It's Like We Jumped Back In Time

This might be a long one since this is the first time we have had internet in a couple of days. We have a lot to tell :)

We spent the day on Thursday packing up our little apartment and preparing for travel to the next phase of our journey. Balta! At about 3.30pm Sasha came to get us and we headed over to pick up our referral paperwork from the SDA. We were told to come from 4-5pm. Apparently this is when everyone that has had appointments the day before comes to pick up theirs as well. There was a large group of people waiting for the same thing and it was exciting to know that each one of these couples was going to be taking children home with them. We ran into another couple with two teenagers, that are from Cottonwood Heights, and we also ran into my blogging friend Prudence and her husband Les. I have been so amazed at the adoption community. Everyone is so very supportive of each other. I have made friends with so many people all over the country. While we waited Mike decided that he needed to buy a Ukrainian Mace. Its pretty cool, but I'm not sure how he will get it home?

We stood in the SDA for many hours, which we were told by Sasha, was another thing he has never seen before. We joked with him that it was our job to show him all the things he has never seen before, on our visit! He laughed and laughed. We didn't get our paperwork until about 7pm.

We got straight on the road and headed down to Balta. Balta is the town that Anastasia lives and our first stop. Well it was meant to be our first stop!!
The roads outside of the main city of Kiev are in a word horrendous! Mike and I were laughing as we dodged potholes all along the freeway because it felt like it had been bombed and never fixed! It was a very bumpy ride right up until we broke the axle on the van!! Then the bumps stopped and we sat on the side of the rode trying to get someone to drive a couple of hours to come and rescue us. I had to hold in a laugh, (I didn't want to laugh while Sasha and our driver Sergei we in the car) because I knew if I didn't laugh about it, I might burst into tears. Mike started whistling, like he does all the time, and Sasha asked him to stop, becasue it was bad luck! Who knew! Mike whistles all the time. NOW we know what has been behind all of our delays! Thanks Mike.
Alec came to rescue us and Sergei got a tow truck to come and take him back to Kiev to get the car fixed.
We headed down the road a little way and stopped for the night (Sasha didn't think it was worth breaking another car, driving at night) at a little Dutch themed Motel. There were windmills decorating everywhere. It was a really cute little motel out in the middle of nowhere. Our room here was so hot we had to open up the window to try and sleep. Since the motel was next to the freeway, it made for a long night.

our room in the Dutch Motel

We had dinner there and I couldn't resist taking a picture of the shot glasses that are placed on the table. They just assume that you are going to drink!

Outside the Motel

Little log cabin rooms

Our room was upstairs

Mike Kaila-ing in the dinner room

We left on Friday morning at 6am and headed the rest of the way to Balta. After we left the freeway we passed a couple of very old towns. It was like jumping back in time. There were houses that had thatched roofs and kids riding on horse drawn wagons to school. There was even a guy pulling a wagon that Mike said reminded him of Fiddler on the roof. It was really amazing to be in a place like that. The road was a little scary through those towns. It was very icy. Never been plowed and there were also still the pot holes to navigate around. It was very slow going, but we did finally make it.

This is the best shot I could get of the ice covered road we drove on for 50km. Full of potholes and hard to use the brakes.

old homes

a man pulling his cart

Balta is quite large but it is also undeveloped. There is no sign of any factories or industrial buildings. There is a very large blue church on top of a hill that overlooks the town, but that is really the extent of anything to look at. The church is located right next to the school where Anastasia lives. The school is very large. I am not sure yet how many children live there, but I plan on asking. Best guess would be hundreds! Which makes me so sad.

This was a children's play area we walked past. These are gas lines that go straight threw it. Only the valves are surrounded by a small fence

view from outside our first hotel window. Two Ukrainian men standing on the street chatting at 8am Sat Morning

Mike outside the blue church. The log building on the right is the school.

A view of one of the streets. It really doesn't capture how old the city is.

I found it amusing that there is graffiti everywhere you go. Sometimes its in Russian, sometimes in English

the school from the side. It is huge

An old entrance to the school

old buildings

another entrance to the school

gas lines above the street

Fire station. We asked Sasha if there was anything to see here and he said "Well there is a tall fire mans tower!" Here it is!!

an old church

clothing hanging out from the windows to freeze dry

an example of the roads

After walking around a little today we came across this war memorial

more of the old buildings. I wish that pictures could properly capture this town

This was a apartment playground. It was SO OLD! Very Soviet looking.

Old broken down homes

more of the playground

An old mud brick home

our new hotel. It has 3 rooms

It was warm enough today to melt some of the ice. Its hard to see but the road has no way to drain the water off. It looked flooded. Water was just running down the road in sheets

We visited with the Ministry, the social worker in charge of adoptions for Balta. We had to be interviewed by her to be allowed to go to the school. She asked us what we did and some questions about our family and Mikes job. Then we were allowed to go with a social worker to the orphanage.

Once we arrived we spoke with the Director of the orphanage, who asked us why if we already have 4 children, do we want more? How do you answer that? We just do! It is hard to explain to people that you felt inspired to adopt. She laughed at us a little and said she will never understand us. She has 2 children and has a hard enough time with them!! Finally she allowed us to meet Anastasia.

She looks just like Olena. She is exactly 1 year older (there birthdays are the same day! which happens to be the same day as mine) She was very shy, but kept smiling at me just like Olena would. We asked her a few questions. She knows absolutely no English! But was very willing to answer the questions we had. We asked her when was the last time she saw Olena? She told us that she hadn't seen her for about 2 and half years, but she had spoken to her about 2 weeks ago. She likes to call her as often as she can. We found out that she had gone recently and visited with an older brother. He is 22 and disabled. I believe he was in the hospital. She also got to visit her father. It is so sad to know that he is either not capable of caring for these girls, or he just doesn't have any interest in doing it. It is likely that latter, since they are old enough to really be helpful to him. We got the feeling that Anastasia REALLY craves family. We had been told by the SDA that she was developmentally delayed. We saw no signs of that at all. We were told that at one point both girls were in the same orphanage and Olena showed a little more promise with schooling (Anastasia didn't care about school and we believe that was when they decided that she wasn't at her age level) and was moved to a different school. This upset Anastasia a lot to have her sister leave. I think since then she has worked a little harder at school. If anything she might not be at full grade level but that is the extent of it.

After meeting with her for a little while Sasha asked us what we wanted to do. We were allowed outside for a little while to talk about it. But it really didn't take much talking. We had only come here for one girl. We only had funds and room for one girl. Mike and I had discussed many times that we felt like one child would assimilate into our family and our culture, more easily then multiple. But in the end how could we knowingly take her sister away, and leave her to a life with no future? How could we separate two sisters that obviously care for each other? If something happened to us we would want our kids to stay together.
SO, WE DECIDED TO TAKE BOTH GIRLS!!!!
Our only issue now is the extra money. No, it doesn't cost double. We are still going over numbers and Sasha said that it might not be a whole lot more then it would have been, to pay for the extra days we would have needed to stay here to do the separation. So we are hoping that with a little more fundraising we will be ok. We know that the Lord led us to this girl, just like he did to Olena. I believe that with all my heart. I think that even more than Olena, Anastasia needs us. She has never left this small town and like I said seems to crave the love of a family, even more then Olena. We came back in after deciding and Sasha asked her if she would want to be adopted by us with Olena and she said, "I want to be with Olena." One of the teachers that was in there with us, started crying an Anastasia kept smiling at me (she doesn't like to smile properly, just like Olena didn't, because we were told she is embarrassed by her teeth) And I felt such a warm feeling inside, I knew we had made the right decision. I know it might be harder to have them both come home with us, but it IS the right choice.When it was time to say goodbye, we asked if we could take a picture with her. She gave us a really tight hug and we told her we would come back tomorrow.

Some of the huge boarding school

Heading into the School. Sasha and our social worker

After our decision

In the teachers room, getting to know Anastasia a little

Trying to trick her into smiling!

We stayed Friday night in a really cheap hotel. It was freezing cold in there and even after Sasha had talked them into adding a couple of extra heaters to the room we were still freezing. We grabbed anything we could find around the room (including a rug an some towels) and laid it on the bed to help us stay warm. We slept fully dressed and I even had 2 pairs of socks on. Luckily it was only for one night!! Oh and young people here drag main too! Only they do it while honking and yelling over and over!!

About to jump into bed

Mike trying to stay warm. Fully dressed, layers of blankets, and two space heaters that were pretty useless.

All the layers on our bed

 We went again today to visit with Anastasia. Sasha had to leave to go back to get Sergei and the other van. So we were left on our own at the orphanage with Anastasia. She was really happy to see us, which was wonderful for us. We visited with her and tried really hard to communicate with her. It was a lot harder then with Olena. We found out that our Russian is REALLY bad but we got by. We watched home movies and tried to teach her to say a few things in English. The school had no internet so we couldn't use a translator, but I had a small dictionary that helped a little. We visited for about 1 1/2 hours and then she had to return to school. She told Mike that he was nice. I think that's a great start!!

Mike trying to find the correct words

Mike and Nastia outside saying goodbye

Nastia looking for some English words to speak to us. She told Mike he was nice!!

We will visit her again tomorrow and on Monday we will collect her paperwork and hopefully head to Ismail to see Olena. We are hoping that Anastasia will be able to come along with us. We would love to see the girls together.