We ain't in Kansas no more...

Welcome back to the 1980’s! Believe it or not dial up internet is still alive. (Installed by the cleaning lady, a non technical, non English speaking but overall wonderful facilitator, some other guy I think they found on the street and Eric silently biting his tongue as they proceeded to delete other internet connections!). Anyway, we are finally here – we arrived this morning (Tuesday) at 3:30 AM after flying since 6PM from Detroit on Sunday. Of course the sun came up at 4AM while Sue slept – Eric made coffee about 4:15 – so much for sleep.

Starting at 9 am, we had a 1 hour bone jarring and somewhat nauseating drive to Кокшетау per the MOE’s direction yesterday, only to find out we had to go back to Schuchinsk (We’ll spare you the Cyrillic) for the interview with the Dept of Education-all of which lasted 5 minutes. It was a beautiful day and beautiful country for the drive, and gave us the opportunity to see another part of the country we otherwise wouldn’t have. It’s much more interesting to see during daylight than in the pitch black of night. The geography in this area was reminding us of Montana-lots of plains (steppe) and some hills. We passed a beautiful lake which we will hopefully have more time to explore in the future.

Next we went to the baby house itself. They brought in a 2 year old boy named Danise (sp?) with blond hair and blue eyes! He wanted to stay with his caretaker WAY more than sitting on Sue’s lap, but with a stuffed bunny and some cheese, he settled somewhat down. He couldn’t wait to jump back off though when it was time to go. The poor boy was scared to death of us. Tomorrow, we continue the 4 hours of daily bonding time-2 hours in the morning and 2 hours in the afternoon- per day for the required 15 day bonding period before court. We will hopefully be able to start posting pictures tomorrow of our life here.

Eric’s been invited to go fishing with our driver, Valera, possibly this weekend, and we will likely go horseback riding at some point as well, so we’ll be able to enjoy the culture as well as bond with this little boy.