Apartment, etc.

Our new apartment is spacious (separate rooms for living, bed, and kitchen) with tall ceilings that have intricate, beautiful scroll work on each corner of them. The hardwood floor boards are diagonally placed and attractive. We also have an elevator this time. Now, now, before you all think we are living the life of Riley, here's the real scoop. There are no rugs anywhere, not a one. The elevator is so old that it rattles and shakes and makes such noises that we wonder each time we use it if we will have a sudden drop of three floors! The facilites are a bit lacking too. The shower can only be turned to a certain point or something happens--we couldn't understand the man's Ukranian enough to figure out what that might be and decided we'd better just stop at the halfway point on the shower. The commode here, if you need to flush it, you have to turn on the valve and flush and then don't forget to turn the valve right back off because it leaks.


Apartments here also come with washers; a very antiquated one is with this particular one. That same man drew little marks on it to show us where to start a cycle and where to twist it to to make it spin. We never have figured out rinse though. But the washer leaks too. Want to know how we found out? There was such constant ringing of our doorbell yesterday morning. . . The people in the apartment on the floor below came up to tell us in very broken English and lots of hand motions that the water from the washer was leaking down the wall into their apartment! Alla to the rescue. She called the owner of the apartment for us and someone came and told us to unplug the washer and today at 11 someone is to come repair the washer. I think this washer is probably the first ever made once wringer washers went out of fashion--it is that old--so I don't know how long a repair will last, but at least maybe we won't have to keep sopping up the floor with the few towels that are in this apartment.


This apartment was to have come with a couple English t.v. channels and to include internet, but you guessed it, when we got moved in we realized there was neither. Alla to the rescue. She called the owner and demanded that these two items be realized. So two days later the owner came and had the cable guys come and fix it so we had both. Yes, I meant to say "had" not have. Because guess what? Today, (Sunday morning) John got up to check e-mails only to get a warning message stating that if he wanted to continue using internet, he had to pay the bill. Alla to the rescue. She called the owner who said she would pay the bill later today. Depending on if/when that happens, you will be reading this. I am typing it and saving it to uplaod to the blog once we have internet restored.


We got lost the other day. Bus # 18 brings us back and forth from our neck of the woods to the are of the orphange. Trolley Bus # 18 does not. We obviously didn't pay close enough attention and got on the trolley instead. They look exactly alike except that the top of one of the cars of the trolley bus has the wire mechanism that hooks it to the trolley line. Anyway, after standing out in the shivering cold for about twenty minutes, we were so excited to see the # 18 that we just hopped aboard. Imagine our surprise when ten minutes later it stopped and a bunch of people exited. We didn't realize that not just a bunch but every single other person had gotten off! The bus started moving again and the lady who takes tickets came and talked to us in Ukranian. I guess she was telling us that was the end of the line. Anyway, yes, again, Alla to the rescue. We finally got off when the trolley stopped again, and Alla got a taxi and came to rescue us. Man, we are going to have to give her a very nice gift when this is over to thank her for all the rescues as well as to thank her for helping us find Maxim.


When we heard the word translator used before we came, we assumed it meant just that she or he would translate Ukranian into English for us; however, the translator serves as much more. So those of you still to come--be sure you make friends with your translator. She is of course a translator, but Alla has also served as a negotiater, an advisor, a tour guide, a secretary, a lawyer, a food buyer, a moderator, and a ton of other things as well. In addtion to all that, Alla realizes we are on an extremely tight budget (getting tighter with every delay) so on the rare occasions when she agrees a taxi is necessary, she will negotiate with the driver and get the cost down to what she considers reasonable. She can argue up a blue storm with the best of them. Taking a bus is far cheaper than a taxi; walking is even cheaper, and Alla's attitude is why ride when you can walk? We have walked our legs and knees off this past month though and are quicker to say isn't there a bus somewhere near or maybe even a taxi to her. A couple blocks to her is about a mile to us! Anyway, Alla's been great to us. I asked her once if she'd ever been to visit the U.S., but she said it's about impossible to get permission from Ukraine to go visit the United States because the government thinks people will leave and not return back here. She has indicated she would love to come and visit and get to see some of the many families she has helped adopt, but that without an official invitation from a senator or someone like that, she would never be given permission and that she'd just waste her money paying the fee to go to her government and asking.


We do not get to go visit Maxim on the weekends; we don't really understand why, but do not want to shake the boat by arguing about it since we still need papers from that director in order for this adoption to progress. Pictures of Maxim that she hopefully has taken over the last few years we are also hoping to talk her into letting us make copies of, so we are trying to stay on her good side. Tomorrow is Monday, though, so we should be able to see the little guy around 11 a.m. We are both looking forward to that. He continues to impress us with his eagerness to learn and his open affection. It is very humbling to realize that he is willing to leave the place he knows as home as well as his country and come with us, people who were total strangers to him just one week ago, Would any of us have that courage?


John and I both detest the games the government plays here; we equally detest waiting. When there is no visits to Maxim nor any adoption work to be done, then it is quite boring so we have to work hard not to get depressed about it all. Having had only three days of sunshine in the month we've been in Ukraine has not helped our spirits either. I even have a few of those "sunshine" light bulbs at home so I really need to have some more sun. This week the forecast is for cloudy days and then later in the week for snow, so I guess we'll have to wait a while longer to feel the smile of the sunshine.


Not this week but maybe next, we are hoping that the court date might occur. That's a huge step forward, whenever it happens. That's when the court system in Ukraine starts declaring Maxim as our adopted son. Then there is a ten day mandatory waiting period before we can start the U.S. part of the paperwork which also takes several days. Nothing yet has moved quickly for us so we aren't expecting any of this to either. We thought our documents about the adoption would be processed and ready to submit to the SDA by last Friday, but the birth mother had gotten married sometime so the papers that had her name on them all have to be redone reflecting her current legal name. Alla says it's better we found that out now before it all started moving forward and then it would have taken even longer to backtrack and get things fixed, but it surely felt like a big setback to us. The court date cannot be set nor occur until the SDA gets our documents and processes them. We are hoping this starts happening this week.


It's been kind of a rough weekend for me; a queasy or nauseous stomach that just won't go away. All I want to do is lie around on the couch, but I am going to try to make myself get out of the apartment today so John doesn't go too stir crazy. I traced Maxim's feet the other day so maybe we'll go buy him some shoes. I think I've journaled before that when the child leaves the orphanage for the final time, they get to take nothing with them, not even the clothes on their back. So we will also do a bit of clothes shopping sometime this week. I am going to take my measuring tape tomorrow and hope to be able to get a better idea of his sizes. Of course, the sizes here aren't the same as those in America, though he had on a sweater from the U.S. the other day because I peeked and it said 7/8. It was a snug fit, but it was also over a couple of layers, so I thought it might work better if I get at least a chest and leg measurement. I can't wait to get this child out into the sunshine. He is blonde so pale by nature, I suppose, but a little sunshine would get a little color into those cute cheeks. I can't figure out eye color. It seems to change. One thing for certain is that he is not brown-eyed like the rest of our kids. His eyes are more similar to John's which change color depending on what color he wears.
We have some pictures of other churches, etc., that I will try to put a few of on this entry if the internet starts working well enough for me to do that. So for your enjoyment:

This is a picture of a Catholic church near our second apartment. We weren't brave enough to go in, after our experience at that other cathedral, since it appeared to be a very active church.

Here's Andrea, another of the kids we left behind in the U.S. Just need to find a picture of one more. . . : ) We miss them all so very much.

We do not know the name of this church/cathedral, but can tell you that it is in the same area where the Chernobyl Museum is that we could not find last weekend for the longest time; then, we finally found it after paying a taxi to drive us two blocks only to discover it is closed on Sunday's.