A Day of Rest

I finally got some sleep!  I was starting to feel like I'd never sleep more than 4 hours in a row.  Last night, I finally had a full night's sleep, and I was up and awake so early this morning that I got to the Internet cafe and supermarket before either opened, and had to go home and wait again.  It stays dark until 8:30 am at this time of year, so it feels very early when I wake up.  Last night it snowed a little, but like Ottawa just before I left, they have had relatively little snow this winter so far and the roads are very clear.

Yesterday was a national holiday, so I was not allowed to go to the baby house, and I stayed home to rest off the beginnings of a cold.  I did, however, get a proper visit the day before - my first two hour visit playing with one child.  This poor little one was quite apprehensive at first - perfectly normal for a child brought into an unfamiliar room to play with a total stranger with no familiar faces around.  My translator, Alex, and I tried to comfort the little one, who clung to me silently for the first hour. In the second hour, I managed to introduce some toys and the fears started to disappear.  I thought it went very well for a first visit.  So everything is going great, and I will be back at this baby house for another visit soon.  I am going to keep you all in suspense about the details for a bit longer while some of the official steps toward adoption advance further.  Ultimately, I will have to get English translations of medical information for the child I become matched with, which will be reviewed by an American adoption clinic at the University of Minnesota.

It has been interesting getting to know Kazakhstan and the city of Karaganda in these last few days.  With the exception of visiting the baby house, I spend my time back and forth between a few key locations within a one block radius.  Since absolutely no one speaks English - other than my two translators and my coordinator - my social world is very small.  Even the physicians I have met don't speak English, in contrast to much of the world where medical education often involves English - if I were in Thailand, English would be far more prevalent among the educated.  Here, where the influence is Russia rather than the West, it is much harder to communicate than in many other parts of Asia - especially since I am in a place with no tourist industry.  My coordinator, Gulnara, is very talkative despite insisting that her English isn't very good - she manages to communicate quite well.  The two translators I have worked with, Yelena and Alex, speak excellent English.  Alex spent a few months in the U.S. in addition to his English studies here.  These are really wonderful people, and I have had great conversations with them.  Alex was a huge help at the baby house, serving not just as interpreter, but equally importantly as photographer and videographer during play time.