How Do You Say "Social Butterfly" In Russian?

Alex becomes more vocal and communicative each time we visit. The first few times we saw him he tended to just look and smile and not make much noise. These past few days he babbles and coos much more and lets us know when he isn't happy. We got his schedule today--wake up, 'free time', eat, nap at two hour intervals all day and a bath in the evening before bedtime. Wake up time is 6 a.m. which is going to change once we get back to Texas! We usually get him right after feeding time and by the time we are done he is usually sleeping in our arms since nap time is the next thing on his schedule.

Did we mention that Alex is supremely ticklish? When you tickle him under his arms this is the face you get:



Tonight we got to meet the family of Natalia (our Russian friend in the U. S.) who live here in Taraz. Her uncle's cousin (Slava) and his two older daughters (Ulia, 21 and Karina, 18) met us at the hotel restaurant for a drink and conversation. They have invited us to a friend's 50th anniversary party tomorrow night and we are going to put on our 10 gallon hats and two-step til dawn! The family is very nice and the girls look like they stepped off the SMU campus. We didn't get to meet the mother and 7 year old sister but will probably do so tomorrow. Ulia, the eldest daughter, speaks wonderful English. During the conversation we were talking about holidays and the younger daughter asked us about Groundhog Day, which was funny because many adoptive couples eventually comment that being in Kazakhstan and visiting the baby house day after day tends to be like the movie "Groundhog Day" (which is apparently pretty popular here). Same routine each day--breakfast, visit baby, lunch, visit baby, dinner, sleep and the next day the same thing all over again. So we all had a good laugh about that.

We also met Sara today. She is with Interlink Resources, a humanitarian aid organization based in Muncie that has an outpost here. (Now that I'm looking at their website, that's Sara above the "Employees" tab). They do a lot of work with the orphanages for older children in the region. Sara speaks Kazakh, which is quite a feat. She brought us a packet with lots of info about Taraz--where to eat, shop, what to see and local customs. They also have a list of about 200 DVDs that they loan out to adoptive families--nice! Another family is coming later this week and they are bringing a VHS copy of the Superbowl so Interlink is going to have a Super Bowl party Monday night. Between that and the anniversary party our social calendar is full! And since the treats are so tasty here I realized that we won't miss the Thin Mints I stowed away so I gave them to Sara for the Interlink staffers. Sara knows a number of students at the University who are dying to practice their English so we are going to get set up with one of them to take us to the bazaar one afternoon.

The hotel staff seemed to be scrubbing up the place over the past few days--washing the stair runners, etc. We found out that the Minister of the Interior is going to be staying here for a bit. As we were walking back from lunch we witnessed his arrival--many police cars, a convoy of nicer vehicles, uniformed men and women milling about looking official. We were worried that they wouldn't let us in the door of the hotel as we had to walk past armed security people. But we must have looked tame because they didn't stop us or even check to see if we had a room key. I'm guessing they had our photos on file from our passports and knew by sight who belonged and who didn't.

Forgot to write the other day that when we got to the baby house for our visit we were invited to see an older group of children (3-4 years old) perform a music and dance program for the workers. I think it had something to do with Women's Day, which is on the 8th and it was mainly traditional songs and they also acted out the play of the Little Red Hen (she gets the wheat, grinds it, makes bread while the other animals play and when the bread is ready the other animals want to eat even though they did nothing to help). It was all very cute and I caught almost all of it on video. There were about 12 kids and they were all gorgeous, well-behaved and bright. There was a very spirited little boy, Kazakh, who had enough personality for the entire room. Our translator told us he was unadoptable because he has a mother. Apparently when life gets too rough or money is too tight a family might drop their child off at the baby house temporarily. This little boy didn't seem to mind, though! There was also a set of twin girls, also Kazakh, who seemed older (and much taller) than the other children. We found out that they had been brought to the baby house just about a month ago. Yesterday while we were visiting they were tranferred to Ulan, the house for older kids (5 years and up) because they were 5 1/2 years old. Medet (our driver) and Vera (translator) took them since Medet is kind of considered and unofficial taxi for the baby house. Vera said the girls were very upset and crying because they were afraid their grandmother wouldn't know where they were and wouldn't be able to find them to visit. It was all very sad but good to know that they do have family available and that this is a temporary situation for the girls.