Catching Up

Still trying to get caught up with the blog entries…

On Tuesday Luba tried to submit our petition to adopt to the SDA in Kiev. They only accept petitions on Mon, Wed, and Fri and although we were hoping that they would take it early - the documents were refused and we will have to wait until Wednesday.

We are commuting to the orphanage every other day as we just don’t have enough cash to pay for the taxi every day. We have made quite a dent in the cash we brought and have become extremely frugal as we are so afraid to run out of US dollars. So many of the blogs we read before coming here listed everything to bring - and I must say I think the most important thing is cash! Ukraine is a cash society and everything from groceries to apartment rent to buying a cell phone must be done in cash. We had heard that some places would take credit cards but we’ve not found them! Thankfully our ATM cards do work here and we’ve been able to withdraw grivinas. That way we can pay for the driver and groceries in grivna, saving our dollars for the apartment, the translator and the other adoption fees.

We have been shocked at the prices of things here. The grocery prices are equivalent to the prices in the USA. I don’t know how people survive here - as a Ukrainian’s monthly salary is around $250. Yes - that is the MONTHLY salary. Our translator said that prices have tripled in recent months and each day we drive past the gas station the price of gas has gone up. I really feel for this country as it seems to be at a breaking point and there is no sign of inflation letting up. Every day we see men digging through the dumpsters looking for food. There are beggars on the streets - young and old. The orphanage is better than what we expected - but that’s not really saying much. The temperature in the room where we play with Nicholas is around 55 degrees. We stay bundled up when we visit.

We are not completely comfortable here. We try to make sure we’re home before
dark each evening as we were told it’s not safe here after dark. The building doesn’t do anything to alleviate our safety concerns - our apartment has two doors! There is a steel door in the hallway - that one swings into the hall. Then there is the interior door which is made of thick wood and that swings into the apartment. Both doors have steel dead bolt locks. We’re not totally sure if it’s for security or to keep out the stink! :o) There is still the awful stench coming from the first floor. Now that my nose is starting to clear I can smell it. I almost got sick in the hallway waiting for Mike to open the steel apartment door. It is that bad.

On Wednesday we went to the orphanage and played Uno with Nicholas. We used the game to teach him numbers and colors. He tends to get hung up on the numbers four and five in English. I think we’ll play this again as he really got a kick out of the game and he didn’t realize he was learning in the process! :o) Nicholas also assembled an 80 piece puzzle. I think we’ll get a couple more of these as he really enjoys them and they are about the size of the tray table on the airplane - so this may keep him busy for a while on the ride home.

We heard on Thursday that the SDA accepted the petition to adopt so now we have to wait the 5 days for their approval and then hopefully we can get a court date next week. We are really feeling stressed about getting a court date as we keep hearing how the entire country shuts down for two weeks beginning on New Years. It sounds like it’s quite the party here during those two weeks. There are costumes for sale in the stores and it looks like it’s basically like Mardi Gras in New Orleans for two weeks. Hopefully we’ll be done with all our adoption paperwork well before then and can be planning our trip home.

Thanks so much for the comments - we love reading them. Please keep them coming! I’m a bit homesick - and we’ve got another 3 weeks here!