We survived the overnight train

We survived the train. I don't mind it too much. Julia would rather take the express train that takes 6 hours, but I like taking the overnight because you get to lay down, sleep and then wake up just before you arrive. As long as you don't need to get up several times a night to use the restroom, it is a good way to go. The trains bathrooms can get a little scary later in the night, but early on they are ok. When we arrived in Kharkov, our driver called on his cell phone and told us he could not meet us at the train to help with bags because he couldn't find a parking space. So we hired a couple of army guys that were moonlighting as porters. They carried 3 bags each, which totalled about 160 pounds total. Being the only guy on this trip, the $12 in porter fees were the best dollars spent to date.

We went straight to the Inspectors office to get the local permission to visit the orphanage. That went quickly and we called the apartment people to meet us at the apartment and let us in. Our last 2 trips I have taken on the apartment finding myself. When I leave it up to translators or others I never know what I am going to get for the price. I failed to arrange our Kiev apartment this time and we had water for only a few hours a day and paid 3 nights instead of 2 because we checked out a couple of hours late. In Kharkov, it was a different story. The apartment is the nicest one we have ever stayed in. It has 3 large bedrooms plus a family room, dining room table and two toilets. A normal size bathroom and modest kitchen. The nice thing is that it is clean. We checked in and then we all freshened up before going to the orphanage to see Katya.

The orphanage kids were out on Spring Break all last week, so they were all there when we arrived about 12:30 pm. Katya was happy to see us. The orphanage was in the middle of what they called a Spring Concert when we arrived. So we all slipped into the room and watched the performance. It is interesting to see the older boys (ages 15-17) participating in the performance. We would have thought they were too proud to put on the costumes and sing and dance, etc. But they were all good sports about it and seemed to enjoy it. We video taped most of it. After the concert we met with the Director, orphanage lawyer and the orphanage doctor. They asked about all the kids. All of our kids have been adopted from this same orphanage. The Director was very happy to hear about Zhenya. He was a star at the orphanage and expect great things from him and we were happy to report that he is on track with good grades and a great attitude towards his family and his future. We stayed at the orphanage and visited with Katya and the other kids for about 3 hours. We then left and went to the local store called "Target." It is not our American Target, but it is a nice supermarket. We loaded up on supplies and headed back to the apartment. We ate dinner and then went to sleep. Fairly uneventful.
I am glad that this time around we don't have the dramatic things to report every day as we did on our last trip. It means things are moving along as expected. We had hoped that the Director would let Katya just come home with us and stay at the apartment. She let us take her for several days at a time when we visited in September, but for some reason, and we haven't figured out why, something has changed in the last couple of weeks and everything is now by the book. This means that our time at the orphanage will be limited and most likely Katya will not be able to stay with us until after court. We are not going to complain about the tight rules. If you can imagine, think of a foreigner coming to a government run facility in the US and asking the institution to allow a child to leave and spend several days with them. Of course, that would be frowned on. Does the Director trust us? Yes, but that is beside the point, she could lose her job if those activities were ever scrutinized. So we understand.

Our only concern at this point is to not get seriously ill or injured and to hope that the Adoption Center does not close down in the next week. There is a rumor out there that the Adoption Center may close and leave all in process couples in limbo until the new Ministry is up and running in May. If it does close, we will come home within a few days of it closing and head back when they open up again. In all, the time we would spend in country would be almost exactly the same if we had to split it into two trips. The downside is my parents plan to come next week, and the fact that Katya would be waiting an estimated 6 more weeks to come home. Splitting up the time missed from work into two sections would probably be better anyway. We should know Monday afternoon or early Tuesday morning if the Adoption Center will be closing. And we can warn my parents in time not to travel. Our gut feel from the information we have is that there is about a 10% chance this may happen. We have learned from the past that there is no reason to stress or panic about things you can't control with Ukrainian Adoption. You just go with whatever happens and eventually, with a little heartache and perserverance, it all works out. It may work itself out in a longer term than we would like, but it should be ok. So no worries, just possible set backs to be dealt with.

Love,

Wade and Julia