The good, the bad and the ugly

(Thursday's update)

The Good.
We are now in Almaty and could not be happier (see ugly). It was good to see Jharkhan and Victoria (Vika) again. We also have a very nice apartment with a crib, finally.

The Bad.
Flying on an Air Astana Fokker 50 with two kids. The flight wasn’t horrible but both boys had their moments. I think I developed claustrophobia on the flight as I was in the very back row in a seat that could not recline at all, holding Liam on my lap with a solidly built Kazakh man sitting next to me. Prince Albert and his can had nothing on me. Terri had Aidan in the row in front of me. She had two seats but Aidan cried when put in his own seat and he didn’t like it any better sitting on mama’s lap with the child seat belt either. Liam was good through take off and all the way through the ascent, but soon went ballistic on me. I tried to calm him but to no avail and I am sure the large Kazakh man really did not appreciate his proximity to me. The flight attendant brought us some water first which he had no interest in then Terri suggested apple juice. Instead she brought back orange juice—obviously she misheard us over Liam’s piercing screams. Finally salvation arrived with the apple juice, although for some reason the attendant wanted to heat it first, I guess chilled apple juice just isn’t right for kids here. Given the situation, we were prepared to be bad parents by allowing the unsanctioned use of cold apple juice. He finally accepted it and his mood stabilized (along with my sanity). Eventually, he fell asleep and only stirred once we landed.

Aidan was a handful for most of the flight. He would have crying spells, settle down, cry again, squirm around, settle down again and so on. He required constant attention, he was squirmy, irritable, and very bored. At one point Aidan pulled out the magazines and flight safety brochures from the seat back. He also pulled out the airsickness bag as well. In what she thought would be a form of entertainment, Terri proceeded to make a hand puppet out of the bag. Apparently this freaked him out, bringing a horrified look to him face. Terri quickly put this paper monster back in the seat back. From that point on Aidan did not venture anywhere near the seat back pocket. When we landed, the cabin of the plane was completely dark (for reasons unknown to me). It was completely quiet in the cabin as the plane was taxiing in. Of course, this is the moment that Aidan choose to be at his loudest. It was a tense flight for us because we felt all the eyes on us, and all the eyes from the flight from Ust can seem very scary.

The Ugly.
It is sad that our impression of Ust-Kamenogorsk will be forever tainted. When we arrived in Ust we were told there was a mistake on the boys’ court documents that as a result carried over to the birth certificates. Instead of having their given Russian names as middle names they both were given my name (Steven) as middle names. Not that there is anything wrong with this but it does make me look like a big egomaniac. I can hear it now, “Wow, Steve you sure do have quite an ego, why didn’t you just have them build a temple in honor of you?” We could change this but we would be here an additional two weeks. Gee, we filled out all the documents properly, you would think someone here could do the same.

We were pretty much abandoned for large parts of the day after we got the children. We were told there were too many families and that there were some money problems that they could not hire more drivers. The money didn’t seem to be a problem when we sent it. So basically we were left to our own devices until late in the day every day. But wait, it continues to get better...

On Tuesday we were told again of mysterious money problems within the local office, and that they would need to “borrow” $800 dollars to process the boys’ visas. They said we would get this back. We will see.

On Wednesday, an arriving family delivered the boys’ passports to Albina. Yes folks, my most favorite person is back in the story—you know it can never be good when this character appears. But the important part is that she had both the passports and the money she “borrowed” from us—everything she needed to get the boys’ visas before we left Ust.

On Thursday, when we were leaving for the airport Albina—wait for it—only gave us the Woods’ son’s passport. She said she would put the passports on a plane the next day. When we got to Almaty we told our coordinator of this development and they said that this was not possible and we were lied to. Our coordinator said she had already confirmed that the visas were ready and they should have been given to us. So not only is Albina indifferent to adoptive families she is greedy to the point of dishonesty.

But, unfortunately it is all about the money. While it was entirely possible to have us out of the country pretty quickly, it would have gotten us out of Kaz before our visas expired. But if our visas expire we have to pay another $200 each.

Poor Anya, she had asked us why we were so anxious to leave Ust. We didn’t want to take it out on her—she and Bolat had been great. We just told her we were anxious to get back home. Not to mention we had just found out that Terri’s father had been taken to the hospital. It would have really been helpful for us to go home early, since it was entirely possible.

Have a nice day… someone should.