Samantha's Birthplace

Sundays are "one visit" days with Samantha. This particular Sunday, we travelled 15 kilometers outside of Karaganda to see Samantha's birthplace, Timmertau. It is a small industrial town that historically has been very poor and heavily dependent on the coal and steel industries. After years of relative prosperity, the city fell on hard times 10-15 years ago and eventually drugs became a problem and the HIV infection soared. In the last few years a new owner bought the old steel mill, improving business and providing residents a better quality of life (at least economically speaking). We visited downtown, comprised of just a couple main streets, then stopped by the maternity hospital to see where Samantha was born. In Kaz, there are separate hospitals specifically for delivering babies. Samantha's mom had no prenatal care, so delivering Sam was probably her one and only trip to the hospital; ironically, Sam was born quite healthy. For those of you who have had a baby, she had an APGAR score of 9 out of 9! On the way out of town, we saw the steel mill and pollution. The Billy Joel song, Allentown, came to mind. After visiting this drab town, we think Samantha will be OK living in Chicago.

It's All Relative

To say that we're eager to return home is an understatement. Going on our 37th day (but who's counting?!), we can't wait to get back to the States for a bit of reprieve before Trip #2. This first trip was originally scheduled to last one month, but because we had to start the required 14 day bonding period with Samantha after we had already spent 9 days with Alina, we accepted the fact that our trip would be extended further. In addition, during our time here, the judge contracted pneumonia and was out of court sick for a couple days and just recently lost his mother-in-law, which resulted in his missing a few more days of work. Apparently, this is the ONLY judge who oversees adoption cases, so the backlog of cases continues to grow. Supposedly, he'll return to work tomorrow, Monday. We are hopeful that our pre-court meeting will take place early next week and that our formal court date will occur before week's end (we're probably dreaming with this expectation!). Regardless, we still consider ourselves fortunate. We've heard a few other stories that make us feel pretty lucky (then again, we're not home, yet).

One couple from Belgium, with no extenuating circumstances such as ours, had been here for five weeks before even getting their pre-court date. They finally expect to go for formal court tomorrow. They will have resided in Karaganda for over seven weeks. They continue to keep a positive attitude and frequently joke, "A year from now, we'll all laugh about this."

A single lady from France had visited her daughter over a month ago for the bonding period but was unable to schedule court during this first trip. She returned to Karaganda recently, specifically to attend court. It was during this time the judge got ill, so her court date was delayed. Needless to say, flight changes had to be made and her return to work had to be prolonged. Thankfully, she was approved to adopt her adorable baby girl. At this point in the process, she returns home for a month and will come back a third time to pick up her daughter.

Another couple from Belgium (if you haven't already guessed, a lot of couples from Belgium adopt in Kaz) came to Karaganda this past summer to meet their children (an adorable brother and sister) and petition the court. It turns out their paperwork wasn't completed, so they were sent back home without even going to court. From that time until just a few weeks' ago, they maintained contact with their adoptive children (who are about 4 and 6 years old) by calling them and sending gifts and letters. They visited them for a couple weeks over the holidays and once again returned home for the long wait; they will return for court in April '09. Talk about committment and perseverence!

And of course, there are the stories of folks who return home without any child. A realization that we tried to prepare ourselves for when we decided not to move forward with Alina. One single lady (you guessed it, from Belgium), was asked to consider a child who she felt had special needs and thus she declined to accept him. She was then shown a second child who had an obvious physical handicap who she sadly turned down, as well. She was informed there were no other children available. She returned home with the intent of coming back to Karaganda in another month or two.

Another couple, from Chicago, was referred a child with whom they did not bond well. From what we've been told, they had a poor experience from the start and exhibited a negative attitude which turned out not to be in their best interest. Not surprisingly, their demands for seeing other children were met with a terse request for them to leave.

A bit of a digression here, but this last story lends itself to taking a moment to acknowledge my eloquent husband. John's heart-felt email message to our agency contacts explaining why we felt we could not accept our referral was anything but demanding; on the contrary, he wrote a thoughtful message explaining how difficult our decision had been and kindly asked whether we might be able to see other girls. We were told the liklihood of finding another girl was highly doubtful and in fact there may not be any child currently available. But as divine intervention would have it, here we are with Samantha! In the big scheme of things, staying another week is no big deal (we just hope our bosses feel the same way!).

Daddy's Little Girl

It's already quite obvious that John will make a great father to Samantha. Much to her delight, he's a great playmate: interacting with her in lots of fun ways (almost all of which involve making silly sounds - which she gets such a kick out of). He'll come up with creative games and activities which can occupy her for more than 30 seconds - an amazing feat with an 8 month old! He'll lift her up into the air with her favorite past time, "jumpy pants" and she'll smile and laugh all the way down to the ground. He carries her into the "quiet room," away from the hustle and bustle of the main play area to talk to her lovingly. Sometimes, when she'll sit still long enough, he'll read her favorite book, Peak A Boo Baby.

As is his general nature, John has a very gentle manner with Samantha, especially when it comes to feeding and changing her. During a meal, there are times when you're sure she won't eat another bite and then John will smack his lips together (making a funny sound, of course) and she'll take a bite. What a sucker she is! When it comes time for a diaper change, he treats her like a china doll (except when blowing raspberries on her tummy). When she cries, typically when we're changing her clothes for a nap, he's able to pacifiy her. John is definitely a contender for the World's Best Daddy award (don't worry honey, I won't buy you that silly "Best Dad..." T-shirt for Father's Day).

What A Difference A Day Makes

We find that each day is a different experience visiting Samantha. Some days she's high energy, kicking her feet like crazy and swiveling her hips around, other days she's low key and a bit lethargic. Some days she eats her entire meal with vigor, other days she refuses to eat much at all (easily maneuvered by blocking the spoon with her tongue). We believe that some of this variation is due to the changes going on in her area. Last week, 5 babies were "promoted" to the bigger babies' area and another 3 new babies came in; one of whom has the shrillest scream you've ever heard! Undoubtedly, the other babies' sleep is impacted from these new additions. While we visit Samantha, we also try to give smiles and reassurance to the other babies. They are ALL so sweet and need "forever families," an adoption term we hear often. Anyone out there interested in adopting?

Here are some additional photos of Samantha in her various moods.

Puzzling Evenings

In the evenings we have been fortunate to find things with which to keep ourselves entertained; usually reading books, writing blog entries, or watching tennis tournaments. For the past two weeks, we've been addicted to completing a jigsaw puzzle. In an effort to reduce the amount of baggage to Kaz, we took the pieces of the puzzle and left the box at home, creating a much more difficult puzzle to complete. What should have taken a few days to complete, consumed us for two weeks. And I mean, consumed. It was not uncommon to find one of us sitting at the table late at night, unwilling to come to bed until we got just one more piece placed! Or early in the AM before leaving for the B.H., wanting to have that sense of satisfaction that we were just a bit closer to finishing the damn thing! Now, we find ourselves puzzled by a new addiction: the suspenseful show 24. One of the parents here from Belgium was kind enough to loan us their DVDs and we are hooked!

Shots with Eric

One evening we decided to pay a visit to our old friends at the Windmill, our hotel for the first nine days in Karaganda, to enjoy a dinner of their delicious borscht soup. They were happy to see us and the one English speaking woman took our order. This was shaping up to be a nice, quiet dinner, when, as we were bundled up and heading out the door, we bumped into Eric: a little history is in order here. Earlier in this blog, we posted about our Christmas Day dinner and the office party we became part of. Toward the end of that evening, a man approached us as we were heading upstairs to our room: he was Eric, and in his broken English said "my English is not good enough....this is mine, all this is mine. He was gesturing to the room full of his employees, indicating he was the owner of the company and certainly very proud of that fact.

Returning to our current story, here now was Eric, smiling and asking us "please, join me, have drink with me". The woman who could speak English, came over to assist and told us Eric wanted very much for us to stay and have a drink with him. While we were all bundled up and ready to go, John looked at Sherri and said, "let's not miss this cultural exchange opportunity!!". Eric ordered a bottle of what turned out to be very very smooth vodka, along with a table full of hors d'houvres. Our "interpreter" joined us at the table and had her work cut out for her, as Eric clearly had started drinking earlier and had a strong desire to chat for awhile. We covered a range of topics, from Eric's time in NYC on 9/11 (for a Ringo Starr concert), to American and Kazakh politics, to how much Sherri reminded him of his deceased first wife (or was it his current wife?). He (supposedly) has 51% ownership of Efes Beer and manages a plant here in Karaganda. The vodka shots continued (let's just say we fulfilled all the credits earned by the blog posting challenge we issued earlier) and at one point, Eric reached over the table to assist John in scratching his shoulder. Eric continually asked us whether we were having any problems in Karaganda and assured us that he could help us with anything; he really meant it and we appreciated the gesture. Two hours and many vodka shots later, we rose to leave and were offered Eric's personal cell phone as a parting gift (a few days later he tracked us down at the baby house and politely asked us to return the SIMM card, but to keep the phone).

Overview of Karaganda

The following is from Wikipedia:

Karaganda, also spelled Karagandy (Kazakh: Қарағанды, Russian: Караганда), is the capital of Karagandy Province in Kazakhstan. It is located at 49°53′N 73°10′E. It is the fourth most populous city in Kazakhstan, behind Almaty, Astana and Shymkent, with a population of 446,200 (as of 1 January 2006). In the 1940s up to 70% of the city's inhabitants were ethnic Germans. Most of the ethnic Germans are descendants of Soviet Volga Germans who were collectively deported to Siberia and Kazakhstan on Stalin's order when Hitler invaded Poland. Until the 1950s many were interned in labor camps often only due to their heritage. The population of Karaganda fell by 14% from 1989-1999, it was once Kazakhstan's second largest city after Alma-Ata. One hundred thousand people have since emigrated to Germany.

The name "Karagandy" is derived from a "caragana" bushes (Caragana arborescens, Caragana frutex) which are abundant in the area. (Sherri's note: Another website states “City of Karaganda is situated at the center of the important Karaganda coal basin (the word "karaganda" from Kazakh language means "black city").” Karaganda is an industrial city, built to exploit nearby coal mines using the slave work of prisoners of labor camps. Commercial extraction of coal continues to be an important activity in the region even today. In the early 1990s, it was briefly considered as a candidate for the capital of the (then) recently independent Republic of Kazakhstan, but its bid was turned down in favor of Astana.

It is the birthplace of the late Chechen President Aslan Maskhadov. It is also the home city of Kazakh World War II hero Nurken Abdirov. A statue in Abdirov's honor is located in the center of the city.

The original site of Karaganda is now labeled on city maps as the "Old Town," but almost nothing remains on that site. In exploiting the rich coal deposits next door, the Soviets undermined the entire city, and the town had to be abandoned completely and moved several miles to the south.

Photo 1: statue of Nurken Abdirov
Photo 2: caragana bush (of course in winter, we haven't seen any)
Photo 3: seal of Karaganda (just reading the seal should give you an idea of how much fun we're having trying to read and understand Russian-it's a difficult language with the cryllic alphabet)