Friday, July 18, 2008

The Eagle Lands at Chernivtsi’s Super-Uber-Mega-Monster Market

All our readers will remember our July 14 posting concerning the markets and Murray (a.k.a the buzzard) and Donna (a.k.a. the Eagle). Well, here’s another story for you.

Chernivtsi is located in Western Ukraine. Donna was very keen on visiting here because she was here in 1987 on a university student exchange and wanted to see how things had changed in the post-Soviet era. She also wanted to travel to the surrounding communities where her family originated from. We went after the court date during the 10 day waiting period. Although it was very, very hard for us to leave the kids for a couple of days, we felt this was the best time because we didn’t want to just keep visiting and only playing with them; parenting is yet to come. They might get used to us as only being playmates and not parents. (And while Donna might look OK, Murray in bunny ears and a little one-piece with a pompom on his ass just wouldn’t do…OK sorry bad pun but I had to do it…) Anyway, so we made a quick trip over to Chernivtsi. The town is about 250,000 people, with a beautiful university --Yuri Fedkovych Chernivtsi National University----and many shady parks and clean streets. Although it has changed lots since Donna was here---- it is much more colorful and there is a lot of effort to upgrade buildings, making into a typical central European look. The area is beautiful and it’s good to be out of the pollution of Mariupol’s steel mills.










Perhaps the most memorable activity of our trip so far was our visit to the Kalynivsky Market just outside of town. It is a conduit for goods coming into Ukraine from neighboring countries and attracts 50,000 people a day. It is spread out over close to a quarter section of land, 1000’s of stalls, millions of choices. It was a perfect place to shop for some kids’ clothes and other items. Just look at the pictures…











And, so the Eagle of the markets took flight…Donna soared over the market starting the morning and carrying on for a number of hours. She was after all, shopping for her two little eaglets ---the goods and prices are much better than those in the Mariupol markets. Murray the Buzzard flapped along trying to keep up. But, for the Eagle, it was almost like she was flying over the biggest gopher colony known to man. And they were all newborn gophers, too stupid to dive down their holes. It was overwhelming. She soared and dove in on a buy; soared and dove in a buy; soared and dove…until she could soar and dive no more. Indeed, as Donna said herself as we trudged out of the market: “Okay, the Eagle has landed.” Sometimes you can just have too much of a good thing.


But I’m sure after a bit of a rest, the Eagle will be ready to soar again, only for her eaglets!

Our Big Day

It was another “hot one” in Mariupol, humid with the temperature over 30C. And it was our day in court. We went into a room the size of a normal school classroom, with no air conditioning nor fans. The front of the room was dominated by three large wooden chairs with high backs. Carved into the backs was the old style Soviet hammer and sickle.

The judge came into the room. We all rose for this woman, in her mid 50s. She began to read our application to the court and our translator interpreted for us. Then they asked us to stand and answer the questions: why do you want to adopt these two children? Murray thought he was prepared for this question, but the heat and wait we had endured had dulled me and I stammered out an answer. Then Donna stood and was asked why we wanted to adopt from Ukraine. She went straight into babbling in Ukrainian about the connection to Ukraine with her baba and dido. Our facilitator furtively gave Donna the “thumbs up.” She had told us that it would be good for our case to speak Ukrainian, although it would be unlikely the judge would understand as she knew little Ukrainian herself, only Russian.


The prosecutor asked about the Ukrainian culture at home; again Donna spoke in Ukey about our “hromoda” (community) and lots of culture, language, church and a bilingual school. The court secretary read our three page application to court. She asked the other two reps for any questions, one from the orphanage and regional administration. They each had to make the case why the adoption can go ahead. Each did their thing and then the “crown” prosecutor (or persecutor as our translator called him) was asked if there were any objections.

Then the judge proceeded to go through our entire dossier. Although she did not read each page, she went through each section including the SDA stuff---registration letter, approval letter, and also all the letters we faxed to the SDA to accept our application. It was all there! We would have loved to have taken a photo of that 6 inch thick bundle of papers. It reminded Donna of how much work she put into getting us this far.

At the end, the judge asked if we had anything to add. Donna did her spiel in Ukrainian asking for a favourable decision to adopt the children and to allow us to change the kids name; that we love the children and have taken to them. Murray also spoke a few words in English. Then the judge, secretary and prosecutor left for 10 minutes. When she returned, she read the court degree. We were impressed how well she pronounced Saskatoon and Saskatchewan (better than many people from Ontario!). For each name---ours and the kids---she said it in full, and also added our birth dates. This was said numerous times. It was cute how she pronounced Murray’s name----Long, Moorai Rubart. And then it was over.


Subject to a 10 day waiting period, the Court decree will take effect on July 26th. Because it is on the weekend, we cannot take custody of the kids until the 28th. So, we know you are waiting for pics, but we’ve decided to wait until everything is final….We know you can be patient, we have been for 7-some years now.

Monday, July 14, 2008

Daily ‘Doption Duties…and Soaring Like an Eagle and Hovering Like a Buzzard

When we were preparing for this trip and talking with other couples, we were warned that there would be a lot of “down time” or waiting time. Other than visiting the kids there wasn’t much to be done. Well, I don’t know if its because the summer, where we are, who we are, or that we are simple folk who can be easily amused, but we sure seem to be keeping ourselves busy. We are finishing up our third week here and we still feel we could catch up on some rest.


So, what the heck have we been doing? Well the day starts at 6-ish with the dogs barking as usual. We are near a single dwelling residential area and everyone and their dog has a dog. The barking can go all night and when we can sleep through it, it wakes us up in the morning. Then it’s a quick walk to the bakery and the market to pick up things for breakfast, etc.-bread, watermelon, vegetables, fresh peaches and so on. Everything is grown right around here. Even pineapples, but they are not quite in season yet. Then it’s back to the apartment for breakfast, maybe some blogging, laundry or whatever. And laundry is almost a daily chore as it depends on how much space is available on the clothes lines on our balcony. Its not like at home where we can easily get 5 loads of laundry, washed, dried and folded away in a couple of hours!

Our morning visit with the kids goes from 930 to 11. It’s about a 10 minute walk over to the orphanage. We go in and ask for the kids to come down. Thanks to Donna’s Ukrainian, we have gotten to know the security guards well so we chat with them while we wait. Our routine with the children is to go outside for soccer, frisbee, or just walking around with our 2 year old. Then we have a snack either inside or outside (banana, cookie, juice) and then its time for inside. Donna has been working with our boy on numbers and abc’s, both speaking and writing. He’s going to get to the letter “r” today. They have English workbooks in the markets here that are a big help. I play with our girl: blocks, tea set, or go for another stroll outside. Then the boy gets into puzzles, and there are some intense card games with his mom-to-be. Before you know it, the hour and a half is over. We do something similar in the afternoon from 4 to 530, but usually less outside because its very warm and humid here, up to 30C or 35 C with the humidity.

During the afternoon between visits, we have our lunch and often go downtown or to the central market to pick up whatever is needed. Usually, we make a stop at the “internet club” to make our postings. We’ve also made it out to the beachfront. On other days we have gone to church, toured the city a bit, or just stayed home out of the heat. After our second visit, we have supper (either in or out) and then go for a walk, visit the internet club, read a bit, or watch Ukey TV. The day always ends with an episode of West Wing on the computer and some tea and chocolate ice cream out of a plastic bag.

Our most frequent activity, besides visiting the orphanage, has to been going to the central market in Mariupol. Again, this is a huge market with close to 1000 stalls, each probably 8’ by 6’, selling pretty much anything you’d want. Small scale free enterprise is alive and well in Ukraine, and with many sellers and many buyers, it works very well. Too bad we didn’t have something like this at home…(WalMart can go to H**L as far as I’m concerned!)

Speaking of WalMart, as much as Donna likes to praise it at home to bug me, there is no doubt that her soul belongs in the markets of Ukraine. It touches some deep, perhaps genetic, Ukrainian element within her. As she slowly walks down the food stalls, the clothes stalls, or (especially) the shoe stalls she carefully surveys the wares, like an eagle soaring high above looking for prey. She is a very fussy eagle though—some nasty gopher won’t do, it’s gotta be a tasty rabbit. As for me, I’m more of a scavenging buzzard that hovers around, spies what I need and dives in on that “carcass”--- gets it and gets out. Of course, these two strategies inherently do generate some conflict during our times in the markets, because as you know eagles and buzzards don’t get along too well. Thankfully, though, that only happens in the markets.