Day 12 - Absolutely Nothing Happening

This is the part I don't like about Ukrainian adoption (well, apart from imposing new rules which go against SDA rules that are in place). The lack of information, the lack of courtesy of giving any information, and the lack of caring about giving any information to waiting families who are just sitting and wasting time. Heidi and I are burning through leave, away from our kids, and want to bring our daughter home.

Our facilitators are doing their best, but haven't been told anything either. We have been asked to stay on through the week with the possibility that news may come soon. If it doesn't, one or both of us may come home this weekend.

We visit Rimma for 2 hours each day after school. She's frustrated with the language barrier and is shy at trying to communicate with us, but it is getting better. The big ice-breaker is constant games of Go Fish in English.

We had a hard day yesterday. We were stopped or hindered at everything we attempted to do. It's funny now, but it wasn't so funny at the time. The first thing we did incorrectly was to assume that the number 8 bus goes the same route as the number 8 Martshuka. We got a traveling tour of some western neighborhood of Kherson. Oh well, we just figured that the bus would go in a circle back to our original boarding stop and we would recover. Nope! At the end of the line the money-taking lady spoke harshly at us and we explained that we must have missed our stop, in English. She demanded another 1.5 grivna (about 20 cents) to ride the bus further. We paid up and noted that the bus had simply turned around and was going backwards on its route. After several stops, the afore mentioned money-taking lady must have felt sorry for us because she was all smiles and friendly. She wanted to make sure that we got to the "central" street where we were looking for originally. Her warmness was a considerable spirit lifter for me and I cheered up for the time being. Having got off a few blocks short of where we were intending to go, we walked down to our intended target, the grocery store and lunch stop. The whole fiasco took an hour.

On our way back, we made sure we got the number 8 Martshutka this time. Well, not knowing the name of our bus stop near the Bible House and being stuffed in the back with iced over windows caused us to be dropped off a few blocks north of the orphanage which in turn is a few blocks north of the Bible House. We walked the eight blocks with groceries back to drop off the bags before walking back to the orphanage. Well, I wanted to lose weight.

After seeing Rimma and walking a few blocks north again, we thought it would be nice to use the internet cafe due to the sometimes spotty internet connection at the Bible House. Nope, sorry, no internet at the internet cafe tonight. Never mind that this is their singular reason to be open. Why not just turn the lights off and go home instead of luring weary, travel-ignorant Americans to your door!

After a light dinner at the restaurant across the street, we sought a taxi ride. No going wrong this time, right? After all, I have a business card from the Bible House complete with a map. Nope, this guy wants to continuously turn the wrong way and is smoking a cigarette with the windows up. At this point, I've had enough! I got to the room and just collapsed on the bed. Bad day complete, I pray for good days ahead.

The end of the week forecast is for the temp to be in the 20's & 30s, a virtual heat wave. I sure hope so. I need a little comfort.

~ Felix ~