
Forming a family through international adoption.
Today was incredibly frustrating. I got up and went to the internet cafe for lunch. I tried to read emails but the connection was so slow that it took 10 minutes to open one email up. So I gave up and returned to the apartment. I then called Vlad to see what time he was picking me up today for the appointment. He said that I had to go to some medical center because my medical form in the dossier was expired. This is when I got ticked.
I redid my medical form 5 times because the NAC couldn't make up their mind what they wanted. Two of those reworks was because they sat on my dossier so long that things were expiring. So Vlad received a new form the first week in August that won't expire till 2005. Then the week before I left for Ukraine the NAC changed their form again by adding a patient id number to the test section. So I ran around like mad having it redo and brought 2 apostilled originals with me. I gave them both to Elena at the FIRST NAC meeting.
So I told Vlad all this and asked where the hell my 2nd medical form was. He was going to call Elena who now was in Simferopol to ask. I call Vlad back about 30 minutes later wanting to know what he found out. He said that she told him she gave both medical forms to the judge in Donetsk. I was like, "What!? Why would she do that!?". Vlad said that Elena was going to call the judge to track down the form. When they find it they would send it to Kiev via train. He would call me later tonight to let me know what was going on. So after I hung up with him, I cursed like a sailor and damn near made the wallpaper start peeling.
Since there was nothing I could do, I decided to go chill at orphanage 12. I called Bogdan to make sure it would be alright. I didn't want to be a pest etc.. I arrived at the orphanage about 3:00 p.m. Lanna taught me how to do the beadwork that the kids loved. It was tedious but fun. I was disappointed that some of the kids were missing. Vera was in the hospital having her medical forms updated. Pepsi-Cola was sick in the orphanage med center. And Vitalik was off somewhere.. I think another class. So I threw a pizza party for the kids that were present. Bogdan said they had pizza like one time prior. It showed because they kept trying to eat the pizza with plastic forks. I had to introduce them to the crude American method of just picking up the slice.
Lanna had her niece, Leva, come by to do some translation for me. She had 8 years of classes but no prior conversational practice. So she had some problems coming up with words and kept telling me to speak slowly. I think Leva was somewhat bored. It was very nice of her to come by to help. Lanna wouldn't let me help set the table or do dishes. She kept saying "sit sit sit". She also kept trying to feed me. I joked with her and said she was going to make me gain all my weight back. So she'd say "sit sit sit" and I'd say "ok ok ok".
The kids thought it was funny.
I left the orphanage about 7:00 with Bogdan. The class had to go serve dinner to the other students and I was tired of being beat in checkers by Lanna. So it was a good time to head home. Bogdan introduced me to the metro system. It only costs 0.50 grievna to ride it. Bad thing is, there isn't any signs in English to help you know when you've arrived at your stop. The metro is very close to my apartment in Kiev.
When I walked in the door, the landlord was there to meet me. I had thought her name was Uda because that's what I swear Elena told me. Well her name is really Liola. Liola was wanting to get paid because she had rented the apartment now for 11 days. Elena had paid her for 2 days only. Vlad had told me that if the 2nd adoption was approved that my fee would cover this apartment. Well I guess things have changed. And really with how long I've been drug along by the NAC, I don't blame him for wanting me to pick up some of the costs in addition to the 2nd adoption fee. I will pay him that fee once we are approved. Of course the mishandling of my medical form kinda was eating at me during this discussion.
So Liola got Elena-#2 on the phone to translate. Elena-#2 told me to go ahead and pay her for the 9 days which was $270 USD. I tried to get more info out of Elena-#2 about my medical form but her English isn't as good as Vlad's. The jist of what I understood was that Elena's sister found the medical form in their apartment here in Kiev. She said Vlad would call me at 11:00 a.m. tomorrow to talk about the adoption situation.
So Liola left for the night. She is a very nice lady and I know she misses her apartment. But she is making very good money off the rental. I also think she was nervous that she wouldn't get paid. I don't think she knows my facilitation group very well, hence her uneasiness.