Up for an Adventure this weekend

Thursday May 18

Today Sasha decided to redo the entire “office” on the balcony so he took the roof off which is made of a few thin pieces of wood trim propped up on the edge of the concrete walls of the balcony and the other end inserted into a small groove in the wall of the exterior of the apartment. He has covered the sticks with clear plastic that he found somewhere in the apartment to make it basically waterproof. Fortunately the balcony above us gives most of the protection from the elements. Both of the kids spend a lot of time in their office playing well together most of the time.

Nastya, Ron & Sharon from Canada, who are adopting Oolia from another orphanage here in Karaganda, and I all went to the Green Bazaar today to buy gifts for the orphanages. We will each be going to the orphanages tomorrow to visit and to bring gifts which will make it go easier for the children not being adopted. We bought balls, badminton racquets with the birdie, indoor bowling, and art supplies. The Director of the orphanage told us they need shampoo, soap, and little electric water heating rods that you plug in and stick into water and it heats it quickly. They do not always have hot water in the summer. They turn the heat off as soon as it gets hot so they have no more hot water. We have small water heaters in our water closets so we are very thankful for hot showers and we also have an air conditioning unit in our den that is very nice. We feel we have a lot of perks where we are especially compared to others that live here.

We will be going to the orphanage around 3:00 and we have a complimentary driver that is learning English and only asks that we talk English to him. What a deal! He told us he would call us at 3:00 to confirm picking us up but instead he said “I will kill you at 3:00.” We had a good laugh over that!

We will be bringing Rada and Andre back with us for the weekend. We went to the market earlier today and bought snacks for the kids. They were so excited they picked out two snack cracker type things and for each of them and a Snickers bar. They came home and unloaded the groceries and Sasha placed them on the counter in little stacks for each kid and then took a picture of them. They are so excited they can hardly contain themselves!

On Saturday we are going to the Aqua Park. There is an indoor pool and rooms that you rent that have billiards and table tennis and a sofa. We will be there for a few hours and then go to dinner somewhere in town. On Sunday we will go to the Circus which should be a great experience for us all. We have heard it is very good. It will only be here for this weekend and then will go on to another town. After that we will take Rada and Andre to the orphanage Sunday night. I am sure we will have quite a few stories to tell over the next few days.