THIS WEEKEND'S POSTINGS

WHEN I FINALLY GET AROUND TO WRITING ABOUT TODAY (PROBABLY TOMORROW), YOU WILL UNDERSTAND WHY I DIDN'T GET INTO THAT RIGHT NOW (IT'S 11:40 P.M. OUR TIME).  WE JUST GOT INTERNET SERVICE AT OUR NEW APARTMENT THIS EVENING.  HERE ARE MY JOURNAL ENTRIES FOR SUNDAY AND MONDAY.

JANUARY 24, 2010

We just arrived at our apartment in Kolya’s region after a 16 hour train ride. It was a zhivago-esque ride. When we started out from the capital, we were near the end of the train. Some time in the night, we got turned around and were near the front of the train. The train stopped several times -- something like 20 -- in small towns and villages along the way, letting people off and on. I slept fairly well, from about 11:30 p.m to 7:00 a.m., considering the fact that I hung in a small bunk on a jostling 1950’s era train that kept stopping and starting over and over again.
 Tyler, our translator, and I played Go Fish while David went to check out the dining car. After he was gone for an hour, or so, he texted me several times, asking us to please join him. After our game, we finally did. David had already made friends with everybody in that car (about 6-7 people), despite the fact that not one of them spoke English, and he -- of course -- speaks absolutely no Russian. We stayed there for about an hour, or so, before returning to our cabin.

The sights were interesting along the way, although most of our trip was after dark. We left at 4:30 p.m., and within an hour it was dark. What we were most interested in seeing was the scenery as we approached the region. That actually was pretty cool to see. There were some hills that we had to climb, and the train was slow-going in those areas.

At one place, about two hours from the city in the region where we will stay, there was a row of what looked like farm houses, perpendicular to the railroad tracks. It was 7:30 a.m. on a Sunday morning, and some of the houses had fresh fireplace smoke curling above them, while others were apparently still cold. Snow covered the road into the houses, and had not been driven on. It made me want to be in one of those houses with the fresh smoke, just waking up to a newly built fire and hot coffee. Serene. Relaxed.

The rest of our train experience included getting to see a man shoveling heating coal into an orifice between train cars, and our walking between the cars. Walking between the cars could have been pretty scary if we had not expected it. The floors were moving at differing angles, and we had to step across them without falling. It was also cold enough in that “outside” area to see our breathing.

And then, there were the bathrooms. If you’ve ever used a porta-potty during Mardi Gras, you were lucky. If you’ve ever hovered over a hole in an outhouse over the water on a Panamanian island, you’re much closer to this experience. This is the experience in which you -- as a woman -- are thinking, “If I don’t think about it too much, just about getting the job done, I’ll be okay. Just don’t touch anything. The floor is totally wet. I wonder what that is on the floor. No, it’s better not to think about it. Whatever it is, it’s now on the bottom of my boots. I’ve been working out, so that’s good. My quads are very strong. I can do this. Assume the position. Don’t touch that handle. I’ll use this hand to hold my clothes out of the way, and the other to hold the paper and just steady myself. I am so glad I brought my own paper. That entire roll was wet. It was probably on the floor before I walked in here. OMG that smell! Don’t touch that handle! What’s that? Oh, no! My leg touched it! OMG, my leg touched it! Ewww -- I dropped my paper! I’d rather drip dry than touch that roll. My quads are shaking, now. Oh, crap. Just forget it. Did my hair touch the wall? Did I touch my hair to the wall? It’s okay. The wall is -- well, it’s better than touching anything else. As long as it wasn’t one of my hands, it’s okay. Now, I have to stand up and move away from the toilet without my clothes touching it. Good. That’s good. Pants up. The sink is full of -- water? I am not ABOUT to touch that sink to wash my hands here. I’ll use some of my antibacterial cleaner when I get back to the room. I guess I have to touch the door lock and handle. It’ll be okay -- I get to clean my hands in just a minute. Whew! I feel much better, now. I just won’t drink any more water until we get to the city. I hope I don’t need to go to the bathroom in the night. I am sooo thirsty.”
. . .
I spent over two hours on the phone with AT&T trying to get my at&t network coverage worked out. Turns out they all lied. After I told one idiot which country we were in, about 30 minutes later she asked me, “Are you somewhere in Europe?“ We have no coverage here. We can purchase additional coverage at a rate of $20 per MB! The bottom line is that we can’t watch the Vikings vs. Saints game online, even though we’ve already paid $25 to NFL.com to do so. Wonderful. Hopefully, we can watch the game on a taped version on their website when we get internet service (supposedly tomorrow). Meantime, I guess we will get some sleep tonight after all. The game starts at 1:30 a.m. our time. We were willing to stay up or get up in the night to watch, but, alas, that just won’t be an issue.


Monday, January 25, 2010

From 1:30 a.m. until a little after 5:00 a.m., I only slept very intermittently. I kept waking up and going to NFL.com on my phone to check the scores for the Saints game. I CAN’T BELIEVE THE SAINTS ARE GOING TO THE SUPER BOWL!!! Wow! What a game that was! I can’t wait to watch it. An OVERTIME win by a field goal, after a game-saving interception of Brett Favre’s pass in field goal range, when there had only been seven seconds left in the game!
 After running around all day gathering up additional documentation that the orphanage director required -- today -- we finally were allowed to see Kolya around 3:00. Tyler and I went with our translator to the orphanage. The director, our translator, 2 people from the inspector’s office, and I were sitting in the director’s office while she gave a little background information about Kolya to them. None of that was translated for me. Our translator filled me in somewhat on that tonight after we ate supper. The director asked me what I would do if I were to be divorced from David. I told her I guessed that I would go to work full time instead of just part time. She asked if I would take the boys back to their orphanages. I told her that, of course, I would not.

After a while, a caretaker finally brought Kolya in. He looks just the same, growing at the same rate, and just a cutie. He had great big hugs for me and shook hands with Tyler, then he asked where dad was. David had left us earlier, taking a cab back to the apartment because he has a bad lower abdominal pain that he is afraid is appendicitis. The director asked Kolya repeatedly to tell her the truth about whether he was sure he wanted to be adopted and go to America, because it was an irreversible decision -- forever. She then asked me to do the same: make sure he understands that he can’t return to the orphanage, and that adoption is for life. Then she asked him how does he feel about leaving his caretaker, and his country. He told her he can call them. He understands and says that he still wants to be adopted. After about 45 minutes, we had to leave because the orphanage was having a teachers’ meeting, and it was already late when we arrived there. Of course, we were so late because we were fulfilling extra documentation requirements that she had decided we needed to take care of. We leave tomorrow morning at 9:30 to go see Kolya for a private visit, a visit that should be longer.
 The biggest problem we have now in completing the adoption is -- of course -- a new requirement that we undergo an Interpol background check. No one seems to know exactly how long that takes, because it is a requirement that was just passed into law last summer, and just started being enforced last week for the first time. We are our facilitator’s first Interpol clearance couple, so she just doesn’t know what to tell us, yet. Some say 14 days extra, some say 17, and someone else said that it could be 40 days, or so. Without that clearance, we can’t even get a court date, so I may end up having to make two trips after all.

Our apartment here is very nice, except they still do not have internet service connected for us, and we ran out of hot water after only one shower tonight. Our translator was the lucky one with a whole shower. I told her that I get to wash my hair and shave tomorrow night -- my turn! We have two bedrooms and a large foldout sofa in the den, and the kitchen and bathroom floors are heated, so that part is pretty nice.