First day at Orphanage ~ Day 7

My tummy has been in knots since we first left the train this morning. We met our driver and were taken to our apartment. When we walked in we were hit by an overwhelming smell of smoke. Awesome. Luba asked us to stay here until at least the afternoon to take a shower and get ready because we have to get to the orphanage and have a lot to do today. OK.. Fine. Bad idea. The apartment is very nice and I really like it, the only problem is that we smell like chain smokers now.

When they came to pick us up to go and get our facilitator my stomach was literally jumping like I was on a roller coaster. I’m thinking it was a combination of the driving skills and the events we are looking forward to.

I have tried to explain to other families who are adopting that our situation is much, much different than theirs. The girl we have flown around the world to adopt knows of us, but does not know us. We saw her and maybe she will recognize us, maybe. We have NEVER had a conversation with her. She knows nothing about us. I luckily was able to find out a few things about her from the family who hosted her, but not much. Enough to buy her a few clothes (that I am sure will be too big now that I have seen her) and to tell you she is quiet, shy and very sweet.

We had to drive and pick up the facilitator to watch our bonding and sign that she agrees that this adoption should take place. She was a young, very nice lady. I chatted with her on the drive over with Luba’s help. She explained to me that the way I wear my rings is very confusing. I had 2 rings on my left ring finger and 1 ring on my right ring finger. She wondered if I had been divorced? Apparently here they wear their wedding ring on their right hand and if you wear a ring on your left ring finger that means you have been divorced. I had 2 on that finger.. She was thinking 2 divorces!! Thank heavens we cleared that one up.

We arrived at the orphanage which I must say is overall the nicest building other than the church and the temple we have been in. The walk to Larissa’s office seemed to be the longest walk ever. We had the Cooks there and they were going to meet with the girl they are adopting to ask her if she would like to be adopted. She is darling. Our neighbors who introduced us to this program hosted her and so she recognized us. She hugged us and it was very comfortable seeing her again. I was so excited because I had spent a small amount of time with her when she was here. She was familiar! That was fun. It was so crazy the pressure and maturity these kids are expected to have. What a huge decision. When I say pressure I mean just the enormity of the decision to leave their friends, their language, their culture and anything familiar to leave to the unknown. Sure they are told it will be a much better life, but who knows what will really happen.

They all left together, now for Larissa to call for Victoria. She came in the room and is so shy. She was not expecting us and was not especially expecting us today! We had a few moments to visit. That is very tricky for a couple like us and a girl like Vica. We are shy and so is she. I couldn’t bring myself to put on a show and be overly touchy or affectionate. We just talked as if we had just met. They told her we were there to adopt her and asked her if she would like to be adopted into our family. She said she didn’t know and would maybe like to get to know us a little first. Thank you! I am so happy she at least wanted to take a little time before making such a huge decision. I think I would have worried otherwise.

I don’t want to give you the impression that this wasn’t totally awkward! It was weird. It was amazing and wonderful to be here doing this, but such a strange way to invite someone into your family. We spent time asking a few questions back and forth. She is very shy. Our interpreter had to leave and I think she based her decision off of what we did without the interpreter there. I brought a deck of uno cards and because we couldn’t talk we played. We got to see a bit more of her personality and she ours. It was fun. Spencer is really trying to pick up some of the language. It is a very difficult language for me to retain. I can repeat it just fine and keep it for a few hours, but that’s about it. While we were talking with the translator she explained that her brother lives here in Zaporozhe and before she makes any decision to leave him she would like to talk to him. He visits her occasionally and they are close. She thinks he would be OK with her coming, but would like us to meet him and would like to talk to him first. That was fine for us. We told her we would help her stay in touch with him as much as we can and that we would encourage her to maintain a relationship. She gave his number to Luba and said she would call later. We stayed and just talked and played. It will be very hard for a while. Hopefully the rumor that she will pick up English quickly is true.

After spending a few hours with her and chatting with Luba about the adoption process she decided that she didn’t want to wait to make her decision with her brother, that he would be Ok with it and she would write her letter to request that the SDA allows her to be adopted. Larissa is one busy lady and had a lot of paperwork she was doing. She was very nice and kept offering us coffee or tea. I felt so awful and rude refusing so many times. I tried to explain to Luba that we just don’t drink those drinks. Then Larissa offered to feed us. We’d been there a long time and she felt terribly that we hadn’t had a chance to eat. Vica is so bubbly and animated when she is with her friend. They were obviously recounting the entire day as she walked us to the cafeteria and asked the kitchen to prepare a meal for us. I gotta say, this was not something I was hoping to experience… eating orphanage food, but it wasn’t bad. They served us 2 kinds of breads, eggs – sunny side up, some kind of meat and some delicious carrots that I expected to be warm, but were cold. A surprise to my gag reflex, but then it was OK. I really had a hard time eating period, it could have been papa johns and I would have had a difficult time, the anxiety and nerves were too much to be hungry. The kids were very polite and cleared up our plates and tidied up our spots. We walked back up to wait for our paperwork to be finished. I was surprised that Larissa didn’t give Vica the same speech that the Cooks daughter got, but maybe it is better this way.

She wrote her letter and said to the facilitator and the director that she wanted us to be her family and we were excused. There was a huge sense of relief and still there is sense that something could go wrong at any moment. There are several circumstances here that could interfere with what we are doing, hopefully it’ll all work out, right!?

We had to leave to get all of our paperwork notarized and all sorts of errands run, but we asked if she wanted us to bring her anything and she asked us for Nutella.

We had asked if there was any way to change apartments and so after the notary we left to find a new place. It was a lot of work for the facilitators and I feel badly making them go to the trouble. We went into the other apartment which was nice, we weren’t in love with the location or with the place, but it was smokeless. We ended up deciding to deal with the smoke rather than deal with the change. We’ll see if we like that decision tomorrow. We were just so tired. Luba took us to get a modem and minutes for our phone then to the grocery store. We’re all set. We even did a few loads of laundry today! Which here means a few outfits. The washers are tiny and we have to hang dry everything.