Alexandra's first cry

I stayed up late last night watching a movie in Russian. I actually understood the plot but it wasn't that in depth. The movie was "Vampyres des Muertos" and it had John Bob Jovi fighting vampires in Mexico. I would definitely recommend it if you have spent over a month in a foreign country with no English language television stations. Despite going to bed a bit later, I woke up at 5:30 am. I came down to the internet cafe to find out Canada had won their third straight junior gold. As we got ready this morning Candace and I realized that we left home 31 days ago. It's hard to believe we have been gone so long.

Our morning visit did not start off that well but it ended much better. I brought a note that I translated on the computer asking if we could take Alexandra outside. We took her first to the big room for her morning banana and then dressed her in her ski suit. She reluctantly followed me to the exit and then I picked her up and carried her through the door. When we stepped outside the orphanage and the sun and cool air hit her face she became instantly teary-eyed. Then I put her on the ground and she started crying and asked to be picked up again. We carried her around for 10 minutes and tried to reassure her but it didn't help. You have to wonder if the kids here ever go outside during the winter. We had hoped she would get a few days to get used to outside before leaving this week. Unfortunately, the poor weather (mild but rainy and sleety) has prevented this from happening. Given today's reaction, we have made new plans. We will now wait until our departure day before taking her outside again. Hopefully, she will handle it better...or else cry herself out during the 90 minute ride to the airport for the flight to Kiev.

As the title of this entry says, this was the first time in four weeks that Alexandra has actually cried. She has fallen, tripped, been banged, bumped and even poked...but she never seemed to be bothered. Outside, however, she doesn't like so much. She continued to cry for about 5 minutes after we came in and only relaxed when we finally put her ski suit back in the bag. For the next hour, she went back to being the usual playful and cheerful self. The only exception was about 30 minutes later when I pulled out the ski suit and said "Outside?". She glared at me, said "No" in a firm voice, and pointed for me to place it back in the bag. I complied quickly and she seemed to forgive me.

It is Christmas Eve today, so it is a time for gift giving. The three couples remaining presented the staff with a token of our appreciation. The doctor had suggested that we could bring things such as champagne, chocolates, coffee and tea. To make it simple, we gave them a little bit of everything. Then Candace and I went up to Alexandra's room. We gave each of the 16 kids there some candy, a banana, a toy, and some cigarettes. Of course I am joking about the cigarettes. While it does seem like everyone in the Ukraine smokes, I don't think that they actually start until they are 8 or 9 and our orphanage only goes up to four years old. I had imagined playing Santa Claus as I sat on the small stool at the front of the room. I was going to ask each child to come up individually before reaching into the bag for a special toy that suited them. There were eight boys and eight girls and we had gender-specific toys ready. So...I called the first boy up, pulled out a car...and then the other 15 kids, including Alexandra, rushed us. It took the caregivers about 2 - 3 minutes to get them sitting again. Candace and I then took a bag each and started dishing the doys out quickly as the children were seated. In her haste, Candace misjudged the gender of one of the boys, so I had to give the last little girl a toy car. I hope she likes it.

Animated animals and cab drivers

Happy Birthday Nana! My grandmother in Nova Scotia, and Alexandra's great grandmother, turns 94 today. Congratulations!

Here I am in the Russian part of Ukraine and the gold medal final of the world juniors between Canada and Russia is not televised. And I still can't get the broadband feed from TSN. Fortunately, I have been following along on the internet and I know the first period has ended with Canada up 3 - 0. I will come down again before I go to bed to see how it ends.

Hanging around with two girls all the time while being almost completely removed from Western media is starting to have an effect on me I think. The daily tea parties and hair and jewelry sessions are changing my interests...at least temporarily. For example, I read another period romance "Jane Eyre" and actually enjoyed it. I need to get home and read Sports Illustrated, watch some Spike TV, and have a Swanson Hungry Man frozen dinner.

I have been noticing there are lots of cars over here that we don't have back home. I am not talking about the European automakers like Puegot, Lada, and Daewoo. No, I am referring to the North American carmakers who have different models. I have seen Ford Scorpios and Mondeos as well as Chevrolet Vivants, Metros, and Nivas. Also, in the four weeks that we have been here, the only pick-up truck we have seen has been at the toy stores. I think I will kiss the first Dodge Ram that I see when we finally get home.

Our visits continue to go extremely well. It is amazing how connected the three of us are becoming. It is hard to believe how quickly she has become attached to us. It is a powerful thing to have a little girl give you a hug or kiss and ask you to pick her up and carry her around. Alexandra was still wound up a bit during the morning. After much reflection, we have identified the source of her hyperactivity. It seems that whenever Candace and I spend extended periods of time chasing her, tickling her, or agitating her she gets wound up. Given this epiphany, it will be us that take the time outs in the future. The evening visit was much calmer. Candace and I played nicely and quitely and amazingly Alexandra followed suit. Alexandra even became trilingual, saying goodbye in three languages. On the way out the door she said "Bye bye", "Paka", and "Adios". I feel like submitting her university application right now to get a head start on possible scholarships.

It was very mild out today and Candace and I walked home from the morning visit. On the way we saw a Russian dog chase a Russian cat down the slippery sidewalk. Candace had another one of her laughing fits as the whole thing unfolded around us. The little dog was quick but fortunately the cat was smarter and managed to evade capture. At one point about mid-chase the cat ducked in the open door of a flower shop and the dog followed. It was funny to see the shop owner first chase the dog out with a stick before going back in for the cat.

This evening, we took a cab home. I told the driver, who I had never seen before, "Hotel". He got extremely excited, said "My friend, my friend...Canada". I said "yes" and he shook my hand and started telling me how he remembered us from a previous trip to Kiev I think. He was confusing us with someone else but he was so glad to see us (again) that I decided not to spoil it. For the duration of our short trip, he was talking really loudly and excitedly and patting my arm and shoulder. At one point he said "Canada...hockey" and began simulating checking me and roughing me up while going down the main street at about 60 km per hour. Candace didn't really do anything to bail me out...she was too busy laughing in the back seat. When we arrived at the hotel he refused my money and said "Free for my friend". Again, this was the first time we had ever come across him. Then he gave me some kind of handshake as if he and I were homies. Going up the steps to the hotel entrance, I told Candace that the ride was both fun and traumatic at the same time. He gave us his card, which we will use to identify and avoid his cab for our last few days here.

Well...tomorrow is Christmas Eve here. I know that Father Frost came last week so I am not sure exactly what will happen. I am guessing it will involve some kind of fireworks display.

Five more sleeps then back to Kiev

First off, thanks to Candace's sister and mother who called last night. She was very excited to hear from you both.

I have a little scrap of paper with the name and address of the orphanage that I carry with me to give to taxi drivers who don't know the location by name. It was given to me by one of the translators on December 14th. The paper is tattered from frequent use and from one accidental washing in the sink. I have a new copy that I rewrote but I am partial to the original. I plan to use it to get to the orphanage until our final day and then save it as a souvenier.

Our visits today were fantastic. This morning Alexandra was doing and saying all kinds of things to make us laugh. She is very animated and she is bridging the language barrier with eye rolls and a multitude of facial expressions. She also is really good at expressing surprise, both real and imagined. For example, she will hide things from me and then act really surprised when she finds them...under her legs.

During the evening visit, all of the kids were really wound up. I am not sure what they served for supper but I am guessing that it included sugar. We may have contributed by bringing several new toys that we purchased. Candace actually gave Alexandra her first time out for throwing toys instead of laying them neatly on the floor. Alexandra sat quitely, smiling for a minute or so before getting a sort of bored expression on her face. As I sat there watching her I felt as if I was the one being punished. I can say proudly that she did her time without incident and returned a calmer girl as a result. We are finding out that things we learned as teachers actually work on your own children. Everyone who kept telling us how different things would be when we had kids will be really surprised to learn that we are not totally unskilled. That being said, we have yet to experience our first temper tantrum at Walmart or sandwich in a vcr type incident.

Today we had an interesting experience at a large bank called PrivatBank. We were greeted at the door of this modern five story glass and stone buidling by an electronic screening device, a man in a suit, and two security guards. I passed the man in the suit a note which stated in cyrillic Russian that I was there to withdraw some American currency. He gave me instructions to go to the next floor and visit what I thought was room 207. When I arrived, the two gentlemen working there were surpised to see us. I gave them my note and one of them took us to room 209. I gave the note to the lady there and she took us an area on the same floor which had two tellers behind a glass and wire enclosure. She said something to one teller, pointed to us to wait in line, and then went back to her office. We were waiting for about 15 minutes and the line wasn't moving. An older lady who appeared to be waiting in line said something to us then walked down the hallway. Candace was nervous and thought we did something wrong. What actually happened was the lady went to get the first lady to come back and help us again. Apparently, she had cut us in line and we were supposed to be served first. By this time we had kind of lost our place and were about sixth in line. The lady gave the teller heck I think and then told us to come with her. We followed her to her office where she processed our withdrawl on her own computer. Then we were taken back to the first floor to what appeared to be the vault area. The lady pressed a coded keypad which had a camera above us. A third lady came to the door, was handed our withdrawl slip, and went and got us some cash. At home, withdrawing money from an ATM takes about 45 - 60 seconds. Our experience at this bank took about 45 minutes. That being said, it was really kind of neat and the people that we encountered were extremely helpful.

After the bank, we went to a nearby restaurant and had a lunch of ice cream sundaes and tea. Then we picked up some more toys and books, as well as a new duffle bag to bring all of Alexandra's stuff home. We had brought another bag with us but it is no longer big enough given the amount of stuff we have purchased. Its hard to resist when toys and children's clothes are so cheap over here.

At the end of the afternoon, Candace did some reading and I came down to check my email. While I was there, I noticed three colleagues were logged into their computers back at the office in Manitoba. We have communication software that allows for instant messaging so we ended up chatting for about five minutes online. I was getting ready for my evening visit and the three of them were just starting their day at about 8:00 am CST. Thanks to Charlene, Shawna, and Heather for allowing the interruption.

It ended up being a day for unusual communication. As I made this blog entry, the Spaniard who is also adopting was sitting beside me. He and his wife are both staying at the same hotel. I sent him a message using an online translator, showed him the site, and then we "talked" for about ten minutes before he headed upstairs.

Well I have to get going...I have the last month of Saturday crosswords from the Winnipeg Free Press printed out. Let me tell you...the fun never stops over here.

Russian cats and costume jewelry

Some guy in the next building has had trouble starting his car. Yesterday morning he tried from 6:05 - 8:00 am and today he went from 5:15 to 7:40 am. I was tempted to run down and offer to pay for a cab. Given the early wake-up, I decided to go downstairs around 5:30 am and check the blog. I was excited to see the postings following the uploading of Alexandra's picture. Thanks for all of the wonderful comments. And I told you she was beautiful. I look forward to sharing the blog and its comments with her when she gets a bit older. Our plan is to print everything off with some added pictures and make a book as a keepsake. Thanks to everyone who has contributed to this process.

For our morning visit, Candace brought all of our leftover food items down for the dumspter cats near the orphanage. There are cats everywhere but they all look healthy so they must be very resourceful. And they all look Russian...they are very attractive but have stern faces and they are all covered with elaborate fur coats, much like most of the women over here. Candace tried to call a few with "Kitty, Kitty" but none of them came...so they must not understand English.

After the visit, we walked a few blocks to the Americans' neighbourhood and went to the big market that they have been telling us about. They described it as hundreds of little shops and booths in a partially enclosed area about the size of five Walmarts. That was accurate, although when we arrived only about 20% of the shops were open. I am not sure if it was the rain or if today is still a holiday. Within an hour almost all of the shops were closed. We did get to go to a really great toystore where Candace made us buy more girly toys.

So...the better part of our evening visit was spent watching Alexandra adorn herself with costume jewelry. That was after the two of us tried, to no avail, to do something about her wicked bed-head. She must have had a really good afternoon nap...dreaming about Canada no doubt. We learned that while Alexandra loves bracelets, bangles, and rings, she doesn't care much for tiaras and earrings, and she absolutely hates necklaces. The shortest-lived new toy was a pair of sunglasses. I put them on Alexandra, she grabbed them by the arm and whipped them off, snapping the arm in the process. Then she looked at them, smiled, and snapped off the other arm. I think I will wear contacts for the rest of our visits. Fortunately, the little boy being adopted by the Spanish couple was really into sunglasses without arms. Candace also tried to put on nail polish again because what she applied yesterday was gone...but Alexandra wanted no part of it. We suspect that she may have gotten heck last night when she went to her room with her nails all done up.

We went out and had a nice supper before returning back to our hotel. It actually is beautiful outside tonight...well above zero and the rain has finally stopped. Candace was really excited because her sister Camille called from Manitoba. I am really excited because the end is in sight...and it is getting closer quickly.

Nail polish and the guy from Ghana

Let me start by wishing my brother Robert in Pembroke, Ontario a happy birthday today. Thanks to Rob and family for all of the supportive comments...as well as for the updates on the World Juniors. There is a game on right now that I wish I could watch...Sweden vs the Czech Republic. I tried to get the broadband feed from TSN but all I got was a message that said "It appears to you are connecting from outside of Canada. This live event is limited to residents of Canada only". I feel like writing a letter to TSN telling them that "Hey, I am still a resident of Canada!".

We came downstairs this morning and had tea in the lounge before coming into the internet cafe to check our blog. We haven't had internet access for a couple of days because of the holiday so we were anxious to see what comments there were. It was a really nice way to start our day. Its funny...being so far away from home it is little things such as the internet that help you feel connected. When that connection is gone you feel somewhat lost.

I mentioned that there are only really three couples still here. All three of us get our official decrees on January 9th. We fly out on Janaury 12th as do the Americans while the Spanish couple does not leave until January 17th. One or two of the other families were done before the holidays while the remaining couples returned home for a bit and will come back for their children. I can't imagine how tough that must be.

Our visits today were alot of fun. Candace has Alexandra not only doing the tea party thing, but now she has to wash the dishes when they are finished. She washes while Mommy dries. This evening was another step towards her becoming a total girly-girl. Candace brought nail polish. Just after we got there, an American lady from Arkansas dropped in to visit. She has been gone back home for a bit but returned with her mom yesterday to pick up her little one tomorrow. As I was talking to them, Alexandra first came over to show me her finger nails. I told her they looked really nice and she headed back over with Candace. About five minutes later she came back to show me her toe nails and I had to fawn over them for a bit. It was tough to get her to put her socks back on a little while later. Fortunately, she isn't at the stage yet where she wants to paint Daddy's nails. Once she gets there, I will have to do what every other father of a girl does. That will be the day I leave the orphanage with red finger nails.

We had lunch with the American couple and their translator. After that we all went to the local grocery store. As I was going through the till, I tried to ask the cashier to give me 20 five cent coins for a $1.00 note. She had no clue what I was saying and I even tried to write it out for her. Then a voice asked "Do you need some help?". It was a gentleman from Ghana who works here as a pastor. He translated for me and even provided me with the change himself when the cashier was unable to. The first person I ever met from Ghana and I did it while I was in Ukraine.

Candace and I are pretty excited about tomorrow. The American couple recently moved to a new apartment and they discovered a giant flea market down the street. They said it is the size of about five Walmarts. They spent 2.5 hours there and they said they didn't even get through it. We are all going after our morning visit tomorrow. While there I am going to make sure to pick up some nail polish remover...for both Alexandra and myself.

Hello 2007!

Happy new year everyone! Candace and I hope that each of you brought in 2007 safely. Also, happy birthday to my sister Nicole who celebrates her special day today. I won't say how old she is...younger then me but still old.

It was incredibly quiet here this morning. It took us 15 minutes before we saw a taxi. Uusally, there are 6 - 10 parked in fron of our hotel. While we were waiting we walked a bit. Even though it was around 9:00 am, there were still some people in Santa hats drinking. There were empty bottles and spent fireworks littering the streets, as well as a couple of used syringes. We also came upon a two-vehicle collision. Several people were pushing one car (a Lada) from a pole that it had struck after it hit another car. Everyone seemed okay...and everyone appeared to be inebriated.

Walking home from our morning visit, there were still fireworks going off as we walked down the street. Candace said, "Oh I can't wait to get home. It's been four weeks since I have shopped". I am sure the merchants in Brandon miss her business as well. To be fair, I can't wait to get back to where the poeple in the stores talk like me and where there are products with which I am familiar in a currency that I am used to. I can't wait to get to the toy section of Walmart with Alexandra in tow as I help her fill a shopping cart with things to take home.

Our evening visit was really peaceful. When we arrived the Spanish couple was just leaving and the Americans did not show up. So it was just the three of us in the big room from about 5:30 - 7:00 pm. Alexandra was quite entertaining...she did several things that made us laugh out loud.

We had supper at our hotel room watching Euronews, which was actually mainly in English. Then I worked on Alexandra's immigration application while Candace did some laundry in our sink. We played cards for a couple of hours while watching the countdown for the Top 100 music videos of 2006. Then it was lights out by 11:00 pm. What a wild life we are leading over here.

Since New Years is the time for resolutions, I thought I would help Alexandra make her resolutions for 2007 since she doesn't speak English so well. Here goes...I Mila Alexandra David do hereby resolve:

1. To always wear a seatbelt when travelling in a car.

2. To stop eating hard candy, even when it given to me by doctors.

3. To brush my teeth regularly.

4. To stop drinking tea during breakfast and my evening snack.

5. To love mommy and daddy, even when they do things for me that are good for me but I don't like.

6. To stay away from boys until I am 21 years old.

New Years' eve

There are two large dumspters behind an apartment buidling which is adjacent to the orphanage. During the day, we see cats and sometimes dogs atop them looking for their next meal. Sadly, after dark, the animals are replaced by what I assume are homeless people looking for the same. The Ukraine is a very impoverished country...not third world, but certainly old world. In Canada, our annual inflation rate is about 2% while in the Ukraine it is nearer 13.5%. I read somewhere that 50% of the people here are below the poverty line. I told the translator who works with the Americans what our plane tickets cost and he said that it was the same as his annual wage. For the record, we got a really good deal on our tickets.

Candace and I had tea to start the day, in what has become a bit of a morning ritual. When we arrived at the orphange, we were told by two people, including a doctor, not to feed Alexandra today. They used the sign language for "no food", "upset stomach", and "vomit". We were the last couple to be given this warning because we have been sneaky when we feed her.

When we got back to the hotel, I booked a hotel room near the Frankfurt airport for January 12th. We have an overnight there before heading to Canada. We will be staying at the Ibis Frankfurt Airport Hotel. Candace and I then went walking around the nearby stores. They were really crowded. Candace went back to the hotel and I spent about 30 minutes trying to find a place to exchange currenecy. Fortunately, I finally found one because everything will be closed tomorrow. The local exchange booths / kiosks called Obmeem Balyuts are everywhere.

During the evening visit, Alexandra was a bit sleepy. We again took turns carrying her around with her head resting on our shoulders. From 7 - 11 we visited with our American friends at their apartment. We arranged for our taxi to return at 11:00 pm to bring us back to our hotel. Then we watched fireworks for a while. It was a pretty amazing sight, with hundreds of them going off across the city. They were still erupting at 12:45 when I fell asleep. Then I was awoke at 4:15 am by more fireworks followed by the cheering of a crowd of people. They really go all out for New Years here.

Having been away from home for three consecutive New Years I have decided that I want to do something special next year. So Brittany...if no one has asked yet would you babysit for us next December 31st?