9/30/04

Court prayers accepted here!!!
Court will begin approximately 11pm Thursday night, EST.

What a day.

Hello Everyone!
We had a false alert about court being moved back to Monday, as we know things like that can and do happen. We will know for sure once we are finished, that court was in fact on a given day. We have heard of postponements at the last minute before the hearing was to begin. We will just take this minute by minute and do as we have been doing….”be a leaf on the stream”. By having court early, grants us custody of the children but does not allow us to leave any sooner. We still plan on arriving home on Saturday the 9th WITH THE CHILDREN! We joke with Emil that he had better leave the car running because if it does not go our way we are heading to Siberia! He likes this and agrees he will do so. Perhaps we should have a stash of peroshkies just in case.

I had a great day today, but my mind continued to circle back to the anticipation of court. Emil picked me up at two and we both headed out to pick up the items on the list required for the “after court party”. (how is that for positive thinking?). Jeff stayed behind with the little ones. We headed first to the photography store to get the last of our daily kid shots. developed which we need to present to the judge. After this we proceeded back to the Green Market, which I terribly underdescribed to you in an earlier post. This time we went into the produce market area. It was more than my feeble mind could handle. Too much input! I didn’t know where to look first! There were rows and rows of fresh fruit, dried fruit, spices, fish, cheeses, meets, you name it. All of the items for sale were stacked neatly in pyramids, or in rows. The vendors called out to you in Russian, trying to entice you to buy. Emil grabbed my arm and pulled me through. Thank goodness for this, as I think I was just standing there dumbfounded w/ my jaw gaping. We headed toward the back of the market where Emil says the prices are better and the fruit is fresher. As we walked along the bumpy pavement, Emil’s skill as a driver and navigator came in handy once again. He would reach back and grab me to make sure I saw a step or hole in the ground, also he would rescue me from one of the woman walking around selling plastic bags and fly swatters. What a place!!

We went in the back of the market, into the open air. The bee’s were thick as thieves and nobody seemed to care. There were many fruits that I have never seen before, a lot of different kinds of berries. Not the over fertilized, hyped on steroids berries we have in the states, these came straight from frog town road. Every so often there would be a woman w/ a hand juicer selling pomegranate juice, which seemed very popular among the locals. As we grew nearer to the stands Emil was headed for, he politely asked me to….well, as hard as this may seem…..not speak. He was afraid I was going to increase the prices. LOL….I did as I was told and sported the cheesy grin that we have used on many other occasions. We picked up pears from one vendor, this is a very serious ordeal. You don’t just walk up and buy them, you taste, think, taste another slice, look a little bit disinterested and POOF the price goes down!!! We picked up a Kilo of Pears (8 or so) for 60 tenge, (remember 100 tenge is 70 cents). After the pear sampling it was onto another stand for grapes. First white grapes, same deal, sample, think, sample…price decrease, purchase. Oh, I forgot, cheesy grin by Colene. Next dark grapes, these must be large and firm, sampled and purchased. Grapes ran about 90 tenge per kilo. Still very very inexpensive. We picked up a couple lemons to be used in our tea and then to find peaches. This was the hardest of all as they are going out of season, but since it was on the list, Emil thought we definitely had to have them. We found a vendor, he did his bartering and it was my turn to pay. I held my hand out so he could pick the appropriate coins as we usually do and he said, Um 200 tenge. WHAT??? 200 tenge for a bagful of peaches!!! Surely we could do better than this, I mean a buck and a half? What is the world coming to!! For petes sake, I’m going home.

As we left the market, Emil picked up two packs of Marlboro lights at 60 Tenge a pack, hmm?? Guess this more than balances out the peach prices.

We made our way back to the car and I was telling him how much I enjoyed my silent adventure, after all, I had not spoken for a good 20 minutes. He was laughing and telling me thank you, I would say NO thank you…you see where this is going right??? He said “if you like this you would really like Barahoulka”. I said, “I bet I would.” Next thing you know….there we were. At the popodopolous of flea markets. This place had it ALL, food, drinks, coats, wedding gowns. He wanted to show me where he had purchased his winter coat so we headed into the market heaven. I was not vowed to silence this time as the items were prepriced. As we wandered down a crooked row of vendors Emil had to pull me along again. Poor guy, he should really know better with all the families he must bring here. He was very proud of the market, the variety and the incredibly low prices. This market is known to sell full length minks for $500 in the spring. Good thing its fall or Jeff would have a whopper of a bill coming in next month.

After Barahoulka we headed back into the city. Along the side of the road there were many small tables with umbrellas and people in suits sitting down. I asked Emil what they were doing and he said, selling car insurance. Apparently the motor vehicle is on this stretch of road and you must have insurance before your car can be inspected. If you are in a pinch, just pull over and draft a policy. Interesting, very interesting.

After we got back and five hours later, I switched places with Jeff getting him out of the house for a while and so I could get a fix of snuggle time. He went with Emil to pick up a cake and the rest of the party supplies for tomorrow. He also picked up some camel and horse milk for us, Emil wanted us to try it, but suggested that we don’t do it on the evening of such an important date. We agreed.

Tonight Gulnara will be coming over to review our speeches , she is not expected to arrive until After 11pm as she is coming in from Taldy Korgan after dropping off another family. We are both restless and quite awake. More awake than we have been the whole trip. Tomorrow is perhaps the most important day of our lives. The long awaited birth from the heart. These two little ones are so perfect, we need them as much as they us. Thank you for following along with our journey and being part of the “delivery” of our children. Adoption is an amazing journey that the whole family can be part of. Anyone reading this can be considered family in our eyes. We all have a big day ahead. Please say your prayers with us that the next post will introduce the two newest members of the family.

Good night – all our love, Colene and Jeff.

Oh, yeah, moms coming tomorrow night! She will arrive at midnight, its going to be a loooooong day!!