Thursday March 18
Flight to Astana was perfect landing right on time at 11:50PM. Actually all 3 of our flights departed and landed right on schedule! We went through whatever you call the intimidating check point of visas to enter a foreign country and shortly later gathered our 180 lbs. of luggage. Gulnara was waiting for us outside baggage claim along with Kadeer who was holding up “KING” so we could find them.
And then the REAL adventure began. Astana was windy and freezing. By 12:30AM everything was loaded in our driver’s Toyota Land Cruiser and off we headed for a “3” hour drive to Karaganda. Ha! At 2AM, after snoozing off and on the car came to a stop. Turns out the major road to Karaganda had just been closed due to extreme winds (snow moving horizontally in fast motion) and poor visability. Gulnara had Kadeer drive around about 20 cars that had come to a stop in front of us and there we sat nose to nose with a locked gate and some sort of USSR guard house. The decision was made to sleep in our car until the road was to open back up, hopefully at 8AM. The car rocked like a boat in the wind while ice thickened on all windows but the front would defrost every ½ - 1 hour when Kadeer turned the heat back on. The posted picture is of the guard house taken at 10AM the following morning where we STILL sat 8 hours later! Got out of car line to find a place to go to the bathroom (several miles away) discovering that the only place that appeared to be in operation was a motel which was experiencing an electric and water outage, thus no bathroom. Drove back into car line in front of guard house and locked gate (this time not as close to gate) and at 12 noon the decision was made for us to drive back toward Astana and board a train to take us onto Karaganda (poor driver had to wait it out). Who would think that a public train station AND a train had no bathrooms?
3:15PM we arrived ( via taxi that we hopped on at the train station) at our “cute” little apartment on the 5th floor - only of course after helping to push taxi that was stuck in ice and snow. Will try and post pictures of our space that has little kitchen area, coffee table, one chair, Russian TV, bed and an ironing board (which serves as a table in the bathroom). Couldn’t be happier with our $30/night set up except for the stair well up to our 5th floor that has no lights (and is rather scary) until you get to our door. Behind a 4 deadbolt steel door stands a quaint and homey one.
4PM Off to Department of Education to receive our permission to go into the babyhouse (little bump in the road in that meeting but all was smoothed out and permission granted) 4:45PM arrive at the Dept. of Foreign Affairs for second approval letter we needed and director had just left. Gulnara will go back there in the morning to complete this step but we were unable to meet our little one today because of this. Probably a blessing because we had just spend 45 hours in traveling, or waiting to travel, since leaving Greenwood on Tuesday. Since we’ve now gained 10 hours time I’m completely confused as to what we’ve missed on the eating and sleeping – just know we’re whooped.
We enjoyed a turkish dinner near our apartment that sits amid huge shopping centers and businesses in the company of Gulnara and Janat, our translator who is new at this but doing a great job. Feeding the 4 of us a delicious meal with hot tea and diet cokes was about $27 total so not bad for a night out on the town. We drove back to the drivers apartment at 9:30 pm to get all the luggage out of his Toyota and haul up 5 flights of dark stairs. Poor translator was short of breath after playing bell hop as well.
Tomorrow morning (Friday, March 19 – HAPPY 5TH BIRTHDAY, COOPER!) at 10AM we will finally meet this child that God has placed on our hearts. Can’t wait to introduce you to her.