February 16 - 17

Please put yesterday's blog behind you.  Today we got on the right track and got out of town. 

With three sets of guests, Irina stayed in the kitchen.   I could tell you stories of amazing pancakes, with wild blueberries hand-picked by our hostess from the Carpathian Mountains in western Ukraine, but I've eaten the evidence.   It never happened.

Did you know why most apartments in Ukraine do not have dryers?  Because they are so hard to vent properly.  The walls are typically 2 feet thick.  This must have been the preferred building style since the time of the ice age, which is now.  The Timchenkos have a dryer.  That's cool—it goes with my dryer sense of humor.

At 3:15 we hiked up the hills of Kyiv, which are too cold to be alive, to the SDA office.  Twenty minutes early, we established ourselves as first in line.  Soon we were joined by a couple from France.  To Pam's great horror (who took like huit années de cours privés de langue française de Molière lui-même), and their infinite credit, they understood "Mercy buckets. I should know that word" and we had a fine conversation.  From a village on the Meditteranean near Marseilles, they found Kyiv extremely cold.  Pam began her commercial for air-activated, exothermic oxidating hand warmers, but in French it sounded like something you could get arrested for.

The whole appointment took about 3 minutes, and would have gone faster had the ink in the official's pen not frozen.   This part is true.

That was the highlight.  If you are in a hurry, you should stop reading about today and skip to Thursday.

If we had not so much luggage (mostly presents, mind you), we could have walked to the train station about as fast as we drove.  You heard of the 100-km-long, 8-plus-day Chinese traffic jam?  Ours wasn't that bad.  But we did have to like, run after the train, slinging the gifts into the arms of encouraging Ukrainians.   Or maybe we were sitting relaxed at the computer, making up stories, as the B & O #9 pulled out (not to be confused with Love Potion #9).  I can't remember.  We bought all four berths in our cabin so the remaining gifts could sleep better.

Thursday.  The day we meet Valentina again!  Rather than sleep, I rehearsed dozens of conversations with Valya in my mind, using my best Russglish.   Post script.  I didn't use any of them.

The 212-hour train ride finished at 7:10 am.  Masha and her brother Andrei had arisen early to drive from Kramatorsk to meet us.  We're staying at least a couple of nights in the dormitories at Donetsk Christian University in Makeevka, a couple of steppes east of Donetsk.  We stayed here in '09 (a very good year).  It's a little farther from Valentina's Internat than we would like, but the price is a fraction of what hotels cost, and includes a kitchen, wi-fi, and outrageous stories by Jim & Margaret.

We stopped at a regional social worker's office.  One of the staff here must accompany and observe our first interactions with Valentina.  Their office has to approve us, but Masha says there should be no problem.  They are genuinely happy to see families stay together.  Finally to the Internat!



"Children Need Families" 2008 -- National Year of Adoption

 We were SO overjoyed to see Valya and give her the hugs that have been in our prayers for two years.  But then Pam immediately felt awful (is this a Lutheran problem?).  For wearing honkin' heels.  Dawne, move over.  Whatever.  She is a lovely girl. 

She gave us several extra hugs while the short official meeting took place.  Some questions:

Director:  Do you really, really, really want to be adopted? 

Valya:        Da, da, da.

Director:   You know, you could stay here with us.

Valya:        Ha, ha, ha.

Director:   If you go, can we keep your snappy Snapfish book?

Pam:          You know, Snapfish delivers internationally.  We'll see.  Would you like some hand warmers with that?

We had to get some legal papers prepared and notarized, saying we are not crazy and we really want to do this.   Not every lawyer will agree to that.

With the afternoon slipping away, Masha suggested MickeyD's.  I asked if she had seen "Supersize Me."  Yes, of course, along with the "Miss Fat and Beautiful American Beauty Contest," which is a real hoot here in Ukraine, where all the men are strong, the women are good looking, and the child is above average.

If you can read this, you are too close.  Use secret decoder.

We went back to the Internat to visit.  Valentina enjoyed her St. Valya's Day presents.  The ones the Ukrainian train passengers threw back at us.  Like peanut butter.  Pam insisted that before anything else, I show her how to use Google Sketchup.  Valya wanted to know what grade she would be in at Lincoln Lutheran.  She is currently in the 9^th grade, studying Ukrainian, English, geometry, chemistry, geography, computer, and home economics/family science/sewing and stuff, or whatever it's called now.  We remarked how Adrienne is also in a sewing class, making a "senior quilt" out of 30 of her 65 T-shirts.  That was a bone-headed thing to say.  We'll be shopping soon.

We made a list of what she'd like to do.  Without hesitation, Valya's number one wish was to eat at McDonald's.  At least they're lovin' it.