We Leave Next Friday -- Yeah!!

Hi Alex, hi Ms. Barbara and kids at McDowell! Hello from Kostanai, Kazakhstan!! Thanks for checking our blog and our experience over here!

Thanks also to all of you who send good thoughts and prayers our way!! I feel them in my heart when things are really tough -- they help my spirit to lighten up, and I take a deep breath and move onward. Without your support and your nice notes it would be unbearable.

It's true -- we found out yesterday that we will leave Kostanai next Friday, and go to Almaty for a week for finalization of Sofia's passport, etc. And then - hopefully, and please keep your fingers crossed! - we will fly home on July 14th. We have started our countdown and there is a light at the end of the tunnel.

Meanwhile, we just continue to hang out and play, and do what we do everyday. Naps and going to sleep at night are still problematic (tonight she screamed for 1 hour and 5 minutes before she went down!), but at least the clingyness is not so intense. And, Sofia has started enjoying her bath. The shower stall scared her before, but just in the last two days she started really enjoying the water and smiling in the shower. It took about 9 days! She still screams when I go in there and close the shower door in the mornings for the whole two minutes I'm in there, but at least she is able to let go of her fears when it's time for her bath. And in all likelihood, her fears probably come from the fact that I have to close the door when I'm in the shower, which makes me disappear. Poor little baby!

Everyday we walk around, and then at some point we park our stroller under a shady tree and stare at the pigeons that hang out in an area of the park. There is usually someone who brings bread crumbs, so there are dozens of these birds walking around and waiting for their 'snack'. Sofia is fascinated by them, and she talks to them often. Yesterday, as we were sitting and watching the birds, an older gentleman stopped by and started talking to Sofia. He had a Kazakh hat on him, which is very traditional and usually worn only by the older generations, and very calloused hands. I do not know for sure because my knowledge of Russian is less than basic, and barely enough to survive over here, but given the situation and how he was dressed, I assumed that he was Kazakh and was speaking the language. Sofia was enthralled by him, and kept staring. Once he turned to me and spoke directly to me about her, he then realized that I spoke neither the language nor did I understand him.

I then told him I was from America, and he just lit up. He proceeded to discuss at length something about flying to America and some experience which he or someone else he knows had over there. All in Kazakh! He sat down next to us on the bench and for about 15 minutes just spoke in his native language, as if I understood him completely. I smiled, and enjoyed the chatter, even without understanding any of it. He was probably just an older person who happened to be missing his four front teeth, lonely, anxiously looking to make some contact with someone, regardless of cultural, racial, gender or language differences. It's amazing how language is not always that important -- sometimes just a smile, and a few words in kind tones can make a difference in someone's day. He warmed up my heart and made my afternoon, and I hope I touched his day as well just by graciously sitting with him, listening to him, and letting him play with Sofia.






Well, here is Ms. Sofia already getting her bags ready for our trip next Friday. . .















. . . and wow, now that she is almost packed, she is definitely anxious to get going!! Aren't we both!!!











But, no, sorry . . . she is just too tired to go anywhere at the moment. Maybe after she takes a little nap and catches some ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ, OK? Good night!!