Thursday August 12, 2010

Today we are meeting up with the woman that has been giving Emma Ukrainian lessons every week on Skype since March. Emma and Katja have been looking forward to meeting each other for months. She has offered to give us a tour of the city starting with breakfast at her favorite breakfast cafe. We meet up at the McDonald's at the nearby Metro station at 9 am. After all the hugging and kissing and all things European, we start what turns out to be a four hour walking tour that would challenge the fittest of tourist. After about a 30 minute walk to her breakfast spot, we sit outside and watch the city start its day, with the temperature just perfect and the sound of commuters rushing to work over cobblestone streets.
Katja is really charming and sweet, with a bright smile and a helpful demeanour. She is quite bright and knows the answer to every question I throw her way. She could be making it up but it is obvious she knows her country as well as this city she calls home. I ordered the Ukrainian breakfast while Emma and Katja split the Oliva and Ukrainian breakfast - which is basically a couple of crepes filled with cream cheese and one with meat - and don't forget those 'pilkis' hmmm.... we really enjoyed that, well worth the three mile walk :-)

 

After breakfast we hop on the Metro to Independence Square, to walk around the old churches, statues and government buildings. Katja teaches language and does tours for a living, so we get a very informative perspective of Ukrainian history, including the horrible things done to them by the Russians in 1932 and 33. We visit a few of the old churches near the old towns filled with Icons, but devoid of pews. The Orthodox didn't feel like sitting in church apparently. A few blocks past the square we return to the old market place next to the SDA office and St. Andrew's. We walk all the way down to the bottom (after purchasing a Ukrainian flag for my collection), where we drop to the river elevation. After a quick refreshment break we hop on the Metro back to our apartment, walking past the offices of the President (just around the corner from our flat), as well as a very strange house built in the early 1900s by a very eccentric Ukrainian man known by all for his many stories - some true, some not.

 

By 2pm we are all exhausted and Katja needs to get home to work, so we say our goodbyes and we return to our comfortable and air conditioned flat to rest and take our nap before our return to the SDA at 5pm, where we will pick up our invitation forms to see the boys tomorrow. Lesya calls to tell us our driver will pick us up at 4:40, so we both crash for a quick nap. Somehow I wake at four o'clock and find Emma face down on the living room couch passed out. We quickly get ready for our return visit to the SDA to merely 'pick up the forms' allowing us to visit the orphanage. Lesya calls and tells us the driver isn't available but that a taxi will come and get us. At 4:50 she calls again asking where we are, I tell her we are standing outside the flat but there is no taxi. Finally he comes flying around the corner and we jump in for the most amazing ride through the center of Kiev. I think he must be required to get us there by 5pm, under punishment of death as he drives as fast as humanly possible, dodging pedestrians and other cars during rush hour traffic! I was loving it but I think Emma was a bit white knuckled. We come rambling down the cobblestone street, screaching to a halt in front of the SDA office, exactly at 5pm. He points, 'DA, DA', I hand him 30 UAH and we stagger to the dumpy door under the spires of St Andrews. Lesya greets us in her usual pleasant and energetic style and brings us into the ground level corridor with a desk where our psychologist is sitting with a stack of forms. She and Lesya are screaming at each other in Ukrainian, apparently because the forms weren't ready. Lesya gives her hell, telling her that 'it isn't my problem, it isn't the parents problem, it is your problem!'. It is all a big show as the forms get prepared, signed and stamped. We stand outside and talk about the latest situation. It has been determined that we won't be able to bring the two boys home with us (assuming we like them) until their older brother Ivan is available for adoption, which won't be until some time in early October. The SDA refuses to split the boys up, even for the six weeks. Probably something to do with the fact that they don't trust we will come back for the older brother, plus it would require a 'second adoption' complete with new home study, new dossier and new waiting period. So now we aren't sure what to do. Questions and concerns are flying through our heads and we haven't even met any of them yet. We are assured that if we accept the boys they will not be given up to someone else, we will just have to wait and come and get all three of them in October. I plead with Lesya that there must be some way to expedite Ivan's papers in time for us all to leave next month as planned. Doubtful, she says...but she wishes us well as we will now be departing Kiev on to our next chapter, so we won't see Lesya for another week or so.

 

Let's just see what happens after we meet Max and Denis and take things one step at a time. We also need to meet Ivan before we make any final decisions, but he is at a summer camp with his orphanage down on the coast of the Black Sea near Odessa. OK, no big deal, we can go home in a few weeks, go back to work (we're back Don!) and return in October. Of course this all depends on if we like the boys and they like us. We knew we had to come over here with an open mind and the ability to be flexible... it's all good, it's all going to be fine.

Vadim, our original driver from yesterday and Irene, take us back to our flat, once again emotionally drained by the news, we crash in our air conditioned living room. Emma cooks up her famous ham and cheese toasted sandwiches, while I run to the local market for a bottle of wine, the same as Monday night's tasty red. We enjoy a nice evening together, going over the events of the week so far. We joke about what a bizarre experience we are involved in, that it seems quite surreal, but in a way we feel quite calm and secure in the events taking place around us.
This is the last night in this flat as we are leaving Kiev in the morning to meet Max and Denis, so we pack everything up (why did we bring so much ?!) and climb into bed. But first we must write in our blog; we have a process where I write into my journal, then I recite to Emma for her to type into the blog. Half way through Wednesday's blog I begin to cry as Emma types, hearing the words I wrote spoken out loud really gets to me. Good night Kiev...