September 14: Curve Ball

So, today brought a little curve ball. At 9:30, Natalia, and Irina arrived with the driver (we still haven’t asked his name). There wasn’t room in the car for all of us, so Judy opted to stay alone in the apartment. It happened very fast, and without any English (we were without a translator all day – neither Natalia nor Irina speak any English). I felt bad leaving Judy here all alone, but she called it a “break”, and got a lot of knitting done. So I hope it was a good thing for her.

When we got to Karakastek, they brought in Dinara, and 2 minutes later, they brought in a second girl, smiled and introduced her to us. There was some conversation in Russian, and then we were invited into the Director’s office, to call Ekaterina, Irina’s daughter who speaks English. I was numb. Were we going to be told that Dinara is not available? Did they decide to admit something about her medical history that they knew would change our minds? Finally, it was my turn to talk to Ekaterina on the phone, and she explained that they had found a second girl for us, and that it was completely our decision. This second girl is more healthy, and we might feel better about adopting her. She reiterated that it was completely our choice, but they just wanted to give us the options available. She said we could continue to visit both of them every day until we made our decision. I said “thank you”, hung up, and explained to Brian what she had said. We were both slightly removed from our bodies as we reflected on this interesting development. We agreed to go in and spend some time with both girls, even though we both thought we wanted to continue to pursue Dinara

We spent about 10 minutes with both girls. This second girl is definitely more healthy, twice the weight, etc. But we had been going down the path with Dinara and had no reason to want to change. Since there were no English-speaking people in the room besides us, I had some conversation with both girls, gently cooing at them “This is a disgusting world. What a horrible thing I’m doing right now.....”

So, after about 10 minutes, the Director came in again, and some slightly heated conversation happened between her and Irina, after which Irina called me out into the hallway with her, to call Ekaterina again, this time on Irina’s cell phone. We sat on the window sill to get reception. Ekaterina explained that the second girl actually wasn’t available – there was a problem with her paperwork. She was obviously upset at having to tell me this. She apologized very sincerely, said she knows how hard this is for us, and she is very sorry that it happened like this.

So, we went back to the room, they took the second girl away, and we continued to visit with Dinara. Liam continues to be extremely sensitive with her. We had a nice time, putting her on the ground and practicing moving around a little. She is showing more and more life each day, more facial expressions and movement.

An hour later, we were getting ready to leave, and I managed to communicate without words, that we’d like to read the American Doctor’s report again (the one they showed us on Monday). Not only were they happy to get it, but the doctor gladly gave me her pen so that I could jot down what was on the report, including the name and phone number of the American medical group and doctor who wrote the report. I tried to call her later today, but did not get through. I’ll try again tomorrow.

When we returned to Almaty, we stopped and picked up Judy at the apartment, then went to Mad Murphy’s Irish Pub to meet April and Zach Taylor. Their driver agreed to get us home, so we said goodbye to Natalia and our driver.

We had a wonderful time with April and Zach, and their kids Kai and Grace. Nice, slow eating, a big fenced-in grassy yard and playground for the kids. We were there from about 2:00 until about 5:00. Whether it’s just because it’s the third day, or because beer is a magical cure, we are all feeling much better on the jetlag front, and I for one am looking forward to a full night’s sleep (or as close as I ever get to that anyway).

Another thing that’s happening is that the diaper donation we arranged has hit a little snag. The Customs office wants $757 USD for customs charges, because they were sent under the heading of “commerce”. So we are trying to figure out the correct way to communicate to Customs that this is not a commercial shipment, but a humanitarian shipment. We’ll try a letter to Customs tomorrow..... The really messed up thing is that they want $757 for customs, on $300 worth of merchandise. That’s pretty messed up. We’ll try to work it out for a few more days. If it doesn’t work, it will be a real shame, but we’ll just have to let them stay at customs forever. Instead of paying $757 to get $300 worth of diapers that were donated in the first place, we’ll spend half that much buying twice as many diapers here in Almaty!