The next step

Friday, 28 November, we had our appointment with the SDA. Dilemma number one… What to wear. We had brought our “Sunday best” knowing that we would need them for the court in Odessa. Dima tells us, that you won’t need to wear a tie or anything like that… casual wear is acceptable. Mari and I are firm believers that first impressions are lasting ones… That and we didn’t drag this stuff this far to wear only once… So, after fighting with the wrinkled wear in the suitcases (our Sunday best had already hung out for better part of two days), again, the command decision - wear the good clothes. We got dressed and went downstairs for breakfast, returned to the room to finish getting cleaned up and packed before Dima stopped by the hotel to pick us up at 9 am.

Okay… We have this facilitator who has been doing this for a while… We thought that he had a car of his own (maybe he does & we just don’t know it)/ Do we walk, or ride… Well, Mari has been having knee issues and the long hard walk up the hill to St. Sophia’s and back to the hotel kind of took a toll, and since we would have had to do the same thing again, we said “Ride”… So.. Dima with no wheels, steps outside to hail a cab. The second cab to stop and a few words later, we are in the cab, on our way up the hill to someplace behind St. Michael’s . Again in my finite wisdom and trying to avoid the appearance of the tourist… No camera, no pictures… Hurry up and wait… and wait… and wait…

Oleg, another facilitator, shows up and begins talking to us in rather broken English… Again he has the upper hand, since all I know right now is “Da” (yes), “nyet” (no) and ‘speciba” (thank you), Apparently my suit and Mari’s dress made that good first impression on him… He complimented us on how well our dossier looked, since there were others being submitted that had been rejected for one reason or another.. We had plenty of help and guidance… and wait some more…

Finally we get called upstairs… The hallway was actually quite well lit, despite other stories of lights out, and other parts of the building and grounds in disrepair.. I won’t argue that one… OSHA, the IBEW, and whatever labor unions handling lights, water, and varying stages of construction would have a field day finding discrepancies in this and many other places we have been over the past two days.

Anna is a beautiful woman, very neatly dressed and probably in her early thirties… Soft spoken but very polite and almost grateful that we were there. The dress clothes once again paid off… She first welcomed us and said it was a pleasure to meet us. (Oh, by the way, Dima was our translator for this meeting despite being told we would not have a translator present). She started by going through Vera’s history, her family life and her medical past. Then she asked to tell a little bit about ourselves, what we do for a living, and our children. Very briefly we filled in those blanks, then she asked how we knew of Vera… We went through the bit about some friends adopting over a year ago and they told us about her… Have we been in contact with her?? Pictures… Okay… so we stretched the truth a little bit…

She was apparently satisfied with us, and our answers, as she thanked us for coming and applying to adopt from Ukraine. After we thanked her for her time and shook hands with her. We left… Time from start to finish… About 5 minutes (not including the wait).

Now, Oleg graciously thanks us again for our efforts in adopting and returns us to the hotel. We thank him for his time as he wishes us luck, and offers any assistance if we run into difficulties. Up to the room to change, finish packing, a quick bite (tuna & crackers), and back to the lobby to wait for Dima… Still no car… Since we have successfully managed to eliminate two bags, dragging our stuff downstairs was a little easier, although the bags are now weighed down quite a bit more than the 50 lbs, the airport allowed…

Dima had purchased our bus tickets the day before (yes, bus tickets)… Probably not a smart choice… since our options were (1)take the bus - 7 hours, (2) take the overnight train - 10 hours, (3) rent a car & pay for a driver - 5 hours and $300, or (4) take the plane - 1 hour, plus a night at the hotel, plus transfer to the airport, and airfare, totaling about $450. Since it was early in the day and we were anxious to get out of the hotel, we opted for number 1... Which takes us to…


Adventures on a bus…

Starting at the hotel, waiting in the lobby for Dima and his non-existent car… Back out to the street to hail a cab… After a few choice words with a cabbie parked on the sidewalk, Dima manages to get a driver with a Ford station wagon and negotiates cab fare to the bus station.. Downtown Kyiv near independence square is very, very nice… Well, we found the dumpy part of town near the bus station…Dima, of course stayed with us, or more appropriately, our luggage as we made a mad dash to the ‘Golden Arches” once again, in search of the elusive “English-speaking cashier”… We actually found one, working next to the one waiting on us… 6 McNuggets and a cola (coke - with ice we didn’t have to ask for) later, we were back at the bus stop waiting with Dima…

How long can a bus ride be with no bathroom on the bus? Seven hours on a bumpy road for about the first 70 miles or so, then things smoothed out… Did I mention the attendant on the bus only spoke enough English to soak me for 10 hryvnia ($1.40) for two sodas, and to tell us that we were stopping for 5 minutes to use the rest room? A few stops here and there, and can’t get good pictures through the window… Things are truly indescribable… run down houses packed tightly together with no yards to speak of, probably used for gardens. Very few cars, and the road we were on was “the best highway in Ukraine”, so although there are some paved side roads, most of the roads off the beaten path were at best, gravel, or else dirt/mud..

We did see some semblance of agriculture, with what appeared to be winter wheat popping up out of the ground as well as some corn being harvested. Depending on where one was at in proximity to major towns, the effects of modernization appeared in the fields.. Newer tractors, combines, and implements, but still driving 50 year old trucks to haul grain.

We did manage to make several stops on the way for bathroom breaks, stretch the legs, etc… And I found a “new best friend”. A man in my best guess was in his early to mid 50’s started talking to me… Well, of course I cannot understand him and gestured as such… He seemed to ask questions I still didn’t understand, and when I said “American”, his demeanor did not change, in fact he seemed a bit more friendly… In all of his ramblings, all I caught was “Odyesa” (Odessa), and I could only respond “Da.. Odyesa.” (Yes, Odessa).

Seven hours, three American movies dubbed in Russian (‘Along came Polly’, ‘Sahara’ and something else) along with part of a variety show I didn’t get a whole lot out of, we arrive at the Odessa bus station. As we exit the bus, I am greeted at the door by a female voice, “Brad?” I respond in kind, and the young lady introduces herself as Alyona and her assistant (read, “husband”, “driver”, “bodyguard”, etc) Slavik. Three bags and a 5 minute walk later, we are loading up their car, and we are getting carted off to the Odessa Executive Suites. It’s almost a couple steps above Hotel Khreschatik in Kyiv… except for no carpet and we have a tankless water heater that will provide hot water to last about 30-45 seconds (can you say “combat shower?”). We unpack, give the Pushes a call, and meet up with them briefly to give them their things, and Ed took me down the alley and around the corner to the market to get a couple of things to hold us over until Saturday…

In search of...

“…Seek and ye shall find…” Matthew 7:7

We are two days into our Ukraine adventure and have found ourselves seeking… Something… Haven’t quite figure out what that may be just yet, or maybe we have, but just don‘t know it; but we have found a few things not quite ordinary to us. Perhaps we, in our Western culture, “ugly American” attitude, and spoiled by conveniences constantly taken for granted in our world, are actually seeking a more simple lifestyle or a return to our lives when we were children and we didn’t have everything we have today… Understood, the goal in life is to ensure our children have a better lifestyle than we did growing up; but how good do our children really have it when they are given everything, want for nothing and don’t appreciate what they have.

We, of course will be living out of a suitcase for another day or so, and are in need of an iron, but have made do by steaming the clothes in the bathroom, then leaving them on hangers to dry in the room to hopefully look presentable.

The bed in the hotel room does not seem to be more than, well, a thick piece of stiff foam on top of a sheet of plywood sitting rather low to the floor, making for some uncomfortable nights of sleep… What I wouldn’t do for my waterbed right now! There is a blanket or something in a duvet that JUST covers the bed and does not hang over the sides, as well as a spare blanket that is similarly dimensioned.. (if the bed is 60” x 80”, so are the blankets). We have compensated by turning the blankets sideways, used one to cover the lower half of us, and the other for the upper half… There is little to no ventilation in the room which makes sleeping kind of difficult without opening the windows. But, since it’s cold out, that isn’t a good idea either…

We haven’t fully experienced Ukrainian cuisine yet, since there is McDonald’s here; and we found ourselves in need of an English-speaking cashier and/or a picture menu… Didn’t really want it, but we both ended up with Big Mac combo meals with Coke (no ice). The one-dimensional nature of the American tourist definitely shows up here; speaking louder to someone who does not understand, does not work. We did manage complimentary breakfast at the hotel, which was actually pretty good… A combination of various meats, some salads (no lettuce, but rather large cut vegetables), and what appeared to be a quiche of nothing but whipped and baked eggs. We also managed to bring along some simple items (tuna in a pouch and no eating utensils, crackers, snack bars, etc), to have something to tide us over… Still haven’t fully adjusted to the time change yet, but we’re getting there.

Without crosswalks, well crossing the street would be somewhat difficult. We avoided the underground crossing systems and did some extra walking to find more conventional means. The courteous nature of Ukrainian drivers shows up again… Busy street, the crosswalk not at an intersection as one would normally expect, and simply putting a foot anywhere near the white-striped crosswalk brings cars to an almost immediate stop to allow pedestrians to cross. We hiked back down the hill to Independence square, which is quite visible from our 7th floor hotel room…


Our sense of adventure increasing, we began a hike up a street that appeared to be well traveled and found ourselves at the top of a hill at another crosswalk looking at another large plaza (Bohdan Khmelnytsky square ) . This time the stoplights worked with us and we crossed the street to the plaza and out comes the camera once again… You can always tell the tourists… They are always looking up at everything around them and more often than not are carrying cameras (the locals look straight ahead). The walk across the plaza found us looking at St. Sophia Cathedral

It is Thursday, and the Cathedral’s museums are closed, but for 4 Hryvnia (about 60 cents) we were able to walk the grounds and take some pictures.

Funny thing, at times when we thought language would be a barrier, we found ourselves able to effectively communicate by hand gestures. Our walk to St. Sophia’s in Kiev found us, maybe not in need of taking a picture of us together, but with a woman also taking pictures (with a camera phone) gesturing to us as if to ask if we wanted her to take our picture… blindly trusting a total stranger, I handed her our camera, went to stand with Mari and she adjusted and ensured everything as best she could get was in the frame and snapped the picture, then showed it to us to make sure it was okay… We nodded, then said, “Speciba” (thank you) and were on our way.

After spending about an hour admiring the architecture, we stopped at the gift shop, then left to head back. We’re not used to all that walking, combined with jet lag, so time to head back. Not wanting to stray from paths already traveled, we walked back down the same street to Independence square, stopping at a small market on the way down hill to pick up some water (with ‘gas’) and some small food stuffs), then back to the hotel for some much needed time adjustment (sleep).

So, have we found what we are looking for? Probably not, but I think we are getting close, or at least being turned in the right direction.

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