September 17: Meet Mereke...

We headed to Karakastek at 8am today, because there was a festival near Karakastek, and it was going to cause major traffic. We saw the festival preparations on our way out. A huge fairgrounds had been set up on a hillside, a couple miles off the road. There were security guards at every side road starting 2 towns before we got to the spot on the rural road where the festival was taking place.

So we arrived at the orphanage, and they came to take Dinara away. I felt so shitty, I just kissed her on the forehead, and told her goodbye. They care deeply for her here. They want to see her adopted to a loving family, but in the meantime they will continue to do their best with her.

Then they brought in Mereke. This is the second girl we had met on Wednesday, before they took her away again. We are taking a slightly more clinical approach this time, for her sake as well as ours, reserving the final emotional decision for after we have spoken with Dr. Aronson. We asked for her medical report first thing, and took a photocopy so we could pass all the information to Dr. Aronson. Then we settled in to some serious play time. She is sweet and bright, very attentive. She smiled at us within the first minute. She was very content to lie on her back and play with her feet. She likes to suck, and wouldn't let go of my finger for several minutes. She looked around, and seemed very interested in Liam (who wouldn't be?). She worked on crawling for a long time, pushing up to her hands and knees and rocking forward and backward, while watching Liam play with a toy. After about an hour and a half, we said our goodbyes, and headed back to town.

We are asked to make a decision about Mereke by tomorrow evening (Sunday). If we choose to adopt her, we will travel back to the orphanage on Monday to continue visits (and hopefully take her back with us for the rest of the week). This time, we are going to reserve judgment until we have spoken to Dr. Aronson. Here's hoping she'll be willing to talk to us over the weekend.

Oh, someone pointed out that we haven't told the outcome to the diaper donation saga. So a couple of days ago, I called FedEx, and they told me that the letter about the diapers being a humanitarian donation needs to go to Customs, not FedEx. Since Customs probably does not have anyone who speaks English, it wouldn't make much sense for Seventh Generation to write a letter. That's good, because I emailed them on Monday, and they still haven't responded. So, Irina dealt with it directly with Customs. In the end, I think she had to pay around $200 to get them released, but she did so out of the fees that we paid her, rather than us paying it. We have not yet delivered the diapers, but other issues have taken precedence over scheduling the logistics of bringing them out there, taking pictures, etc. We'll report more on that when we do the actual delivery.

For now, we are going to try to get some much needed rest, and take Sunday off.

Love, Vanessa, Brian, Liam and Judy

Meet Mereke...

Grandma gets a turn.

Everyone played with Mereke. This is Mira, our translator