Pre-court, Pox and Produce

Today was another sunny day and a day for us to take another legal step forward towards adopting Joseph. Today we had our pre-court hearing with the local judge. We got up, had our usual Chagala breakfast and then got dressed up – suit and tie for me – and headed out to meet Igor not to go to the baby house but to head to court. We arrived and met Olga (II) and Masha who would be our translator for the legal proceedings. As we were prepped yesterday we knew what to expect although still nervous. After we arrived, we were joined by the director of the baby house and a representative from the Ministry of Education.

The proceedings were scheduled for 10am but the judge was not in so we had to wait. Finally around 10:30 am the judge came into the outer office then into the court room into which we were called about 10 minutes later. The whole office and even “court room” were very minimally decorated, in fact the outer office had nothing on the walls and there was not a smile or good morning (in any language) to be found anywhere. Although not a big deal to the proceedings, it makes you a bit more nervous – or at least it did me. We finally began with Masha sitting between Laura and me to translate. The judge never looked up but asked questions to me first and all very basic including why we wanted to adopt, what was my profession, when were we married and who would take care of the children when we were at work. He then directed fewer questions to Laura and along the same lines. Following the questions he looked at our passports and photos we brought of us with Joseph. He pulled out a few photos for his records, asked if the other officials had any objections and then assigned our real court date. So we passed the pre-court in about 15 minutes but then found out there was a little change to the hoped for plans. We originally thought we would be in court on May 10^th, leave Uralsk for Almaty on May 15^th and then return to Chicago on May 20^th. Unfortunately for us, Tuesday May 9^th is Victory Day so it is a national holiday but this year the courts are closed Monday May 8^th as well. We also learned that a judicial review committee from Astana will be visiting Uralsk next Wed-Friday and so our judge, the head of this committee, would be too busy to hear any cases so our court date will not be the 10^th but will be May 15^th – pushing our departure back probably to May 23^rd but we will find out more tomorrow. If accurate this is a big disappointment for us on several levels but one in particular is that we were going to meet Amy, Karen and Chris at O’Hare when we arrived just prior to their departure for France. This means we will miss them and Joseph will not be able to say hi to them until they return a few days after us….in Laura’s words…bummer. After court we rushed back to the hotel, changed our clothes and headed to the baby house.

As you can see from the first photo Joseph was feeling better although he has sprouted some new pox which were painted green with ointment. We only had 30 minutes to visit this morning as he had to get back on schedule with the rest of his group. We are not sure if it was that he felt better, the time of the day (we were seeing him in the 11am hour) or a combination of both but he was animated and shared with us a few smiles too. Before we knew it we were saying paka paka to him and heading out for lunch. On the way back to the hotel I grabbed this photo of the new mosque in town which we are hoping to visit. It is really a beautiful building and much more elaborate than the “old” mosque which we have driven past but have not yet visited either. We hope to do both next week although with Victory Day occurring on Tuesday I think we will have a busy day. They seem like they have been preparing for the holiday ever since we have been here with cleaning of streets, setting up of new signs etc. On the big square you can see many banners going up announcing the festivities. We are not sure what they all are at this point but we are working on the translations!

We did not have enough time for anything much for lunch so we stopped in at the Chagala lounge for a bite, grabbed the afternoon “Joseph bag” and ran out to meet Igor. When we get to the baby house our pox infected boy appears looking like he is in a pretty good mood although he has a few more painted spots. Since he was not feeling well we did not push the dancing too much this afternoon. We did spin some tunes but took it down a notch for the little guy. After seeing him and thinking about our delay we are pretty sure that although the delay did not have anything to do with his health, in the end it will probably be the best for him to get over this before his big flight. Now in addition to the pox, Joseph has been a bit worried about the emails he has been receiving from his great uncle Bob. What worries him about the emails, to the delight of his great uncle John, is the abysmal performance of the Chicago Cubs. Joseph thought perhaps he needed to send them a little Kazakh support and donned his new Cubs hat and then asked us to take this photo. Between the time of the wearing and the writing of this blog I am not sure the good Cub karma has made it across the globe according to the last report we received. As any good Cub fan will tell you – wait till next year!

After our afternoon session, we went back to the hotel to unload our stuff before taking a walk. We then remembered that we wanted to listen to the Saturday Morning Light Brigade. SLB is a 20+ year family radio show out of Pittsburgh which I listened to when I lived there and one that Laura and I will listen to online every now and then. We often email them while they are on the air and they give an on air mention. We tuned them in today and then I emailed where we were and why we were here. They mentioned it on the radio, talked about Joseph as well as the awaiting Bacio, Luigi, and Lucy! Larry Berger, the DJ, then played two beautiful songs for us – Adoption Day and Child of Mine. We were not aware of either of these but they were perfect for us! We listened to the show for about an hour but then had to go. If you are up early you can listen to them online at www.slbradio.com from 5-9am on Saturdays. After listening, Laura and I decided to take a walk around town as Laura LOVES Saturdays in Uralsk. There are always many people out and about walking, eating ice cream and just hanging out. On a couple of occasions we would cross paths with some Kazakh youths and as we passed we would hear a “Hello” “How are you?” “See you later” and then a giggle or two. I always get a kick out of this even though part of it is ridicule of us and the other is showing they know some English. I just laugh and shout back a “How YOU doin’?” or maybe something in my poor Russian to show them I know a few words! On our walk we came across the open bazaar and really loved what we saw – vegetables! We saw tomatoes, carrots, and even some leafy greens. They also had dried fish, chicken and other meats – some not looking so good. This photo shows one end of the bizzaar and some of the vendors. We think we will be back once we get to the apartment and start cooking. The next photo shows you one of the signs that have appeared lately to announce the Victory Day celebration on Tuesday May 9^th. Victory Day is a celebration of the Russian victory over the Nazis in WWII remembered as the Great Patriotic War. Over 20 million people in the former USSR were killed. We are really looking forward to this day as we hear the celebrations are great.

So we have moved past pre-court, have “Chicken Pox Joe” and found the evasive produce. Tomorrow we move into the apartment so stay tuned for some home photos. As Josph is under the weather there probably won’t be too many photos as he is laying low…da zavtra.