try to get more involved as time goes on. For now our efforts are all on Veronika and the bonding.

We are generally back to the flat by noon and await our next feast at about 1:00 pm. We then sit around in conversation and rest until our next orphanage visit from 4-6:00pm, then back to the house where dinner awaits. Bacha goes home for the day and we linger over our meal and discuss our day.

Now I should mention that the internet is painfully slow here with just dial-up access and guess what….my Mac laptop does not have a dial up modem so I am unable to use it. I never realized that would be an issue. So needless to say the two of us online with one computer at super slow speed is quite a shock to the system.

We have not ventured out in the neighborhood yet, but we are feeling the need to so. Tomorrow we will may go out and about during the afternoon and explore, or there is a new pool here in Arkalyk and Khabiba has promised to take us there if she has time.

Tom plans to work at night to the extent he can with the dial-up (his blackberry loses its data connection for hours at a time) so I will catch up on my reading at night.

We had a party at out flat last night to celebrate our formal decision to adopt Veronika. Our coordinator Khabiba, her husband and daughter and the doctor from the orphanage, Marina, her husband and daughter. Tom and I had just finished dinner when they all arrived and out came more food and VODKA. The way it worked was, Khabbiba started with a toast, then everyone drank their shot of vodka and ate some food, talked some more, the glasses were filled and the next person gave the toast, shots were knocked back, and the process was repeated several times. The Americans held their own but I missed the part about eating something after each shot, so I was a little rougher than most. On that note I will end for now and pick up again when I am feeling better.