Thursday, Day 2 Miss Luda woke up at 3:00 this morning and went ahead and dressed for her visit to the orphanage. She was so excited at the thought of getting to see Luba again that she didn't sleep! We had a lovely breakfast at the hotel this morning and then home schooling began...we worked very diligently on Language Arts, Social Studies and Math. Kevin had to teach the math part because Stacey didn't remember much about points, rays and segments.... :) After lunch in our hotel room, we meet Dinara for our second trip to the boarding school. As we approached the group room, we saw a lot of little girls scurrying around and squealing because of a "man on the floor" (Kevin). Luba took control of the situation and began pushing a few of the less dressed ones into the bathroom. After it was safe to enter the group room, Luba took our coats and hug them up for us. At this point, we left the group room and went to a classroom for our visitation. The first thing Luba wanted to do was braid Luda's hair. After a wonderful job on Luda, she then braided Stacey's hair. Next activity was coloring in a Cinderella book with brightly colored markers. (She was very careful not to color out of the lines.)  This activitiey was followed by playing with stencils. After a couple of hours, Luda & Luba went for a snack and the director came to visit, bringing one of Luba's two Mamas with her. She was made available for questions that we might have. Her  description of Luba was this--that she is a confident child, a natural leader and the other children respect her. She is honest, self-disciplined and likes theatre and dance. After Luba & Luda returned, we said our good-byes and headed back to the hotel. All in all, another very good day.

Friday, Day 3 Today was much like yesterday, breakfast in the hotel restaurant, school time and then the visit to the boarding school.  The power was out at the school, so Luba and Luda decided to play outside in the snow. After bundling up both girls, we headed for the small school ice arena and slide. It appears the students created a very large slide, made completely out of ice. They use pieces of wood to slide quickly down into more snow and ice. The girls had a blast--taking turns, going down together, sliding on their bottoms. Luda's pants were soaking wet by the time we finished. We can see that snow pants, or a pair of wool pants, are in order. Luba is quite the dare devil and was very conscientious about helping Luda find her place on the ice slide. No doubt it was very slick! After the girls tired of playing in the snow, we returned to her group room to dry out a bit. At this time, Luda decided to make a presentation. We neglected to mention yesterday that sweet Luba gave us a beautiful drawing. It read "I Love You" and had a drawing of each of us. (much to Kevin's consternation, it was easy to pick him out because he was the one with no hair) So Luda decided to make her own drawing and give it to Luba today.  She had a drawing of two little girls, embracing and included a poem which read: Always in My Heart I'd like you to be my sister, My best friend of all times. It's so true, I will always be there for you. After sharing the poem, which Dinara translated for us, we asked Luba if she would like to be a member of our family, to go to America. She emphatically stated that she did. We showed her a photo album of our life in little ol' Murrville, TN. She seemed joyous and a little overwhelmed, and didn't want us to leave. She also showed us that she learned three phrases in English yesterday "I love you", "OK" and "Let's Go". We all said those three phrases as we exchanged hugs and kisses, with promises to be back tomorrow or "Zaftra".

Saturday, Day 4 Sorry for the delay, the electrical converter prong broke off so we weren't able to use our electronic gadgets to connect to the internet. Fortunately, Dinara knew of a repairman who jerry-rigged a fix. After much anxiety, we were back on line Saturday evening...but too hungry to post, so off to dinner we went. Evidently last night was Chinese New Years? Anyway, there was a big celebration in the restaurant which was an unexpected surprise. With the disco ball reflecting many colors and all the holiday decorations, it was quite a festive sight. The program for the evening began with four beautiful, yet scantily attired dancers, who appears to be about 18 years old. They did a traditional Kazak celebratory dance. The floor was then take over by an older Russian lady, very distinguished with a colorful personality and booming voice. She proceeded to go around the room, interviewing every in the restaurant. There was much excitement when they got to us and realized that we were Americans. She asked to speak English into the microphone and everyone clapped. After she warmed the crowd, a wonderful vocalist took the stage and entertained with Russian techo music. After a bit, they dedicated a song to us "I'm Your Venus", performing it in English. The MC brought all three of us to the dance floor and we joined with some beautiful Kazak women as we tried to remember disco moves from the 70's. The MC interviewed Luda and brought her a pair of delly-boppers (sp?).  Quite a merry evening! Back to earlier events of the day, we visited the boarding school at our normal 2:00 time. First of all, one of Luba's mother asked to take our photo with her camera. We returned the gesture and asked Dinara to take a photo of her with us. It is obvious that these ladies care greatly for their little girls and that an adoption is a really big event at the boarding school. Our meeting yesteday took place in one of the classrooms of the boarding school. It was a lovely primary room, with chalkboards, desks and lots of plants in the window. It was a very comfortable space that was conducive to learning. The girls spent most of their time coloring, playing with Polly Pockets and Play Doh. Luba is a very neat little girl and is very conscientious about cleaning up any mess that we make. She is also capable of great concentration and was very careful about her coloring, very beautifully done. For the last 30 minutes, Luda accompanied Luba to the dining hall for their daily snack. We met back in the principal's office where Luba bundled Luda for the journey back to the hotel Medeo.

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