(Two days delayed getting this up because we were unable to mount our usb flash drive to either of the internet offices we have been working at. Tonight we learned that the USB port at the UKR Telecom office has been permanently removed. No explanation. The one at the private office near our hotel is working again. Actually we are pretty sure it was working yesterday too, but the attendant was in a bad mood…)
Yesterday was one step forward and two seemingly giant steps back. So giant that we decided not to blog lest we upset people back home.
The one step forward turns out to have been the most important one, and that was that Sasha gave his consent to be adopted by us. They brought him into the assistant director’s office, with the lawyer, his teacher, someone else, me Lauren and Svieta all present. He was obviously unnerved by this scene. Even the lollipop we shoved into his mouth didn’t necessarily calm him down.
The assistant director called him over, but he didn’t want to get off of my lap… So I picked him up and gave him a little shove on his tush, and he walked over to the lady and she asked him if he wanted to be adopted by us. The kid is four. He just stared at the floor and didn’t know what to do. After a couple of attempts, his teacher called him over and said “Sasha, do you know who that is? Is that your mother?,” pointing at Lauren, and he exclaimed, “Mama.” Then to me, “is that your father?” “Papa.”
This seemed to satisfy the assistant administrator, who then completed the rest of his papers for the administrator’s signature! Huge step. I got the little ceremony on tape for posterity.
The two steps back were that apparently two additional family members had come forward questioning the adoption. We didn’t know whether they wanted the kids or wanted money or what. Worse, the regional administrator had agreed to meet with them on Thursday morning.
Lauren and I are like, why the hell is there a 10 day period following the court hearing for people to object if they are going to allow these objections before we even get to court? The state already told us these kids were available. The two closest relatives had already signed agreements to allow them to be adopted.
Nobody could provide any information on who these relatives were. They were ineligible to adopt according to one source. They were blood relatives and eligible according to another. The story changed throughout the day.
The other step backwards was that Oksana, the regional administrator, who had earlier told us that she would complete her recommendation as soon as she had Sasha’s papers, was now saying she wanted three days to do it.
Looking at the calendar, we were seeing that we would not be able to get home before next year at this rate. The hotel bills and daily car fare for the two to three hours of driving are really adding up and we probably didn’t have enough cash with us.
All in all we felt pretty lousy. The worst was thinking how the kids would feel if it didn’t work. They already think we’re their parents and love us as much as we love them. Lauren was making the very good point that, why did they invite us here to adopt and then treat us like this? We thought we were doing a good thing. But it seems like we’re the bad guys here. And most important of all, doesn’t anybody really care about these children? Can’t they see that they will be better off together and with us?
We went to sleep on pins and needles.
This morning we headed out around 8:10, aware that the meeting would already be underway in Radomischle. At 9:00 Svieta called Oksana. No answer. Was the meeting still in progress? What was happening?
We went straight to her office and parked off to the side while Svieta ran in. We didn’t want to meet these relatives and give them any opportunity to observe us or ask us for money. But I was ready to photograph them if we figured out who they were coming out of the office.
In a minute Svieta and Oksana appeared in the doorway. The relatives hadn’t even shown up! We all went into the office. As relieved as we were, it still appeared that Oksana planned to give them two days to appear!
I told her, through Svieta, how important it was to get the report to Kiev by Friday at 11:00 AM so that we could have a court date in the first half of next week. I emphasized how much time we’d already lost. And I asked her why we had to wait for these people if the kids weren’t important enough to keep an appointment? I said that we were playing by the rules, we’d already gotten the grandfather and aunt to release them, and now we wanted our court hearing. Let the relatives come forward during the appeal period!
Are you kidding me? It turns out that she didn’t even know that we’d already met the grandfather and aunt! The school’s lawyer had done that to protect the school’s interests and hadn’t included those papers in the filing. I guess nobody had bothered to tell Oksana either. Furthermore, she appeared not to know that relatives could appeal following the court date!
We are just amazed…
So she agreed to try to get us the papers by tomorrow after lunch. (Thursday.) Which means we might be able to get a court date on Tuesday. Which means we might barely be able to make it home for New Year’s. With our kids.
Later we visited with Sasha and then Nastia. We also had a tour of the field that Nastia’s school has set aside for a soccer field. If you remember from our earlier blog, we said we wanted to help them renovate their basketball facility. But it seems this is more important to them. The mayor of Vesheviche joined us for the tour and they gave us a rough budget for the job. It comes to around $25,000.
Lauren and I said we wanted to help them out by raising funds back home. We didn’t promise to provide the whole amount, but we said we would help. We agreed to tour the village with the mayor next week and get a better sense of the community and how the facility will be used.
So today was a good day. Lauren and I celebrated, after some Ukrainian Chinese (!), with a triple chocolate cake and an ice cream with jam (!!) at our favorite Austrian Ukrainian café, Julius Meinl. Then we came home early enough that the water hadn’t been turned off and we both had enough hot water for showers (I even washed my socks). Doesn’t get much better than that.