English Class

Larissa, our head translator, has a business where she offers Chinese and English classes to students of all ages. Our other translators, like Helen, are teachers of these classes.

We went to visit the students of the English classes and we got to talk to everyone in English and learn about them and they, in turn, learned about us. We had such a fun time!

One of the students then sang a Kazak song for us. The video won't load, though.

Here are the young ladies I spoke with.



Here is everyone from our group from America and from the class.

Babyhouse

This is the outside of the baby house. Andrei and Gregorii live on the second floor, left of the little landing.


They paint the stairwells with cute characters.



This is a poster for what we assume is the music room.


This is a wall that we walk past each time we pick up and bring the boys back. We use the "meow, meow" as a point of distraction if they are upset about leaving a toy in the bonding room, or something like that, to hopefully stop the tears before we bring them back to their caregivers.

The Zoo

We visited the zoo in Semey the other day. It cost us each 100 tenge (less than one dollar). There were not many animals but it was still fun.

Ken made friends with a camel - that is, before it spat at his head!

I was surprised by the furry wild boar. Are they always furry???


Then we met Greesha the bear!! I wish Greesha the boy could have been there to meet him too!




I think we may need to get a Brookfield Zoo season pass so when we get home we can bring the boys to the zoo whenever they want to go. I just know they would LOVE it!
-Jenny

More Sites in Semey

The wedding tree -
Can you see bottles hanging at the top of this tree that overlooks the Irtysh?
When a couple gets married, they drive to this woodsy area outside of the city where their best male friend climbs the tree and ties a champaign bottle as high up as possible. This ensures good luck for the new couple.
_______________
Saint spring -
On Jan 19th it is the resurrection of Christ day and people go to the spring and swim in the water. They cut a cross out of the ice and swim or they go in the little house pictured here that only holds water. Legend says if you swim there you will be blessed by God and not be sick that year. You can also bottle the water to drink to ensure good health all year long.


The Irtysh River runs from Op, Russia to China. In China it is called Black Irtysh.
__________________________
This is the house that Dostoyevsky lived in for 5 years after he was exiled from Russia. It had very small rooms except for his study which was a pretty good size.
Downstairs there is a collection of antiques and the guide down there was thrilled to show us some of the old things like a bread mold that was used for an Easter bread. It had a cross and some other symbols on it. A thing like that is pretty meaningful (the fact that is survived) when churches were being destroyed and religion in general was not acceptable during the Russian take-over.

Andre's fave

Here is another pre-illness set of pics.
Andre was decorating his truck with stickers and offered us one... it is amazing how stickers are still a great source of entertainment! I remember loving stickers too!

Court

On wed. our group will have finished our 15^th day of bonding with the children. That means that on Thursday we will be able to apply for a court hearing to request to adopt the boys. We do not know when our court date will be but the Kazak law says that it could be up to 30 days from our request! Our coordinator (a lawyer here in Semey) does not believe it will take nearly that long but she did warn us! Eeek!

We will post when we know the court date. Most likely we will begin our return trip to the states within a day or two of our court date (assuming they grant us a decision at court – the usual situation).

Greesha Sticking out His Tongue

Greesha likes to stick his tongue out. When he concentrates he does it too and it reminds me of Ken! (This was taken a few days back before their illnesses that have them down right now, but we wanted to post it because it is so cute!)
-Jenny

Siteseeing

We went to see the nuclear testing memorial the other day. Russia started the testing in the late 1940s and did not stop the testing until the 1980s. There are special hospitals in the area specifically for patients who are suffering from the sideaffects. Our translator, Larissa, said she remembers her apartment shaking from the explosions when she was a little girl. Pretty scary.

This is the good wishes tree. (We can’t remember the real name of it.) You tie a ribbon on the tree and make a wish and it is supposed to come true.
This is a famous philospher and writer.


This is the remaining gate (of 4 originals) used to protoct the city.