Sunday, March 28 Day of Rest (no babyhouse visit)– We would love to have gone to the Mennonite church for worship this Palm Sunday morning, but no way to get there. We are still too chicken to call a taxi and ask them to take us somewhere by ourselves (possibly because we can’t speak or SPELL the Cyrillic language). Other than City Mall, Café Karagady, Ankara Café, and Shapagat, I cannot remember the accurate names of any place we have visited. Our brains have been through so much stuff in the last 12 days they are absorbing LESS than usual, and for me anyway, that’s not too conducive for learning Russian and how to get about in a foreign place.
The weather is the coldest so far (about 14 degrees F plus the wind ripping). We have thought many times how grateful we are that Cooper is not with us on this difficult trip. Had we let go of her hand outside today, she would have blown away for sure! It was much warmer here on the first couple days of Spring (last week) and many people had shovels out breaking through layers of ice so that the sidewalks could dry. There was a lot of slush and little rivers to step over as the weather warmed. Now it’s all frozen over again and more challenging to walk on. We have not witnessed a single person, other than John, slip and fall. Clearly we must waste too much rock salt at home on our sidewalks!
We did venture out beyond our regular stops today. It’s less intimidating to explore new places when you are traveling with a group of people. With more than two you can laugh at each other. Because of our brightly colored coats EVERYONE knows we don’t belong. Today, we didn’t let it stop us from seeing new sites. We found a couple of new market/malls where “normal” people shop. City Mall is more on the expensive end of everything and since we are here longer than anticipated we want to hang on to our cash. We actually interacted with a couple of store clerks today who were helpful. We bought Kirill (I’ll feel comfortable calling him Scott once he has fully embraced us as mom and dad and knows we would like to change his name) a long sleeve shirt . We’re looking for race cars or a game we can take and play with during our visiting hours. Since he is one of the older children at this babyhouse many of the toys are for younger kids.
I completed 3 hours of physical therapy C.M.E.’s today and John almost completed his practice ortho in-training exam during our down time. We’re drilling each other on our Russian phrases (our last day with our translator (until he joins us in court) is this Tuesday) so we’re feeling a greater urgency to be able to communicate – important words for a 5yo like, Tee ho-chesh pee-sit “Do you want to go pee?” Tonight we will make our regular run to the Café Karagandy to check e-mails and blog. We really need to push ourselves to do more than smile and point when we are there. We see the same young waitress almost everyday and still don’t know her name? Maybe tonight we’ll introduce ourselves and ask her Kak-vahs zavut? (what is your name?)
Pictures: It’s laundry day (no washer/dryer here, nor laundromat), actually dryers are rare here.