The last day of waiting

Today was day 9 of the wait…. I don’t know why I bother to keep posting that the internet in the room is still down and that we don’t have email. We’re sure you’ve all guessed that anyway by now… “Mehybee Toomahrrrrow”. Yesterday we even lost the ability to get onto Blogger, so we will be forced to post this from Moscow in a few days. I will back-date it so that we can keep this as a journal and have the dates correct. Because I'll post this after we have the kids, it will be legal to show you their photos.

We had another half-day with the kids. We started by spending a little quiet time playing in the room. After that, I explained to the children in my broken Russian that we wanted to buy them each a kniga (book) in Russian. Our favorite bookstand is located down the hill close to the open air market. Come to think of it, what does it say about how much time we’ve had on our hands when we have a favorite book stand in Stavropol Russia? Anyway, the kids understood (Ya paneemayoo), so off we went. We expected that they would like a nice book… at least we wanted nice books for them. Instead, they wanted the cheapest books at the stand. They are very cheap little (maybe 3” X 4”) books made from thin pressed cardboard. I pointed out the nicer, hardbound, gold-leafed children’s books. “Nee hachoo… Ya hachoo eta” (I don’t want that one, I want this one). We bought them each two of the cheap little books (10 rubles each… about 36 cents) not understanding why they wanted these … then they showed us why. These were small enough to be hidden in a pocket… if no one else knows you have it, you might be able to keep it. We convinced them to leave the books at the hotel. They don’t know it, but we also bought two nicer books of fairy tales for them the other day… in Russian of course.

While at the book seller, Kim asked about the “tort” (cake) we had discussed for her “groupa” (orphanage group) yesterday. She remembered. We guess that she probably went back and told the group about having a cake for them… nothing like bragging a little when you are about to get what so many of these kids want so badly. After yesterday’s experience at the open air market, we had intended to buy the cakes AFTER the kids went back to the orphanage today and we would bring them to the orphanage for Gotcha Day. I asked Kim if she and Peter wanted to go to the market and choose the cakes. “Da”! Peter also said an enthusiastic “Da”. So, despite our apprehensions, we went back to the open air market. Peter was a little stressed, but not nearly so much as yesterday. When we got to the cake seller, his reservations went out the window. He wanted the Flamingo cake (with the flamingo made of fruit on top)… so did his sister… after he wanted it. We get a very clear impression that normally her wishes would have taken precedent and he would have surrendered it to her without much of a fight. Papa said the Flamingo cake is for Peter’s group. She gave a little argument… but not much. Papa showed her that there was only one flamingo cake and she had to pick something else. She liked the heart shaped layer cake, so we bought it.
We also had Beth and Luke pick out a cake for our family to celebrate with tomorrow once we get back from the orphanage. My Russian must be getting better… I overheard a group of Babushka’s behind commenting to each other that three cakes for the children was bad… it sounded like they were a little disgusted that we were spoiling the kids. I didn’t explain that it was 3 cakes for A LOT more than 4 kids.

The cakes were clearly a HUGE prize. Peter INSISTED on carrying his. Papa wasn’t too thrilled with his level of caution in carrying a fancy cake… he was beating it to death against his leg as it swung in its bag on the ¾ mile walk… so Peter and Papa shared the job of carrying it. Basically, I carried it and he held my hand that was holding the cake. Compromise worked. Mom carried Kim’s (and ours) without incident. We also bought some flowers… some white roses and white mums. Very tasteful.

When it was time to take the kids back, we had a number of things for them to take to share… the cakes, flowers, a bag of marshmallows each, and some token gifts for each of the caregivers in their group. When we got to the van, the driver (no translator today) called the translator on his cell phone to have him explain that the driver could take the children, but not us. He had to go the hospital (to visit someone we think) and would not be able to come back to the hotel. Our plans for the kids celebrating with their friends were in jeopardy. The driver wanted us to just bring the stuff tomorrow. We debated and decided to send most of the stuff with the kids anyway. Good thing too… our translator called later to lay out the schedule for tomorrow. We will have less than an hour from when leave the hotel until the van has to be back here. No time to party there. We will take our regular orphanage gifts and the stuff we need for the kids (clothes, shoes, coats), give the gifts, change the kids (their orphanage clothes stay with the orphanage) and we will leave. Not much fanfare…

After the kids went back, we asked Beth and Luke what they wanted to do for our last afternoon as a family of four. We were to go ice-skating at the Galleria with them. I was able to avoid being on skates the last time… not this time. Luke didn’t wipe out as badly. Beth is the best skater in the family (Thanks Laura!). Mom only wiped out once. I didn’t wipe out at all… even though Luke nearly took me down in the final few seconds. I never knew I could do a pirouette on ice skates and live to tell the story. We went back to the shish-kabob kafe for a nice dinner. If you ever go there, go to the case and pick what you want instead of ordering from the menu. Your choices are better and you can more easily figure out what the “translated” menu is trying to say.