Not much to tell you today. We walked to the mall and timed it. It took us 32 minutes. We sit in the food court and check email. We have been here for 5 hours. Alex is in Kiev with another family today. He sent another facilitator to work on our paperwork. She is going to call us when she is finished. We haven't heard anything about the meeting or as Alex calls it the "village gathering" which is probably much more accurate. We are really disappointed that we didn't get to see the kids today. We can't even let them know that we aren't coming so I'm sure they have been waiting for us the last 2 days. I'm sure their lives have been full of people disappointing them and I hate that we are doing the same thing. When the facilitator gets here, we can buy minutes for our cell phone so that we can try to call Tanya's friend who has a phone. Please pray that we will somehow be able to see them tomorrow. Usually people are able to visit the kids at the orphanage each day but it makes it much harder that they are at camp an hour away. Our highlight of the day was going to the grocery store and finding this:
We love getting emails and phone calls. If you have any time between the time you wake up and about 3:00 pm, give us a call. We love to hear from home. Our number is at the top of the blog. We miss everyone very much and will hopefully have better news tomorrow or later today.
If you know what SIM card you have you can just go to one of the street vendors and get a card. The code to enter is on the back in a scratch out. Definitely important to get comfortable doing that so you can have some consistent communication and independence.
ReplyDeleteI haven't commented but I have enjoyed following your journey. We adopted our little guy last fall and were there forever so we know how LONG the days can be....
ReplyDeleteThe lays chips that have a pepper looking thing on them and say paprika in Russian are really good. They are like our barbecue chips. Their 'p' looks like an upside down, uncurved 'u' then a regular 'a' than another 'p' then our p(which is their r) then a backwards N then our k then a. Or something close to that. If you know who your carrier for your phone is you can just walk in to the store and hand them 50 hrivna and your phone and they will usually help you. We were always able to find someone who spoke enough English anywhere we went. Our carrier was MTC and they had stores everywhere. Does that sound familiar? It's such a weird feeling to be stuck somewhere. Sorry. Glad you all have each other though! When we come back our kids will be at summer camp and I'm bummed about that. It's not as easy access as the orphanage. You guys are troopers. Have a great day:)
ReplyDeleteHey sorry, it's me again. I just checked my Ukrainian phone sim card and it says on there MTC. Check your sim card to see what carrier it is. The other main carrier there is something star. Anyhow, then you can either find the store or a vendor and buy a card. I bet either place will recognize that you are American and help you do it ( I can't guarantee they will be pleasant about it, but most are:))
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure what flavor "smeteka" chips are, but they're probably better than the cinnamon egg rolls.
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