All flights were on time and we arrived in Astana at 11:0 pm on Monday evening, after some nervous moments at passport control. The officials wanted only one passport for Luda, even though she maintains dual citizenship until the age of 18. The Kaz Embassy in DC told us to take both, but the officials here want us to turn one into the appropriate government office.  (We will have to figure that one out later!) We spent the night in lovely, quaint hotel in Astana where we had a wonderful breakfast this morning, complete with techno music and buffet. After breakfast, we walked the town and enjoyed the snowfall before heading to the airport for the trip to Kostanai. We flew Air Astana and the food was wonderful and the service excellent. One of the flight attendants gave Luda several extra bags of peanuts to put in her backpack. We were met in Kostanai by our coordinator Dinara and we are safely tucked into the Aidana Plaza Hotel. The hotel staff is very accommodating, assisting us with the internet, food and piva. (MGD in Siberia is very good! especially after traveling for 48 hours...) Tomorrow we visit the Ministry of Education at 10:00 and the day should be an eventful one. :)

We found out early that Dinara had taken care of all paperwork at the Ministry of Education, so we went directly to the boarding school to visit the children. Leonid, the director, met with us regarding available children who were then brought to his office. One very shy little girl by the name of Luba, caught our eye. Since the children are in school until 2:00 each day, we made an appointment to meet with her at 2:00. In the interim, we changed hotels--from the Aidana Plaza to the Medey Hotel. This hotel is brand new, has many amenities such as a nice restaurant, complimentary breakfast, fitness room, pool and sauna. It is in the center of town, convenient to everything.  In typical Kazak fashion, we have to walk about 72 stairs to get to our floor. We should be very fit when we return to Tennessee!

We returned to the boarding school at 2:00 pm for our first visit with Luba. She met us in the director's office, in a velvet dress with bow in hair and shiny shoes. She was very excited and immediately attached herself to Luda. We were told that we could go up to her group's room for visitation. She helped Luda with her coat and backpack, took her by the hand and led us all upstairs. The rest of the members of her group were taking a nap, although there were lots of excited giggles and little eyes peeking around the corner during our visit. The caretaker of the group met with us to answer any questions that we had about Luba. She is a lovely lady and obviously very dedicated to the girls and her job at the boarding school. She told us that Luba is a leader among her peers, is average in her school work--but very quick to catch onto new ideas, so motiviated when she is interested--and is a very self-disciplined young lady. Luba showed us all her favorite toys in the group room, then she and Luda worked several puzzles. She is quick at problem solving, any time they encountered one, she would take initiative to fix. She was very gracious in her dealings with us, but still a little shy in eye contact. She and Luda were in their own world most of the time. The members of her group joined us for the last 30 minutes. They each introduced themselves and then excitedly jumped in to try and talk with us and participate in what was going on. We had some excitement with the camera, Luba took a few pictures, as did we. All in all, a very good first meeting. We are looking forward to the next!

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