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Day 2 Day 2 (Monday April 28, 2003) – We now know the meaning of Emotional
At around
midnight last night, Roza (our interpreter and part-time driver) arrived with our newest
tenant to Casa de Kaz in tow. I had to give up
my beloved computer room for Pam to use as her bedroom.
Ahhhh, the sacrifices I make. Seriously,
Pam’s a single mom with Kaz experience, so she’s a definite welcome addition to
the team. We stayed up until about 2:00am
talking with Pam. She’s previously
adopted a little girl from China and another little girl from Kazakhstan and is here to
adopt a little boy from the same baby house (orphanage) that Alia currently resides.
In the
morning Roza called to say that the paperwork from the Ministry of Education was complete
and she’d be picking us up to go meet the kids at around 10:30am. Wooooooooo hoooooooo!
We took the 25-minute trek to the orphanage (by the way, not only is Roza
quite the looker, but she’s also a speedster and fearless on the road) and arrived to
a meeting with the Chief Doctor of the orphanage. Since
the Orphanage Director will not be available until May 1st (Thursday), we will
not be able to take any pictures of the baby until then.
Not sure why, but again another glowing example of Semper Gumby. In our meeting, the Doctor told us that Alia is the
most beautiful child in the orphanage (c’mon give me a little chance to brag here).
After the
meeting was complete, they ushered in the Beautiful Kazakh Princess Alia to greet her
soon-to-be parents. Well, the kid must have
been in shock, because Leilani nearly knocked me over to grab the lil’ beauty. Plus Alia must have thought how in the world
did she wind up with these two emotional wrecks because as I had guessed…them thar
tears they wuz a flowin’. Seriously
though, my lovely wife has never looked so beautiful as when she shined holding our little
girl in her arms. They also brought in
Pam’s little boy Dauron who is quite the serious little bugger. Even my patented goof-ball act didn’t crack a
smile from this cute sixteen month old, but don’t worry sports fans I’ll have
him laughing at me just like all the girls I asked out in my teen years. We all adjourned to an upstairs room so that the
parents and kids could get better acquainted (of course under the direct supervision of
Roza and several orphanage caretakers).
Little Alia
spent some time with us and allowed us to hold and play with her and she seemed quite
content and astounded by her dad’s goatee (yes, I shaved my cheeks clean so I could
dance cheek to cheek with my daughter without the scratching; can I hear a collective aw!
from the internet?). We even got a few smiles
from her (of course I cheated a little by finding a ticklish spot). Leilani reminds me while I write this to inform you
of Alia’s ensemble nightmare. She was
brought in wearing light blue footsie PJ’s with dark blue Velcro shoes and a deep red
velvet dress on top. For some unknown reason
to me, Leilani finds this upsetting to her fashion palate.
The topper was that when we arrived in the playroom, they added another set
of PJ’s ON TOP OF the velvet dress and much to Leilani’s chagrin the top and
bottoms of this PJ set didn’t even match (can you just imagine this guys?!). I think I actually heard Leilani gasp when they put
on the addition. Like I said we had a good
morning with her although all too short. After
about an hour together, they took the kids to feed them and put them down for a nap. We were told to come back in about 2 ˝ hours.
We spent the
down time at the famous (to all Kazak adoptive parents at least) Ramstore (spelled
Pamctop). It’s a big, nice mall with a
supermarket, a lot of shopping, a skating rink in the middle, lots of good places to eat
(found a sushi restaurant) and best of all an internet café (finally, I’ve found a
way to get this info to you all). We ate, did
a little shopping and I laid the groundwork for getting on the web tomorrow.
In the
afternoon, we returned to the baby house for another visitation. Since Dauron is old enough and can walk, he and Pam
were able to hit the grounds and go for a little walk.
Leilani and I were left all alone in the playroom with Alia. At first we got a few giggles from her and played a
little while I showed her my infamous juggling act. Then
soon onto the reason behind today’s title. A
little history….we received Alia’s referral when she was 5 ˝ months old. We requested an update when she was around eight
months old. Under the description section,
there were several adjectives describing my little peach…..number two was emotional. At the time, we didn’t know how to take that
description. NOW WE KNOW! That little girl sure can cry. We couldn’t do anything to make her happy. She kept rubbing her gums (she’s teething) and
her ear. But those tears just kept streaming
down her pretty little face. After about 20
minutes or so (which of course felt like several hours), the head caretaker came in to try
and help out. We felt like complete failures
and I was looking for the hidden cameras to see where the head of the country was looking
in to say we were unfit parents and toss us out of the country (of course there are no
cameras, the President of Kazakhstan I’m sure has more important things to do and no
one did such a thing, but believe me I was ready to bolt with Leilani & Alia in tow if
I saw one armed guard; I do have a Swiss army knife and a mini-mag light, I think we could
have made it). We felt slightly less like
failures because after a few minutes in the head caretaker’s arms, she started
bawling again. She told Roza she was probably
so fussy because she did not take a nap. She
went out and came back in with Alia sucking on a pacifier and looking more or less content
(actually both Alia and the caretaker looked content).
She finally fell asleep in the loving arms of Leilani and it was quite the
beautiful sight to see. The visitation part of
the day ended with Alia sleeping in my arms. We
sadly left the orphanage, with the bright spot being that we’d see her again tomorrow
morning (Boy, do I hope she sleeps well tonight!).
We went back
to the apartment and all crashed for about an hour and a half (let’s see we left
Philly Friday night; I woke up that morning at 6:00am, got about one hour sleep on the
flight to Frankfurt and none on the flight to Almaty, slept less than 4 hours Saturday
night, and maybe another 4 hours Sunday night, so yeah, I was dog tired). We woke up and decided to grab dinner at the
Russian Restaurant a couple blocks away. We
ate lunch there Saturday with Roza and had her write down the names of the good dishes in
English, Russian and in the phonetic English version of Russian. We figured no sweat.
Well believe me, it certainly wasn’t that easy. Although, we did wind up with the soups we wanted
(which are very tasty) and Pam had a dumpling dish that didn’t immediately make her
vomit (I’m considering this a good thing). We
had some German beer and made it out without anyone hollering at us (at least as far as we
could tell). And a little note in case you
ever find yourself in a Russian speaking country and you are waiting for the waitress to
give you the bill and don’t know any Russian. Just
meet eyes with the server and perform the little check motion with your hand…works
like a charm.
Good
night/day and hopefully you’ll be reading this on the web real soon.
Oh, and by
the way…can someone email the Eagles Draft Report Card?
Click on the
Thumnails to Enlarge the Picture
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Roza and Pam |
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The future Olympic Ice Skating Champion in 2010,
representing the great country of Kazakhstan, practicing in the skating rink in the
Ramstore. |
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I thought this was interesting. A little area where
"first run" movies are shown in the mall. They were playing Lord of the Rings,
The Two Towers. Leilani wouldn't let me watch it. |
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Roza, Leilani and Pam striking a pose on the streets of
Almaty. |
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Joe, Leilani & Pam in front of the Hotel
Kazakhstan. Very big hotel that has a very posh lobby area. Also where I found the
International Herald Tribune for sale. Paid six bucks, nut was worth it to catch up on the
news. Surprisingly enough, no info on the Eagles draft picks. |
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Joe & Leilani in front of a statue of the Great
Kazakh Poet blah blah blah (sorry will have to get his name). "I hope Joe
hasn't caused an international incident" - Webmaster |
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Next Day