Forming a family through international adoption.
Ok... so since I'm stuck in Kiev until at least Monday, I might as well find something proactive to do. I had called Bogdan late last night and told him the latest news with my adoption. Since I'm gonna be here this weekend, I asked him to go ahead and set up a field trip for Class-5 to take them to the circus. He will call me tonight to let me know the cost. We will aim for Sunday since they don't have any school that day. Orphanage classes are Monday through Saturday from 9:00 a.m. till 2:00 p.m.
I hit the internet cafe around 11:30 for brunch and emails. Who needs Russian? 
I am doing fine getting around and communicating without Russian. I just tell the girls in the cafe, bring me Americanski coffee. The folks here drink coffee from a tiny little cup. It may hold like 1/2 cup of coffee. So between John and myself we broke them in. They now know that American-coffee is a LARGE cup of coffee with cream and sugar on the side. I've also introduced the waitresses to what "Tip" means. One of them named "Hellen" speaks some English but not very well. She was telling me that very few people here "tip". That if you wanted to make good "tips" you'd have to work in a fancy restraunt.
I figured after lunch I would try to find a bookstore and pick up some Russian-English tutorials. If I'm allowed to adopt Roman, he will need these. They will come in handy killing time on the airplane. If I'm denied that adoption, then I'll just donate the CDs to Class-5. One of the boys in that class is very interested in becoming a translator. He's a doll. He has a medical condition where his chest is convex thus pushes on his lungs. So he can not play like the other kids. He's a bright boy so would probably do very well as a translator and that is something he can work at instead of playing outside.
For folks who are interested in adopting older children, I would suggest asking to look at the book of kids from orphanage-12. Many of these kids are mislabeled with learning problems. Some of the kids do have emotional baggage due to abuse, neglect etc.. But they are good kids and have it very rough when they are turned out of the orphanage at 16. By Ukraine law, if those kids have families (regardless of termination of parental rights) they must return to their home. That means back into an abusive situation.
There is one child in the class who's mother abandoned them at birth because she didn't want children. She has never visited. But the Grandmother does visit at most once a month, but its not to see how the kid is doing. Its to see what the child's status is. The child is now 12 and the Grandmother does not want the kid to be returned to the home at age 16. So she is trying to get the child transfered to a mentally retarded orphanage so the kid will be institutionalized for life. That is so cold. She hates her grandchild enough to institutionalize the kid for life.
Ok.. so after lunch I went to this British bookstore. I was looking for a book with a CD that teaches Russian kids how to speak English. Everything they had was comletely in English without Russian subcaptions. Lilia, one of the ladies working in the bookstore, wrote me directions in Russian on how to get to an open-market that just sells books and computer/aduio CDs. So I took a taxi to this market that is on the far northwest side of Kiev. The place was HUGE.
I had trouble communicating what I wanted. I ran into a few people that spoke enough English to help me out. They wrote down what I was looking for in Russian so I just went from shop to shop and stuck the note in front of the shop owner's nose. I picked up 2 tutorial books - one for Class-5 and one for Roman. And an audio CD class on English for Roman. Having some success I decided to head to the internet cafe to check mail. From here I'll hit McDonalds then head to the apartment for the evening.
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