WE MADE IT!

Most sincere apologies to all friends and family for not being in contact until now, and who might have been worried about where we were, but schedule and various logistics prevented us from getting to any kind of internet access, and we haven't been able to buy a phone card yet. But we are now safely moved into our apartment in Kokshetau, and have already seen Mia! She is very outgoing, very talkative, and very tiny. But here’s a bit of a rundown of the events of the dayâ?|

We arrived in Almaty without event. In fact, entrance into Kazakhstan was considerably easier than it was last time we did this. The airport is not complete, everything’s shiny and new, and all our stress over declarations was for naught, since we never had to declare anything and just walked right through customs. Dilnoza, our translator, was waiting for us there, and took us to our apartment, which was quite adequate. All the necessary amenities, though a bit lacking in the way of water pressure. Meeting with the sisters was very smooth, and we took care of most of the big business of the trip, and got a rundown on the rest. No surprises ‘ we’ve been here before. Signing form after form in Russian was less intimidating this time.

Fast forward to leaving Almaty two days laterâ?| We found out that instead of taking the more adventurous direct flight from Almaty to Kokshetau, we’d be taking a more normal flight to Astana and then driving from there to Kokshetau, with a stop in (ta da!) Tschuchinsk to see Mia on the way. So that was all today. A 1-1/2 hour flight, followed by a 3-hour drive to Tchuchinsk, followed by a short visit with Mia, followed by another 1-hour drive to our home away from home in Kokshetau. But let’s take that step by stepâ?|

No need to talk about the adventurous direct flight that we didn’t take ‘ we’ll get a chance to fill you in on that on the return trip (again, we did this last time, and it’s quite a story). The flight to Astana, the capital city, was uneventful, though it was fantastic to see Sveta’s smiling face waiting for us at the airport. Sveta is our interpreter, and she was with us last trip, too. She’s amazing ‘ we are in amazingly good hands.

The drive from there to Tchuchinsk, however, was more interesting. First of all, our driver, wellâ?| he got lost (no other way to cut it). He’d never driven in the capital city before, and pulled over 4 times for directions before getting us out of the city ‘ one hour later ‘ turning a 3-hour trip into a four-hour one. Cramped car, no A/C, Tucker with us in the back seat. The road, a main thoroughfare, wouldn’t be considered passable by American standards. It was very narrow and in disrepair. There were often deep potholes around which the traffic abruptly swerved. Sometimes the road would simply turn to rubble for a while, bringing anybody not in a 4-wheel-drive vehicle to a crawl. Definitely never a lane marking, median strip, or guardrail. The road between Tchuchinsk and Kokshetau seems to have gotten worse since we were here last, too ‘ and that’s the one we have to travel twice a day for two weeks.

Soâ?| the meeting with Mia, still called Bahyt (which sounds more like ‘Bakhoot’ than ‘Baheet’ when properly pronounced, incidentally). It was fantastic, though it all happened very fast. She’s quite an amazing little girl ‘ and she and Tucker hit it off pretty well, considering the language barrier. Tucker even shared his prized Spiderman action figure (purchased in Almaty for 200 Tenge, about $1.50) with her, and she shared it back! She talked non-stop, calling it ‘scary man’ in Russian (can’t remember the word). They posed for several pictures together, and the 20-minute meeting was over. As I said, it all happened very fast. But it was late in the day, and time for dinner.

So we drove to Tchuchinsk. A very welcome dinner had been called in ahead, and was waiting for us at the ‘cottage,’ another residence in which another couple is housed right now (the Tall family, adopting two children from the same baby house). We had been in email contact prior to today, so it was nice to meet face to face. We also met Shedaiza there ‘ the woman who works with the sisters to take care of things like passports and exit visas. She also happened to know a lot about Bahyt, and we got a rundown. I won’t go into the details of that here, but it’s interesting to me that her grandfather is a very well-known mathematics professor at the university in Kokshetau, now retired ‘ and a good friend of Shedaiza herself (I’m sure I’m spelling her name wrong, BTW).

â?| so now we’re settling down for the night in our apartment. One bedroom with a pullout couch for Tucker, a kitchen, and all the amenities we need. It’s small compared to the cottage we just visited tonight, but it’s more than adequate.

One more thingâ?| Nobody knew until yesterday, or even today, that Tucker was coming with us. Everyone at the baby house is SO excited to see little Takhir (they call him Takhirke ‘ ‘little Takhir’) again. We were told that the baby house director screamed in joy when she heard. There’s also a woman there named Kunpash who was very attached to Tucker when he was there, and she’ll be at the baby house tomorrow. It is likely to be very emotional. More on that later.

OK. I’ve written this. Now to attempt to log onto the internet to send it from our apartment. Stay tunedâ?|

-Mike