Meet Kaz day!?

Monday turned out to be a very emotional day. Jennifer and I did not sleep well because we were anxious about todays coming events. We had to dress in more formal wear as we were going to the Astana ministry of education for a brief interview. Aliya (our translator) and driver picked us up at our temporary apartment at 11 am and we were off on another crazy car ride. It was quite warm outside already and I, of course, was dressed all in black with a sport coat to go with it. Every day is very hot and breezy - thanks for the wind to cool us off. It is also very dry - supposedly hasn't rained for quite a while as you can see it on the rather brown grass - nobody seems to cut any. And you see people watering trees quite a lot.

At the ministry of education, we finally got into the building after Aliya had to do a bunch of explaining and then we went up in the tiniest little elevator with a capacity of 330 kg and was quite close when all 3 of us got in it. Bayan (our coordinator) arrived shortly after and then we had to wait because the woman that was to interview us was out of her office. They did say prepare to do a lot of waiting! While we waited we visited with Aliya and had some very good conversations and laughs.

Waiting with Aliya at the Ministry of Education!

When it was our turn to go for the interview, Bayan waved us over to the other end of the hall where we went into another office. It turns out that we were interviewed by a woman who is the head of the education department. This was the first time that she had ever interviewed an adoptive couple - it was a good thing we didn't know that the head of the department would be interviewing us. Anyway it all went well, she only asked us why we picked Kazakhstan instead of somewhere else, what we did for a living, and asked Jennifer if she would go back to work after we got back home. At the end of the interview, she said she liked us very much and we seemed like a nice young couple and wished us good luck. All the while we had to listen to her (not understand what she was saying) and wait for Aliya to tell us what she said.

We took two separate trips down the elevator, Bayan and Jennifer 1st, then Aliya and me next - because the elevator was that small. When we went outside we could not find our driver as he was hidden behind a bigger vehicle, but it gave us time to take a picture of this neat fountain.

Fountain outside Ministry of Education

Now it was off to the orphanage and to say the least our anxiety was running quite high in anticipation of meeting Kaz. At this point we still didn't know anything about our future child!? The orphanage is about a fifteen minute drive from our apartment block and is kind of tucked away down this little side street. It is very peaceful with lots of trees, flowers, and little play structures. Once into the orphanage, it is quite confusing because there is a maze of hallways. Bayan and Aliya led us to the orphanage director's office with a picture of the president of Kazakhstan on the wall. It was about 12:30pm. She asked us (through Aliya's translation) only a few questions as it seemed more like just visiting. Then we had to wait for our prospective child to wake up, but they ended up having to wake him up instead. When the lady brought him into the room, here I was sitting in a room with 4 woman and she handed the little guy to ME!!!!! I tried to make him laugh because I was worried he would start crying, and it wasn't long before I saw a little smurk, and then came a full blown smile which made it hard to hold back the tears. We only visited for about 15 minutes, but he was sure a happy little boy - never got scared or cried once and gave us lots of smiles.

We then proceeded to talk to Kaz's doctor and were able to ask her questions about any concerns we might have. It went well and then we went back to the apartment with our heads spinning - as you can imagine the whole thing was a bit of a shocking and surreal experience.

When we got back to our temporary apartment, we quickly got changed into some "moving clothes" and then we proceeded to haul our heavy luggage to our new apartment - the same one that Jila stayed at, about 2 blocks away. Even with Aliya's help, I had to go back for a second trip and on returning to our apartment building I found the elevator was stuck. Luckily I wasn't stuck in it, but we forgot to mention that our apartment was at the very top - on the nineth floor!! So I managed to page Jennifer and Aliya when you first come into the building and I proceeded to go up the stairs where I met them about half way up.

After all our exercise, I delegated Jennifer to unpack - as she really told me she liked doing it. So I thought, because of the time change and poor sleep, it would be good to have a nap - right Jennifer? (Sure, what ever you say!! JJ)

Duane, you should appreciate this picture - notice they carry the "good stuff" (MGD) here!