Day 45, Friday Party Day! It began with our last visit to the boarding school, loaded down with all our gifts, it felt a bit like Christmas. It took Kevin, Luda, Dinara and I to carry in all the bags stuffed with goodies. When arrived to the group room, the girls were in the beds, obviously down for a nap. The hushed whispering and excited rustling of blankets led us to believe that they we not really sleeping. Their mama announced our pressence, they immediately sprang from their beds, dressed and were seated in a line in front of us in about 60 seconds. The gift bags of beauty items were a hit, lots of "ooing" and "ahhhing" over the hairbrushes, lip gloss and other girly things. After exploring all the differents smells and colors contained in each pack, some of the girls decided to carry the bags arounds as if they were purses, pretending to be grown young ladies headed to the disco. Lot's of primping, they don't get much of an opportunity to do this, I don't think... When the excitement from the gift bags died down a bit, we made a presentation of the games. The girls gathered in groups of twos and opened the games, although too excited to actually sit and play. We saved the big gift for the last, the DVD/Video/Karaoke player. As you can imagine this was a huge hit, with lots of squeals and dancing about the room. "Harry Potter" received the biggest round of applause when we announced the names of the five movies that we included with the player. Kevin spent the next 30 minutes connecting the player to the television and trying to find the appropriate wires, adaptors to make this happen in a building that wasn't even remotely designed for advanced technology. The first movie actually chosen to be played was "Madagascar". We sat with the girls while they rotated from watching the movie, to talking with us, and lastly, primping in the mirror, enjoying all their beauty accessories. It was a lot of fun and very interesting to be able to spend a little bit of time talking with these girls. A few demonstrated their knowledge of German (perhaps this is being taught at the school?) and others used their best English, others used very expressive and creative sign language attempts.  A few of the others just repeated the same Russian phrases over and over, and at varying levels of volume hoping that we might suddenly understand. One sweet little girl gave me a piece of paper with information that seemed to include a birthdate. I may be wrong, but I believe she was trying to tell me that she is on the registry and would like to be adopted.  A bright girl with initiative, I believe that she thought I might be able to communicate this information to other potential families. We will share the note with Dinara for a translation. When visitation time was over, we were showered with hugs and kisses by all the girls, and left the building to shouts of "Das Vidanya! We love you! Good-bye! Chow, Baby!" the fading sounds of this most beautiful chorus seem to drift and settle into the snowy landscape of Boarding School #2 in Kostanai as we drove away.

The Luck O'the Irish Well, Murphy's Law strikes again...court for today was canceled. I am currently a little miffed at St. Patrick and will not observe his upcoming holiday.   Our life is starting to sound a bit like an Asian soap opera "As the Eggroll Turns" or something, but here's the scoop: the paperwork from the Kazakhstan Embassy that was supposed to arrive last Friday, was first delayed by the weather and then lost by Fed Ex. Yes, you read it correctly, they lost it.   After a lot of scrambling, phone calls and emails to Fed Ex office's in Kaz, Hong Kong and the US, they have now found the documents. A big relief, but too late to make court for today. Even though the court had duplicate copies, albeit missing the official stamp from the Kaz Embassy in DC, the judge and prosecutor would not allow us to have court today.    We are rescheduled for Thursday at 2:00 and have new flight reservations for Thursday evening.  We hope and pray to be home on Friday!

Day 46, 47? Have lost track at this point... Our Friday night adventure was planned by Olyssia, the coordinator for the other two American couples staying at the Medeo. She made reservations at the famed "444 Restaurant", located out on the 444 highway, about 15 kilometers from town. The weather Friday was the worst we have seen since being in Kostanai. The snow was coming down all day, a very dry variety, much like what falls from the sky in the Colorado Rockies. Being the worrier type, I was concerned about taking the taxis out of town in such weather and was ready to cancel. Think it is possible that we have lived too many years in East Tennessee, where life shuts down with an inch of precipitation! Since Kevin is from Minnesota and accostumed to continuing life regardless of any developing winter wonderland, he insisted that we stay the course and go to dinner. I fortified myself with a little liquid courage (two glasses of wine), and put on long underwear, stuffed extra gloves in our coat pockets in case we had a breakdown and had to walk five miles to find help. (active imagination, eh?) We met the other families in the hotel lobby, and Olyssia soon appeared, only to shuffle us out the back door into three waiting taxi cabs. Our driver was an older gentleman who obviously took great pride in his vocation, as his backseat window had pillows for the ladies and curtains on the window, both which appeared to be made by his wife. The drivers seemed to know each other, and we were a bit of a parade with three little taxis puttering through the snowy weather in search of the best route to the 444. After pushing through the traffic in town, we found ourselves in the suburbs of Kostanai which are just beautiful. With the moonlight to illuminate the landscape, we could see the ghostly images of the beautiful birch trees, the outline of small cottages and even the hint of a small shopping mall. Much to my relief, the little Russian taxis managed the roads quite well, although my blood pressure rose a bit when we saw a broken down driver along side of the road. Fortunately for him, the police were there to assist. We arrived at he 444, which despite the ordinary name, was anything but plain. Shaped like a windmill, the main structure was surrounded by frozen patios that were, no doubt, beautiful beer gardens in the warm weather. The place was certainly a popular gathering place for the locals. We checked our coats, took photos of the children in front of the stuffed moose in the lobby, and made way to our reserved table. The architecture of the building was comprised of heavy oak planks that were colored and scented with a pungent mixture of bar-b-que and cigarette smoke. The warm and inviting atmosphere quickly revived the senses after entering the building from the frozen tundra. Our table was right in front of the band, whose musicians were quite talented instrumentally and vocally. Because the proximaty of our location made conversation difficult, we listened to the music instead. When it came time to order, we found out that the specialty of the house was "shish-ke-babs".  We soon found out why--they were delicious, arriving suspended on long sword-like spears that were a foot and a half long. For a side dish we had fried potatoes and onions, and I believe my grandmother, who passed away twenty years ago, must have supplied the recipe. Throughout dinner we had a variety of dancers to entertain us between the sets of the band--everything from belly dancers to traditional Russian choreography. The locals had nothing on the visiting Americans, we certainly took our turn on the dance floor. We danced to the Russian equivalent of "Rocky Top", a song called "Mylinky", whose melody we can sing but lyrics we butcher. It is always so reassuring to see how people and cultures are more alike than different. We were certainly made to feel welcome by the locals and the staff of the 444. After wonderful food, good drink, lots of dancing, just like Cinderella we took our leave at about midnight. Our royal chariots, the taxis three, were waiting for us in the parking lot with their engines running to warm the interior and exhaust circling around their tiny frames. We chugged our way back to the city of Kostanai and the safety of our home away from home, the Medeo Hotel. Quite an evening...

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