We have spent most of the weekend huddled in our apartment. It was downright cold yesterday--cold enough that we dug out our down coats before walking around town. Erlan was dressed in so many layers that his arms stuck out on either side of him. Today it warmed up outside, but our apartment never made it above 61 degrees. Even Ben agreed that the apartment was cold.
To improve matters, we haven’t had hot water for the past 36 hours. Erlan and I took baths before the water was turned off. If the hot water isn’t back on tomorrow, I may head back to the bath house (and I’ll take my soap with me this time!)
Erlan is such a happy little boy. It’s astounding how much he has changed even since coming out of the orphanage. His little mind is absorbing so much right now. He can identify his head, eyes, ears, nose, belly, and toes. Before he goes to sleep, he will lie in bed and touch various body parts, babble something, and then clap for himself. Erlan has quite a repertoire of tricks to stay awake. These include:
1. Singing 2. Raising arm above head so that its fall will wakes him 3. Practicing body parts 4. Clapping 5. Banging foot on bed 6. Banging foot on wall 7. Kissing mama/papa (this is usually more of a head butt than a kiss, but his lips are puckered)
If Erlan thinks that Ben or I are asleep, he will try to sneak off of the bed. He is actually quite stealthy. If we really were asleep, he would be able to successfully wiggle his way off the bed. Today, he tried to flatten himself against the wall and sneak off above my head. I have a hard time not laughing so that I can sternly tell him to “Lay down!”
Erlan is also a very good eater so long as he sees rice, potatoes, soup, or oatmeal as the main dish. We can mix darn near anything into the main dish and he will eat it up. He’ll eat prunes in his oatmeal, carrots and corn in his potatoes. We were going to give him cauliflower, but a head cost $11 and it didn’t look that good. The only thing that I have seen him try without any reservations is potato chips. As we’ve mentioned, he’s a fan (even of the horrible pork-rind type chips that Ben enjoys).
Today's video provides further evidence that children don't really need toys!
Today we learned that we should be able to leave here on April 29. *IF* this date holds, then we will have been here for 66 days. This is about 4 days longer than our friends Joel & Gen, and Kami & Eric. From what we heard in Aqtobe and what we have heard here, the Kaz adoption process is changing and lengthening. I guess that I should be grateful that we were only impacted by the 3-day increase in TAT for Erlan’s passport. Instead, I’m feeling sorry for myself because I want to go home NOW. I don’t want to be here anymore (foot stomping). Kjjnjjjjjjgbfccsz (those are Erlan’s exact thoughts that he typed himself).
We also found out today that Marina's pug, Martin, died this morning at 6:00 am. Our most heartfelt condolences go out to Marina.
We went out for Chinese food tonight with our friend Agnes & her parents. This was Erlan’s first experience in a restaurant. He did so well! Yes he squealed a couple of times, but overall he was excellent. He ate some stir-fried rice. He would have gone to sleep, but he was too interested in all of the activity.
We’re off to bed. It’s been a long day. I guess whenever you hear that you’ll be another 10 days when you really want to be home, the day gets kinda long. I’ll try to post pix tomorrow. I just wanted everyone to know our projected date for coming home.
Despite the fact that it is April 17 and despite the fact that we have packed away all of our winter accoutrements, we woke up to snow this morning. It snowed almost all day! This meant that Erlan and Mama were trapped in the apartment all day. Ben led our friend Agnes and her father on a brief walking tour to Panfilov Park.
That’s right, our friend Agnes lives about 1 minute away from us now! We were excited that she, Sacha, and her parents were coming to Almaty, so imagine how delighted we were when she moved into an apartment so close to us! Her parents are staying at a hotel, which for a mere 30000 tenge/night gets you a room without hot water or toilet paper. Ben, ever the efficient tour guide, took Agnes’ folks our map which has a list of hotels on it. Hopefully, they can get a new room tomorrow.
While Ben was leading his expedition around Almaty, I was left to my own devices with Erlan. We worked on words and body parts. We played ring-around-the-rosy, which he loves. He has finally figured out how to fall down on is own. When we played this at the orphanage, Ben or I always dragged him down on top of us. When I started chanting it at our apartment, Erlan immediately grabbed my hand and fell down as soon as I said, “Ashes, ashes…” We then played 10 or 15 more times.
When left to my own devices, I forget to take pictures or video. I did manage to snap a picture of his “I-did-something-naughty-but-you-won’t-notice-because-I’m-cute-smile.”
And, here's a picture of Erlan throwing a fit. I wouldn't lift him onto the couch, and he was not too happy about it.
We are deviating from the orphanage schedule. At the orphanage, Erlan got one nap in the afternoon. He really needed a morning nap. Today, he got one. We were afraid that he wouldn’t take an afternoon nap. He did. We were also somewhat fearful that he wouldn’t sleep tonight. Ben just laid down with him, and, from the sounds of it, he must be going to sleep.
Our coordinator, Marina, came by today so that we could fill out some Embassy paperwork. No news yet on Erlan’s passport. Marina did have some sad news about her pug, Martin. Martin was bitten by a tic and now has some sort of disease that is affecting his central nervous system. He probably won’t make it. I feel so horrible for her. Martin is only 2, and I know that it is just devastating to watch a pet struggle with illness and not be able to do anything about it. I am hoping that a miracle happens and Martin makes it. For those of you who don’t know me very well and couldn’t guess from the mention of pugs in different posts, I have a special affinity for pug dogs. My pug, Buster, was my first baby and passed away last May from cancer. He was 14, and it broke my heart.
No video today kids. I suppose that I could video myself now, but I don’t think that I’m the person people really want to see. Also, I’d look pretty silly playing ring-around-the-rosy by myself. :-)
I cannot believe that we’ve been in Kazakhstan for 53 days (the titles for each post reflect the number of days that we’ve known and loved Erlan). In some ways, the time has flown by and, in other ways, time has stood still. Our appeal period seemed to last an eternity. Thankfully, time has resumed a more reasonable pace here in Almaty.
Almaty is very nice city (at least the parts that we’ve seen). Spring is in full bloom here (as my allergies can attest!) The tulips and daffodils are beautiful. I’m so happy that I get to see them since I’m missing ours at home.
In my completely unbiased opinion, Erlan gets cuter and happier each day. He loves to laugh. He especially loves it when we are laughing with him or at something he does. Yesterday, I taught him how to raise his hands and say “Yay!” He started doing it, and it was so funny that I couldn’t catch my breath from laughing so hard. He was delighted that I found this funny, so he kept doing it as if to say, “Look how cute I am Mom!” (Naturally there is no video of this event. Whenever he does something cute, he will never replicate it for posterity.)
We have him sleep on a pallet by our bed. About 4 this morning, he woke up and climbed into our bed. About 7:00 this morning, he climbed back out. I thought he was getting up, but looked down a short time later to see he had fallen asleep on the hard wood floor. Happily, he slept until 8:30!
We’re trying to keep up with his potty-training activities. It’s part of his routine, so we’re trying to adhere to it. Some days he does really well, while other days he’s 2. Yesterday, he brought me his books and led me to the potty chair. Later that day, he stood in front of the potty chair and started pulling down his pants. Woohoo! We were so proud. Today? Two dirty diapers. *Sigh* In the picture he has a Kefir moustache. Nothing like eating and drinking while on the potty.
Today we visited Panfilov Park. Ben carried Erlan most of the way in the backpack (Kelty Kids for those who are interested and for those with a strong back). He was so good. He did not put up a fuss, even when it started sprinkling on us. We had stopped to buy an umbrella from a woman selling them on the street, but they were 1000 tenge so we moved on. When it started raining, we wished we would have just bucked up for the umbrella. We figured if we could find her again, the price would probably be 2000 tenge!
The Zenkov Cathedral in the Park is beautiful. (Since you can easily google the history of the church, I will not give you the history.) We walked around inside it. Here are the pictures that Ben took. The cleaning lady laid into him about it, but Ben had gotten permission from the priest. The cleaning lady was none too happy about it even after the priest said it was ok.
We spotted a very odd looking squirrel in the park. I've blown up the pix. This squirrel had huge ears. I've never seen anything like it. It kind of creeped me out.
Today's video is two clips: (1) I've been playing patty-cake with Erlan, and I was tyring to get him to do it by himself; and (2) When we were walking to the Park, Erlan was tired. He was singing to himself to stay awake.
Ben hasn't been keeping up with his part of the blog, so I thought that I'd step in.
There is so much to do in Almaty. Yesterday, Ben visited the local bath house and scoped it out for my visit today. He told me how to purchase the admission ticket, where to enter the women’s baths, how things are laid out, and how much the full-body massage cost (4000 tenge).
Armed with this knowledge, I purchased my ticket and climbed the stairs to the women’s baths. After changing into my birthday suit, I entered the mysterious world of the Kazakh bathhouse. I immediately noticed that there were showers everywhere, and there were naked women sudsing up all over the place. I mean these women worked that soap into a lather. I didn’t bring soap (on Ben’s advice) so had to skip the wash down.
After the shower room, there were more showers and two saunas (a wet sauna and a dry sauna). I opted to go downstairs to another room with, you guessed it, more showers and two more saunas. It was pretty obvious that I was a bathhouse novice. I was the only woman without a hat or a scarf around my hair, and I was the only one who stayed wrapped in my sheet.
I decided to first try out the wet sauna. I marched up the stairs to have a lie down and immediately went back down the stairs to the lowest level bench b/c I could not breathe in the wet heat. The other women lounged in the heat and occasionally had one of their friends flog them with the bunch of leafy branches that they bring for the event.
I stayed as long as I could in the wet sauna and went to the dry sauna. In between, I jumped in the shower to cool down. I lasted about 3 minutes in the dry sauna b/c I found it hard to sit on something so blasted hot (yes, I had my sheet underneath me).
Now it was time to try out the pool. Ben had assured me that the water was lukewarm. I love swimming, so long as the water is tepid. The water in the pool was like ice. I went down the stairs to my knees and decided that I was cool enough. As I emerged from the pool, I noticed the clock on the wall. I had killed exactly 20 minutes. The bathhouse session is supposed to last 2 hours.
I knew that I needed a break before going back to the sauna, so I figured I’d get a massage. I went back to the locker room and asked for a massage. They called the masseuse, who led me back into the shower room. Before she started, I decided that it would be best to nail down the price so I asked “Skolka tenge?” She motioned that it would be 5500 tenge. I only had 5000 tenge! So I asked what I could get for 4000 tenge. I ended up with a back, shoulders, neck, and head massage which lasted about 20 minutes. Ben had the same massage the day before for 2000 tenge, plus he got a wash down! (Maybe I should go to the men’s side next time!)
Ben’s massage was quite the experience. He said that he took quite a beating in the massage. At one point, the guy even stood on Ben to work on his legs. Ben said that he only talked to four people in his bathhouse experience: 2 Polish students, 1 masseuse, and 1 Russian guy who was laughing at Ben while he was waiting for his massage.
This is 3 more people than I talked to. It is very weird to try to meet new people and start a conversation while everyone is buck naked. We’re not hippies (apologies to all the hippies reading this blog)!
My massage was fairly routine. Thank goodness that my masseuse didn’t stand on me. She was a very large, very sturdy gal. I ended my experience with another quick jaunt to the saunas.
There are no pictures of our experience in the naked bathhouse. I’ve seen enough naked women at this point to last a life time.
Ben summed it up best: “It’s like party cove. The naked people shouldn’t be naked.”
(Watch the DVD “The Long Way Round” and you’ll see the Kazakh bathhouse where we went. Also, it’s just a really cool show.)
Note to all the math geeks reading the blog, the current exchange rate is 120 tenge to 1 USD.
Our first Sunday in Almaty. We strolled down the pedestrian avenue that our apartment overlooks. Erlan was fascinated by the concrete. He would stoop to feel the sidewalk every few steps. We also saw a pug as we were walking…he was about 2 years old from the looks of him. He was a very handsome pug. I stopped (of course) to pet him. We tried to get Erlan close to him, but Erlan would rather admire dogs (even pugs!) from a distance at this point.
We just walked around a bit to get some fresh air and stretch our legs. We also needed to pick up a warm sleeper for Erlan since he refuses to sleep with a blanket. We found a fleece sleeper for $12 and some tights for him.
Ben, of course, discovered the local samsa place. The meat is better here, but the crust is so much better in Aqtobe. Erlan actually tried the samsa and enjoyed it. He’s like every other 2 y.o. that I know… he will not look at the food that you want him to like (e.g. veggies), but he’s more than happy to try the Pringles that Mama was trying to sneak into her mouth. Two things were learned from this: (1) Mama is not very sneaky, and (2) Erlan likes Pringles.
We’ve also discovered that Erlan covers his eyes with his arm when he doesn’t want another bite of his meal. I guess he thinks that if he can’t see the food, then the food will disappear. He also tries this trick when he sees me coming with his medicine. It doesn’t work then either.
He has finally started giving kisses on a more regular basis. It started as I was trying to post to the blog yesterday. I had the computer on my lap. He climbed onto the couch (ok, this is a bit of an exaggeration b/c he said “Up!” to me and I obliged him), he sidled up to me, and gave me a big hug. Naturally I ate this up. Then he does a repeat performance, but this time he leans in and gave me a kiss. I was delighted. He was delighted with himself and with my delight. I quickly received 5 or 6 more kisses—all smack on the lips.
We’re working on his vocabulary. So far, he has 3 words that he uses on a regular basis: Mama, Papa, and up! When he sees the sheep in his book, he will say “baaa.” He will try to repeat the animal names as we look at the book. He has 6 other words that he can repeat: hi, dog, door, bubble, Amy, and Mike. (For those of you who have names that he isn’t saying yet, we are working on them. For example, when I say “Debbie”, Erlan says “Mama.” When I say “Kathi”, Erlan babbles. Grandma also elicits a “Mama.” Aly’s name did get a short “a” sound.)
Last night we were all in bed early since we managed to blow the fuse for the apartment. We tried to run the washer while we had the living room and kitchen lights on. I guess it was too much for the electrical system.
Day 49
Today was a lazy day. Our landlord came right away this morning to fix our electrical problem. For the electricians in the crowd, they make their own fuses. It’s 240 volt, and they used a size 18 wire for a fuse. Ben tried to finagle some wire from our landlord so he could make his own repairs next time this happen. No dice.
Ben also showed our landlord that the toilet runs continuously. The man showed Ben how to shut the bathroom door so that we wouldn't hear it run. (For those of you who are wondering, we cannot shut the water off.) :-)
As soon as we walked out of our apartment, Ben spotted the SmartCar. He was elated to see one up close and personal. Erlan and I got to be in the picture with the car... there were a few taken without us too.
We walked to the Arasan spa to try to schedule a massage, but it was closed. It started sprinkling on the walk home and rained fairly hard most of the day. Erlan no longer had a fever today, so he had all of the energy of a 2 year old boy. He chased Ben around the apartment while they played hide-and-go seek. Erlan’s cousins will be happy to know that he is as good at hide-and-go seek as they are.
In spite of the rain, Ben walked to a nearby Chinese restaurant so we were able to enjoy Chinese food for dinner! What a wonderful treat! Shortly after Ben left, Erlan grabbed his hat so he could follow Daddy.
Today's video consists of a few scenes from our day. It would be longer, but I'm tired and we only have dial-up which severely limits the size of the video.
Thursday was an eventful day. We were up at 7:30 am, thanks to the orphanage schedule. Erlan is so happy when he wakes up. He gave us big smiles. He had a much more restful night of sleep. We put him on a pallet on the floor, and he pretty much stayed on it all night. We think he moved so much on the first night b/c he probably had a fever. Poor kid.
We spent most of Day 45 preparing to leave Aktobe. There were phone calls to our interpreter making sure our paperwork would be ready. There were phone calls to our interpreter to get help buying train tickets. There was the last minute meeting with our coordinator to get our paperwork and make the final payments. There was the cleaning of the apartment and packing of our stuff. Ben had to buy food for our trip, since we would be on the train for two days.
The best part of the day was a visit from our friends Agnes and Sacha. Agnes’ parents came from Belgium to Aktobe. They also came to visit us. It was such a treat to meet her parents and to see Agnes and Sacha before we left. Erlan was a bit afraid of Agnes’ parents at first, but he slowly warmed up. By the end of the visit, he was throwing stacking cups with Agnes’ father. Hopefully we will see them again in Almaty.
At 6:30 pm, Bayana and Cerik came to pick us up for our train trip. Bayana and her sisters made us some fried bread for the trip and gave us a jar of honey to go with the bread. They were so tasty. They were perfect for the train trip.
We made many friends in Aktobe, almost all were from other parts of the globe. Bayana and Cerik were the two people from Aktobe that we came to consider to be a friend. Bayana always went above and beyond by taking us out for dinner or to the market. She was friendly and positive. She is so confident for a person who is 21 years old. She graduates from University this Spring. I know that she will be very successful in whatever endeavor she decides to pursue.
Cerik was our driver. He was always friendly. He and Ben always managed to share a laugh despite the language differences. They also managed to talk quite a lot about cars. Like his daughter (Bayana), Cerik always had a ready smile. We will miss Cerik and Bayana.
This is Zhuma, one of the conductors. Bayana told him the cities where we could depart if we wanted, and Zhuma told us when we got there.
By 7:30 pm, we were aboard the train and in our cabin with bags stored. We ate a quick meal of soup, and we were in bed by 9:00 pm. We slept soundly.
Day 46
Erlan slept on the floor between the bunks. He awoke, stretched himself, sat up, looked at us, and smiled. I looked at his cute little face and noticed some red dots. I checked his belly—more red dots. Yep, he has chicken pox. We were about ¼ of the way through our trip and discovered he definitely has chicken pox. We had medicine with us, so we were able to keep him comfortable and keep his fever down. The only real difference in his behavior was that he let me hold him like a baby. Under normal circumstances, he does not allow this. After all, a 2-year old boy has way more interesting things to do than to be cuddled by Mama all the time.
Erlan really enjoyed looking out the window. The most interesting architecture that we’ve observed thus far in Kazakhstan has to be the cemeteries. Here is a picture of one. We saw several on our train journey.
We also saw farms. Being farm kids, this was naturally very interesting to us. From what we could see, the men do not use plows to break the ground. They use shovels. While we saw plenty of hay, we didn’t see any hay bales. We either saw stacked hay or hay bundles--I can't think of the name now. In some cases, they must have trucked in the hay b/c we didn’t see ground that would grow grass.
I thought the coolest thing that we saw were the camels. Camels have always fascinated me. On one farm, we saw a guy tell his camel to sit down so he could climb on. Here is a picture of camels that we saw grazing.
We saw sheep (goat) herders with flocks of sheeps (or goats). We saw cows. We saw horses. Erlan loved watching the animals.
Here's a picture of another train getting a thorough inspection by Kazakh police.
The only stop where we really wanted to get off was Turkistan. The stop looked interesting, it had signs up celebrating 1500 years. We didn’t get off of the train. We didn’t want to accidentally miss it, b/c we were busy looking at souvenirs. At most stops, we only saw people selling food. At Turkistan, we even saw a guy selling dombras (a Kazakh two stringed guitar).
After Turkistan, we slept. I think the most scenic part of our train ride occurred while we slept. I could feel the train climbing at one point in the night. At another point, Ben woke me up so I could see a very pretty river.
Day 47
We finished our train ride. Erlan was a great train traveler. He managed to burn off energy by climbing up and down on our bunks. He and Dad made a few trips up and down the aisle. Even though he was sick, he was a happy traveler. I think he's just very happy to be with us, so he takes everything in stride. Since Tuesday, Erlan has lived in our Aqtobe apartment for two days, a train for two days, and now our Almaty apartment. He has not missed a meal, a nap, or a bed time.
In terms of our train ride, I cannot say that it was the most scenic train ride I have ever taken, but I am very happy we did it. Much of the country on the first day looked a lot like the desert Southwest in the U.S. On the second day, the views kind of reminded me of eastern Colorado, with distant huge mountains awaiting.
While we didn’t see spectacular views, we did see parts of Kazakhstan that we would have missed by flying. We saw scenes of daily life in rural Kazakhstan that were interesting to us even if we couldn’t stop and ask questions about why a particular building was deserted or why a factory was shut down.
Best of all, the train afforded us with an economical way of seeing the country and gave Ben the chance to take an overnight train (I, being the more worldly of the two of us, had traveled by overnight train before). The train cost us $200 for the three of us—that’s right, only $200. We would have spent about $600 to $800 for the three of us to fly to Almaty. We had a private 7’ by 8’ room that was very nice and comfortable. It also had a restaurant that we didn’t go to but sampled by way of the walking waitresses.
We arrived in Almaty right on schedule. We were greeted by our coordinator Marina and our driver Sam. They took us to our apartment, which is in an awesome part of the city. We are within walking distance of many tourist sites. Marina gave us a list and description of the sites, along with a map of where to find them. She also took us to the pharmacy so we could get more meds for Erlan, and she showed us where to buy internet cards, souvenirs, and groceries. Best of all, Marina has a pug!!! Hopefully we’ll get to meet him before we leave.
Our apartment is 20 degrees cooler than our apartment in Aqtobe, which is wonderful. It is so nice not to swelter all the time. Also, there is no dust (beyond the normal amounts you expect in life). Finally, it is a two-bdrm apartment! Erlan has his own room! Ok, he didn’t sleep in it last night b/c we were worried that he’d be scared if he woke up in the night. Yes, he did sleep with us b/c we were also worried that he was too cold—we were actually cold last night.
Last night, we hung out and watched TV. The three of us were tired from our journey. We were watching swimming. Erlan really liked watching the competition, especially the awards ceremonies. Whenever the victors would wave to the crowd, Erlan waved back. If they did a two-hand wave, Erlan gave a two-hand wave back. When the crowd was shown clapping, Erlan clapped too. It was very funny.
We are very happy to be in Almaty.
Today's video is of a video of our train compartment and a quick shot of the scenery. You'll even see me in the video. I carefully selected pictures that didn't include me, b/c no one looks their best after two days without a shower. :-)
Erlan is such a happy little boy. It’s astounding how much he has changed even since coming out of the orphanage. His little mind is absorbing so much right now. He can identify his head, eyes, ears, nose, belly, and toes. Before he goes to sleep, he will lie in bed and touch various body parts, babble something, and then clap for himself. Erlan has quite a repertoire of tricks to stay awake. These include:
Erlan is also a very good eater so long as he sees rice, potatoes, soup, or oatmeal as the main dish. We can mix darn near anything into the main dish and he will eat it up. He’ll eat prunes in his oatmeal, carrots and corn in his potatoes. We were going to give him cauliflower, but a head cost $11 and it didn’t look that good. The only thing that I have seen him try without any reservations is potato chips. As we’ve mentioned, he’s a fan (even of the horrible pork-rind type chips that Ben enjoys).
