Russian Adoption Diary: Trip 1/Day 4

Sunday, April 30, 2006

Trip 1/Day 4

Hey! Did you think I forgot to finish? I've been busy, hardly at home the last three days. I come in and sleep, that's all!!

Well, day 4 started out early and in a hurry. We were packed up and ready to go by 8:30 a.m. We hopped in the car and were off on our 2 hour drive again. Upon arriving at the orphanage, we immediately met with the director and the doctor. Nothing was really new to us, just difficult to understand. One brother has multiple medical problems that we probably won't know the full extent of until we get him home and to all of the specialists he needs. The other's medical record was fairly clean except for the dental report (and he wasn't the one with the worst teeth). They also told us he had "anthrophilopathy". We questioned what this meant and were told there was no translation and they moved on. Damon later broke it down-- "anthro"- human, "philo"-love, "pathy"- disease. He was definitely the more cautious one and less loving, but nothing that we felt was extreme. I guess we'll see when we get him home.

After the meeting, we were taken to see the boys for about 10 minutes. I had asked if we could see where they slept. They came and took us on a complete tour of the orphanage with the boys. I'm sure many are not so fortunate. It was a neat place, not bad at all as far as orphanages go, I suppose. There were 5 or 6 beds in each bedroom and two wardrobe-type things, no decorations. We saw a school room, "concert" room where the kids would do special activities, and a common room.

After the tour we went back to playing. I had brought some Color Wonder fingerpaints to take to them. This was also a hit!! We did this for about 15 more minutes until they came and told us it was about time to go. I really hated that we did not get more time with them that day, but I was thankful for the amount of time we had the day before. They had us sign a paper accepting the kids and we began to pack up. We left a lot there. On our tour, I did not see one single toy. Maybe they were in the cabinets or somewhere, but I never saw one.

Right before we left, I took the director some gifts for her and the workers. She thanked me for coming and said, "Come back and get them." I assured her we would come back as quickly as possible. The goodbyes were very painful. The director saw my eyes tear up and kept smiling and saying, "Nyet!" The last picture I have in my mind is of the director, one boy on each side, waving as we drove off. I cried for a while.

We had a long drive after that. We had to catch our flight out of a city about 4 hours away. About an hour and fifteen minutes into our drive, our car broke down. We sat on the side of the highway waiting for someone for an hour and a half. The coordinator and translator were very kind and handled everything calmly. Soon our ride came. We quickly hopped in. We bypassed the city where we had stayed and kept going. After about another hour and forty-five minutes, we pulled over on the side of the road and were told to, "Change!" They got out, grabbed our luggage, and we loaded into a van. The van passenger got in the car we had been in. We sped off for the remainder of our journey.

Time was getting close and the driver knew it. He was apparently exceeding the speed limit. We got flagged over twice. Now, this was a whole new experience. Police do not drive in their cars with their radars on and catch speeding motorists. They clump up on the side of the road with the radar gun in hand. If they catch you speeding, they simply wave you to the side with a flag. You pull over, talk to them, pay your fine right there, and go on. I never once saw someone try to go on once they had been flagged down. It was very strange!

Anyway, our flight left out of the city at 5:30 p.m. We arrived at 5:00 p.m. Our coordinator was out and gone into the airport with our tickets and passports before we even unloaded. We literally ran through the airport trying to catch up with him. We made it onto the flight just fine.

We arrived in Moscow and were picked up by our guide there. Again, we had not eaten all day and were famished. They took us to McDonalds. I was amazed for two reasons. First, it tasted just like it does here, completely. Second, I enjoyed it a whole lot more that night. :-) We made it to our hotel and got checked in by 11 p.m. The hotel said they had no internet, but we were able to make our first call back home( at $4 per minute). We talked for 3 minutes and gave them our hotel number. They called back and we talked to each kid for about 20 seconds. This was wonderful. We crashed pretty hard that night.

posted by 6blessings @ 9:35 PM

2 Comments:

At 4:56 AM, Deb said…

Wow that sounds like a long rough day. Any idea when you should find out when you get to return?
At 6:15 PM, Maggie said…

I hope you get a court date soon so you can go back and get those kiddos.

Thank you for all of your kind words and wishes on my blog. It has helped.