Donna’s Day with Kyiv, Kids and Chaos by Car

We got up early at 4:45 a.m. to get to Mariupol’s airport for Donna, the kids and a care worker/nurse off to Kyiv for their checkups at the medical centre, as required by Canadian immigration. Because we do not yet have legal responsibility for the kids, the orphanage needs to send someone to be responsible for the kids. And, to save a bit of money, Murray was left behind to (sigh) do laundry, pick up some stuff and generally goof off on his own for the day. Here’s Donna’s story.

Today was another busy day but a great day that will become one of many “days of firsts” with our kids. We were in the paper chase trail again for the adoption on the Ukraine side of things. However, this one involved a trip to Kyiv with our two kids in tow. And it was their first plane trip!

Overall, they both traveled great! I had visions of two children, on the plance cringing in terror, throwing up from motion sickness, and basically turning against me for any care. Instead, they were almost like regular jet setters themselves, calm and quiet, just taking things in. My toughest challenge was to answer all of the 7 year old boy’s questions about the emergency description card and how the life vest works.

Both kids did very well during the take off. Our boy kept his nose pressed again the window looking out over the land and sea with the ships. He thought the checkered look of yellow and green fields looked strange because they were so far below. Then we were in clouds most of the trip to Kyiv. Once we started to descend into Kyiv, he became excited to see all the “matrushkas” (small yellow buses) zipping about like toy cars in the streets below. He was also worried how we would land. Would the plane actually dropped from the sky straight to the ground? Again, with a hand gesture, I explained that the landing was just like the take off---just as gradual but going down.

Our driver met us at the domestic airport in Kyiv, an old style, Soviet place with transfer buses from the plane pulled by a something akin to a ‘52 International 2 ton grain truck. We went to the Canadian Embassy first. Its foyer seemed so “Canadian”—nothing colourful or identifying, just neutral, cold, bilingual. So a-political Canadian, eh! Then we drove in very congested traffic to the medical centre that does the examinations for people wanting to immigrate to Canada, USA, Australia or New Zealand. We had a good doctor who provided me with lots of information. Bottom line, as we expected, the kids are in great shape and there are no major health concerns that would prevent them from coming to Canada with us.

I left the kids with the nurse to go with our driver to see our facilitator in the northern part of Kyiv. Sure, it was inside the city but it was still a 3 hour trip there and back, with incredibly congested streets. (I sure won’t complain about Circle Drive in S’toon any more…) We literally would sit through 4-6 light changes before making it across to the next street. I said three times to our driver that we should just park the van and take the Metro. The driver preferred to drive (and get paid more per hour I suppose…). After meeting our facilitator for only 5 minutes, our return to the kids was even worse, and it was one of the most scariest, “white knuckle” rides I’ve ever been on. The driver’s mission was to get me from point A to B in the required time, no matter what it took. At one point, we were in a three lane street with 6 lanes of cars, when he would veer out of the left lane and speed into the oncoming traffic lane to get to the next set of lights. Then he edged across the 6 lanes of cars like a snake to the far right lane, jumped the curb to drive along the tram tracks, bucking pot holes and mud. At one point the tram was coming toward us, and he swerved back on the sidewalk, around a couple pillars under an overpass, and then back on the tram tracks. It was just like a car chase scene in a fast paced, action packed movie. The only difference is that we were chasing the clock.

I learned something as a mother-to-be though. One week ago, I’m not sure I’d have been able to cope with that trip. But now that I know its for the kids sake, I can endure most anything if its for their benefit.

Our return flight was smooth. Our two-year old girl sitting in the seat in front of me liked to play peekaboo with me and other passengers on the plane. Our boy was curious about the instructions for an emergency landing that were in the pocket in front of each seat. He asked a lot of questions: where was the life vest? (we felt for them under our seats); can he see one; why do we need a life vest; is it like a parachute; what is this button on the picture (to inflate the vest); and that button and that (whistle, light). Again, much of the flight was over cloud. However, once we got closer to Mariupol, he was fascinated to see the lights of the city. And then when we landed and still traveling fast on the run way, the lights on the tarmac looked like they were whizzing by. He thought other planes were criss-crossing around us. One other funny note: When the pilot spoke before the flight left from Kyiv, he obviously spoke Ukrainian. With a smirk, our boy said that because the pilot often said “tak, tak” (yes, yes), that he was speaking Ukrainian and not Russian (da is yes). For most of the flight coming back, he would poke me, and ask a lot of questions, or make a lot of statements analyzing the situation as if he spoke by fact.
Despite the cars, chaos and Kyiv, ‘cause of the kids, I will always remember this “first day” of many “first days” with our kids.

A note to everyone…… Thanks very much for your words and good wishes by email or messages on our blog. We enjoy them so much and it help gives us a connection to home. Sorry we don’t reply directly, as we usually have limited time at the internet café near our place. But please, please, keep them coming!
Thanks, Donna and Murray.

A Little Bit o’ Life in Mariupol

We have been in Mariupol almost a week now and we’d like to think of ourselves as on our way to becoming “Mariupoleans”. We have our apartment. Our “job”—the best one in the world right now—is to go and spend time with the kids a couple of times each day, in between their meals and other routines. We spend our day otherwise doing the normal things of life like getting groceries, going to the market, doing the laundry and finishing the day with an episode of West Wing on DVD on the computer. (OK, maybe the last item isn’t that common with our neighbours.) There always seems to be much to do and, because of travel and the adopting excitement, we can’t really say we are getting the sleep we expected.

Mariupol is certainly more of a working class town than Kyiv. A lot more steelworkers than office workers. A lot more Ladas and Fiats than Mercedis, Hummers and Lexus’s. It certainly has its “steeltown” air pollution. It’s on the Sea of Azov and also is a bit of a tourist/beach destination in the summer for those from northern Ukraine. Right outside of town there are fields of wheat that look no different than what’s on the “home quarter” or the “Marr place”, except that some of it is already in the swath and being harvested.

Being in the eastern part of Ukraine, Mariupol is much more Soviet/Russian influenced than western Ukraine. Most people here tend to speak Russian. I would have liked to see how things were 25 years ago prior to Gorbachev, Perestroika and Ukrainian Independence. The main remnants of those days are now the housing and the attitudes. People live in the same apartment blocks with concrete stairs and small elevators, thankfully as our apartment is on the 7th floor. But people do a lot of work on the inside of their apartments to fix them up. So our place is quite comfortable on the inside. Right now as I type this, I have the air conditioning on and am watching cable TV. (actually one of those fishing shows…yeah I’m sick… but I just noticed I’ve been watching for 15 minutes and the guy hasn’t caught a thing…whaddyaknow a “real life” fishing show!!...) The only problem is you have to know Russian or Ukrainian to understand it.

The attitudes? Well, we saw one bread seller in the market, even with a line up 5-6 deep, saying: “I’m taking my break now and you’ll have to wait”. Customer service is not a big thing in the markets. But, in the new “bigbox” stores there are attendants here, there and everywhere, but you certainly pay for it. We like to buy our vegetables and fruit in the open market where people come in and sell their produce from their gardens/farms right along the sidewalk. (I want to talk about Donna in the markets, but stay tuned for that as another posting…)

There are certainly other remnants of the Soviet era around: beaches with the big steel mills in the background; street names like “Lenin Avenue” and “50 Years of USSR Street”, and monuments to “fighting machine” and “victims of facism”. Perhaps the most memorable image is our picture of the monument to Lenin with a big box store in the background. What would ol’ Vlad think? I can’t remember what CCCP stood for 25 years ago (and am not sure if many here do now either), but I’m convinced it now it stands for Corporatism, Capitalism, Consumerism and Pevo (i.e. beer which goes for 75 cents for a 500 ml bottle). I’m not sure about the benefits of the first three. The last one is a definite benefit. I think the jury is still out on whether a strong “middle class” will establish itself in Ukraine, or if the rich will continue to get richer and the poor, poorer. This is a question we still debate in North America too.

Lenin stands guard over a Ukraine's equivalent of a "big box"

It sure ain't easy preparing for adoption

[This is Murray talking; Donna does not sanction this particular posting:] You know what I’ve concluded after the past few days. Most of you guys out there that had your kids by birth got it too easy. Maybe it was a bottle of wine, or a blackout, or even a snowstorm in January. Then you are pregnant…a few hormonal meltdowns…a debate over whether to buy chocolate or real cigars….and then a few hours of labour. And there you have it…Now I won’t debate you on the work of dealing with an infant and early or late night feedings. Maybe things even up a bit there.
But as far as the point of deciding to conceive vs. deciding to adopt to the point of legal responsibility for a child(ren), you really can’t compare the two processes. Now, many of you know the work we (OK, OK mostly Donna) have done and the patience and heartache we have experienced over the past three years in trying get approval from Ukraine. Now that we are over here we are certainly thankful, but there still is certainly a lot more work to be done. For our time in Ukraine, I suppose you could compare this portion of the process to labour. We aren’t talking 15 or 20 hours, not even 15 or 20 days. We’re talking a good month of meeting with officials, getting papers processed and, of course the best part, meeting and getting to know our children.

In labour there is a midwife. In adoption in Ukraine there is a facilitator/interpreter. And our midwife is “Y”. And she is Awesome with a capital A. She doesn’t need to have the knowledge of a woman’s body; she possesses the knowledge of an incredibly larger and more complex system of bureaucracy, regulation, internal politics and paper pushing: the Ukrainian adoption and legal systems. Every single paper needs to be notarized. Every document needs to be forwarded and run through the system. And Y (the “midwife”) knows the ropes, knows the best ways of doing things, and has the relationships to make it all happen for us.

For example, yesterday in between visits to the kids, Y and Donna and I made trips to the regional inspector’s office, the orphanage director’s office, and lawyer/notary in order to get all the documents ready for the court date. It was a full 12 hour day, making things happen so that she could get back to Kyiv and get things ready there as well. And we came along to sign the papers and do what needed to be done. All in all it was a smooth adoption day thank to Y.

And the most important news...

Oh yeah, perhaps you were wondering about the kids. Well we still don’t want to say a lot right now but we can tell you this: We are in Mariupol, Ukraine along the Sea of Azov where it hot and somewhat polluted (with 2 huge Steel Mills that would make Hamilton, ON blush!), and hot somewhere We have had the unforgettable joy of meeting our kids, a 2 year old girl and her seven year old brother. Both are great children. The “adoption labour” is almost over….the joy of our new family is so close we can taste it.

Ukraine by Metro, Train and Automobile

[Note: Sorry for such a long break in our postings. As we indicated in our last posting, for the time being we will not be providing much detail about the adoption process itself, for the sake of the children. Hopefully we’ll be able to give you the details tomorrow or the next day. All things considered, things are going well.]

After our appointment on July 1, we were not able to book a train ticket until Thursday, July 3rd in the evening. So we had all day on the 2nd and most of the day on the 3rd to be tourists in Kiev. Some of the things we did:
Traveled to outskirts of Kyiv to the Ukraine Museum of Folk Architecture where we were able to see houses from different regions of Ukraine.
Attended the Ukrainian National Opera and a rendition of Verdi’s the Masked Ball.

Unfortunately the opera was in Italian and “subtitles” in Russian so it was even hard for Donna to follow. Had to do a “google” of the play when we got home to figure out what was going on.
Went to a large market on the metro north of Kiev. The number of stores and the selection puts West Edmonton mall to shame. Of course the stores are just stalls, but it’s a good place to make a deal. And Donna was in shopping heaven.
Visited Chernobyl Museum which commemorated the lives lost including the fire fighters and army officers who went in to clean up the mess after the nuclear reactor exploded.
Climbed “Andrews Descent” (Andrivskiy Uzviz) (which seemed “oxy-moronical” to Murray…) which is an historic road from St. Andrew’s Church down to the lower town of Kyiv along the river. Along the street are vendors selling many cultural wares, so we did some wheeling and dealing on Ukrainian embroidered shirts and Donna was almost sweet-talked into the full outfit.

On July 3rd, we left our $70/night apartment…Kyiv ain’t cheap and got prepared for our overnight train ride. But first we experienced our first metro rides on a regular business day. We have been on the trains in China, Tokyo and New York and nothing matched this as far as the sardine can crowds. You get to make some really close friends whether you like it or not on the Kyiv metro trains….

Then it was on to the overnight train to Donetsk in East Central Ukraine. From there we traveled by hired car to the city where the orphanage is located. The train was quite the experience. We were booked into first class, two sleepers per cabin for the 12 hour trip. The trip over all was comfortable, although we woke often during the night to the sudden jerking of the train. It was good to watch the country side as we traveled along. Lots of wheat and sunflowers and the crop looks good so far. But I guess that info is too late for those of you who are deciding whether to plant wheat or canola back home.

Special mention is required of the bathrooms on the train. On her visits, Donna felt like one of those workers at the Chernobyl site after the explosion. There was a 2 minute time limit for exposure and the aftereffects are yet to be determined at this point. I’d hate to see what 3rd class was like…

We arrived in Donetsk at about 7 a.m. Although “Y” (our interpreter, facilitator and guide and all-around dependable woman) had requested a minivan, we were met with a car. So we stuffed our stuff in (including the big duffle bag of 75 Dawgs shoes) and hit the road. The drive included passing through some smaller towns. In some ways it was no different that driving through a town like Lashburn on the way from S’toon to Lloydminster. The countryside was quite similar to home; the only weird part was that there were no farms anywhere. I have no idea where they store their equipment in Ukraine, but they must have it somewhere because there are a lot of acres in crop.

We have been in town now for three days. All we can say right now is that things are going very well. Your prayers are working and we are forever grateful to everyone. Thanks in particular to Rev. and Jimmy…you know why. Oh, and of course, thanks to God for where were we are at this point. Hope to give you some real news real soon…really we promise.