The End is Nigh

Because we are still waiting for our paperwork, our scheduled departure date from Karaganda has come and gone. It was supposed to be last Sunday. But now we have a new date: Tuesday, October 6.

We leave here at about 10:30 AM and fly to Almaty on a Fokker 50 propeller plane. After that short 2 hour jaunt, we have a tidy little 14 hour layover in Almaty. Then it’s off to Frankfurt at 2:55 AM on a 6 hour flight. Then an 8 hour wait in the airport there before our 8½ hour flight to Toronto. Followed by a 2 hour wait before our 1 hour flight to Ottawa. We arrive there at 7:10 PM on Wednesday.

Those of you doing the math with fingers and toes by now have run out. Twice. That’s a 41½ hour odyssey if you include waiting times. We will be checking into a hotel in Almaty for sure. Maybe also in Frankfurt.

Success

Very good news was heralded by the sounds of gurgling and belching at 9:00 PM on Sunday night. Our hot water had returned! It ran red for a few hours, and was kind of slimy, but then became as clear as it ever has been. Of course, it wasn't hot, but is heating up nicely now on Monday morning. We are hastening to do dishes, get washed, and so on as fast as we can. So, another crisis has been worked through!

In order to exact payment for this resumption of normal service, our gas stopped working this morning. We are sure that a team of talented engineers is working to remediate this unfortunate situation as soon as is practicable.

Plus ça change...

Another Day Gone

Sunday is almost over here in sunny Karaganda. The high was 22 degrees and there was hardly a cloud in the sky. It was quite dry. Actually, really dry. Still no hot water. And little cold water. The tap in our kitchen only dispenses the tiniest dribble of cold water, and even that only after we utter various incantations, usually involving the state of Florida. You know, sun on a beach.

If we want to do anything serious with water, we must head off to the bathroom and use the tap there. It has a fairly decent flow; almost as much as that of a drinking fountain. Of course, we have our bottled drinking water, but don’t want to squander it on the dishes and personal hygiene. So we bring water from the bathroom to the kitchen and heat it up on the stove. The end result is that it takes about an hour to do the dishes from lunch if you factor in all the trips back and forth, the heating up of water, and so on.

We spent this morning doing the tour of our neighbourhood, walking through the courtyards of apartment blocks. Most apartments here are built in courtyards. You enter your apartment from the courtyard, not the street. The street side is usually reserved for stores and what are optimistically called boutiques, really stalls with counters. You can buy almost anything in these stores and boutiques, ranging from pears to pairs of socks. You can find plumbing supplies, pipes, cigarettes, clothing, liquor, and copies of DVDs, CDs, and computer games. The copies must be legal, because we saw a senior police officer with a large amount of braid on his epaulettes buying one just the other day.

Hopefully the team of crack engineers will restore our hot water tomorrow.

NoH2O

As of 10:30 AM on Saturday, there is still no hot water. The cold water is but a dribble. Our cook tells us that there is no hot water in her apartment building, on another courtyard than ours.

The Soviet way of supplying hot water and steam for domestic and heating use was to have central heating plants. A complex network of above-ground pipes carries the water and steam to apartment buildings, individual houses, and other buildings. You can see an example of a couple of pipes here.

This was done for reasons of efficiency and economy. Any problems in the heating apparatus could be fixed quickly and in one place by trained engineers. You only need to have one type of parts, not many different types for different brands of equipment. This also fit in quite nicely with the general Soviet proclivity towards centralizing functions and facilities. Why have many little somethings when one big something will do, and look good in the process?

So we assume that a team of trained engineers is working feverishly to restore our hot water.

A New Day

We have extra time to write this post because there’s no hot water, so we can’t take our planned showers or wash Alexey’s bottle from this morning. Sometimes “no hot water” means that the hot water isn’t hot. Today, however, “no hot water” means that there is no flow at all. As a result, everybody is using the cold water for everything, reducing its flow to almost nil.

We realized that we hadn’t provided an update on Alexey’s progress for a little while, so...

Alexey is babbling almost all the time, often trying to imitate what we say. He says Mama and Dada in the correct context with some regularity. He understands some of our Russian and some of our English too. Good luck to him if he thinks we speak Russian fluently. He also understands the words “nyet” and “no”. Note that “understands” does not mean “obeys”.

Alexey also seems to enjoy our musical offerings, often trying to sing along to, conduct, play percussion for, or sway to such classics as Old Macdonald, Frère Jacques, Row, Row, Row Your Boat, and, heaven help us, the Ole, Ole, Ole, Ole song.

Alexey is eager to learn to walk. While he hasn’t taken his first independent steps yet, he does move along while clutching to the furniture, and stands up with only minimal holding on. He crawls very quickly, meaning that we have to be very alert.

Alexey is now eating more solid foods. He has tried pasta with meat sauce, bread, mashed potatoes, chicken, and some vegetables that aren’t mashed. He also eats baby biscuits. We are happy because this means that he is definitely learning how to bite and chew. He has further demonstrated his biting ability by chomping on our fingers and wrists on several occasions. When overly tired this past Monday, he expressed his opinions by biting Dada’s wrist hard enough to puncture the skin. Dada raised an official protest about this, in turn causing a huge amount of wailing on Alexey’s part.

All in all, we’re very pleased with Alexey’s progress. When we visited the Baby Home on Thursday, his doctor was impressed as well, saying that he was a “kharasho malchik”, an excellent boy.

Catching Up

It’s been a few days since we posted. That wasn’t due to a lack of news, but to a lack of time.

On Monday, we learned from our local coordinator that our final paperwork is a bit delayed. One of the reasons is that most of the city had a planned power outage that lasted for twelve hours during the daytime on Thursday of last week. So no government offices were open. That meant that some of the paperwork couldn’t be processed. Then Friday came and the weekend.

Our final Kazakhstani paperwork is being taken to Astana, the capital, for, er, finalization only on Friday September 25. As a result, we're not going to be able to come home on our scheduled flights. We were scheduled to fly out of Karaganda late on Sunday, September 27. However, our papers don't go to the Canadian Embassy until Saturday afternoon. But it takes 3 days for them to get there, 2 days to be processed, and 3 days to come back, or so.

As a result, we are attempting to rebook our flights for October 6, returning to Ottawa on October 7.

Alert readers will note that none of this explains why we had a lack of time to post to the blog.

Tuesday was quite dreary. The high temperature was only 9 degrees and it rained all day. John felt exceedingly tired and napped on and off. All was explained when he woke up on Wednesday with a cold and fever. We’re trying to keep Alexey healthy for an entire month, in an attempt to set a personal best for him. Therefore, Monika took over full-time parenting duties, with John only occasionally raising a point of order with the little fellow as required. Same thing on Thursday.

For a few days we had been planning with a family from France to have a party for the staff at the Baby Home on Thursday. Because John was under the weather, Monika also took over full-time organization of that event. In her spare time, she went downtown to TsUM (the department store) and City Mall to buy some gifts for the staff and our translators and coordinators.

On Thursday morning we went to the Baby Home and partied with the on-duty caregivers, doctors, translators, and of course, our two families’ little ones. We had cake and tea and gave out our gifts. The caregivers and doctors had a chance to play with the two babies and to say goodbye, and we took photos and promised to give them to the staff. A very happy occasion.

So, a few busy days.

Medical Thoughts

Note that we are not doctors or even trained lay people. We are just passing on our understanding of potential medical problems that any child in a Baby Home might have.

Tests. The kind you can’t study for. The kind that every baby in the Baby Homes here is given. The kind that frighten every parent.

Hepatitis B, Hepatitis C. Syphilis, and HIV/AIDS are not exactly the tests that you want to consider, even for yourself, forget about for a tiny baby. But these are tests that are required.

Very rarely is the medical background of a child known who has been placed in a Baby Home. There might be some information about the mother, but most likely not. There is almost never any information about the father. And you don’t know if the information is correct.

Some of the children in the Baby Home truly have been abandoned by their parents, dropped off somewhere without a note saying why or who they are. Each Group room at the Baby Home has a roster of children posted. You can see the family name first, then the given name (in the Kazkahstani/Russian tradition), followed by the date of birth. When an unknown child arrives, a name is posted, but no birth date. Presuming no more information becomes available, a scientific guess is made after some medical tests, and a birth date is added a few days later.

Here, as in any former country of the Soviet Union, there is another problem that you have to watch out for. However, you can’t run any tests to confirm the existence of that problem, nor can you rule it out. That problem is Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder or FASD. FASD is caused by the mother of the baby drinking during pregnancy. Alcoholism is a very serious problem in the former Soviet Union. Alcoholic mothers often do not stop drinking during pregnancy, nor do they often seek medical attention at all. A common initial potential manifestation of FASD is with all three of low birth weight, small length, and small head size. Low birth weight and small length but a normal head size are usually not an indication of FASD. That’s because the body is smart and provides nutrition first to the brain, then to the rest of the body. However, babies affected by alcohol don’t receive the proper nutrition to their brains either. This lack of nutrition to the brain can cause minor or major developmental problems later on. These can include Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD, what we used to call hyperactivity), developmental delays, and school learning difficulties. The problem with all this is that you can’t run any simple medical tests at any age to confirm the existence of FASD. There are other clues at an early age, but you can only determine if FASD is present by looking at all the symptoms and ruling out other causes. Even that can only really be accomplished at age 5 or 6.

Hepatitis B and C, Syphilis, HIV/AIDS, and FASD are all very real dangers.

Visit a Web site such as http://www.mayoclinic.com for information about these and other conditions.

Drum Beats

Ever since we've been in our apartment here on Krivoguza street in Karaganda, we've heard a strange ritual repeated daily. At about 10:00 AM, a bass drum starts beating. Slowly at first. Boom. Pause. Boom. Pause. Boom. Then the pace picks up. Boom. Boom. Boom. Then even faster. The sound of each beat echoes around our courtyard, drowning out the echo of the previous beat, soon rising to a frenzy. For weeks, we've pondered the significance of this event. And it's repeated several times each day.

Is this some religious ritual that is unknown to us? Do we have a witch doctor living as a neighbour? Will we see voodoo dolls lying around? Perhaps our own likenesses with needles sticking out of our.... Wait a minute. That's silly.

Maybe a drummer, practicing for the upcoming football game when his marching band heads out onto the field at half-time and.... Nope. Wrong continent.

Ahh. Maybe percussive maintenance once again. We've noticed that almost every type of maintenance that's carried out around here requires banging of some kind. Plumbing, masonry repairs, and hardware installation. Even electrical work, which is sort of scary if it involves banging. But maintenance every day, several times a day? One thing we've not noticed is a surplus of upkeep.

So for weeks we've wondered what this ritualistic thumping is. Our imaginations ran wild, as you can tell. But no real answers. And still the same bang, bang, bang.

Late this past week we wandered around our courtyard, pushing Alexey in his stroller, as we often do. All was silent. Then suddenly the drum beat started again. Slowly, softly, then more quickly and loudly. Ah! At last. Now was our chance to solve The Mystery of the Banging Drum. (Used italics because it sounds like a Hardy Boys novel.) There he was. The perpetrator of the mystery. The drummer. Or perhaps he should be called the beater. For here was a man outside smacking a large rug with a paddle. Clouds of dust rose into the air as he worked his way methodically over the rug. It appears that this fellow runs a rug-cleaning business out of his apartment. But what do you put on your business card? Rug-beater? Dust-raiser?

We came away satisfied with our new knowledge. Although perhaps a little disappointed that he wasn't a witch doctor instead. Because then we would've had a real story to tell when we got back home.

Call It a Day of Firsts

Well, Alexey’s first birthday is almost over. An exciting day, because of a number of firsts.

The three of us went shopping downtown this afternoon at City Mall. We rode the glass elevator at City Mall, the first time he’s ever been on an elevator.

Between us we picked out a couple of birthday gifts. One is a snazzy yellow Fisher Price airplane in which the pilot gets tossed hither and yon as you push the plane around on the floor. Sort of like Top Gun without the safety belts. The other is a black teddy bear who has already been named Ivan in honour of Alexey’s Russian heritage. We had to get Ivan, because Alexey slobbered all over him when he first got his hands on him. So Ivan instantly became family and Alexey’s first own cuddly toy.

Then we walked over to the bakery a few blocks past the statues of Lenin and the coal miners.

At the bakery, we got some yummy cupcakes with white and chocolate icing drizzled on top.

Then we headed back towards home, walking through the big city park that has a lake and an entire amusement park inside it. The amusement park is a smaller, tamer version of the Ex in Ottawa. While passing through the park, we stopped and got a couple of soft ice cream cones. Alexey had a little taste of John’s vanilla ice cream, his first ever. Interestingly, you can get vanilla (called white, here), chocolate, or cherry, or swirls of any two or three of them. We haven’t seen cherry soft ice cream in Canada. Monika tried a white-cherry swirl and said that it tasted good.

Then we walked back home to our apartment and Alexey had a well-deserved nap. Then it was time for the birthday dinner! After we ate our main courses, we brought out the cupcakes and Monika and John sang Happy Birthday, under Alexey’s astute musical direction. But most of all, he wanted to try the cupcake, another culinary first.

We gave a few bites of cupcake to him by hand, then tore up some more pieces and put them on a plate for him to take. But Alexey decided not to use his fingers and instead to eat the pieces off the plate like a dog. We tried to get him to use his fingers, but instead he opted to crush the pieces of cupcake with the palm of his hand. The result was that his hands, face, chest, and legs became covered with crumbs and bits of icing.

As we write this post, Alexey is having his pre-formula feeding nap. Wrapped tightly in his arms is Ivan the Bearrible.

A hugely successful celebration!

Happy Birthday, Alexey

Wednesday, September 16 is Alexey’s birthday! He turns one today.

Our plans for today are to go downtown and choose a nice toy or two with him as gifts, then to get birthday cupcakes for each of us to celebrate with. We will post a picture or two later today of Alexey eating the cupcake. They promise to be entertaining.

In some countries, including another one whose national colours are blue and gold (Sweden, where Uncle Mats and cousin Emma were born), the practice is to fly the national flag on birthdays as well as on national holidays. We don’t know if it’s traditional in Kazkahstan, but we’re doing it anyway, at least here on the blog.

Flag picture Flickr/Creative Commons

Zdrastvuytye

No, Alexey wasn’t playing on the computer keyboard when it came time to write the title of this posting. That’s the transliteration of Здравствуйте!, or “hello” in Russian. If you just want to say “hi” instead, you can use the shorter Привет! (privyet).

Kazakh and Russian are the two main languages spoken here in Kazakhstan. Kazakh is the official language of the country. In an adept move that neatly worked around a potential political trouble spot, Russian was declared to be “the language of interethnic communication”. Almost all people of Kazakh background speak Kazakh and some Russian. Very few people of Russian background speak Kazakh, however.

It is fairly difficult to get Kazakh language training outside of Kazakhstan, so we opted to learn some Russian. That prepared us a little for what we face here. Many signs are bilingual. However, both languages use a version of Cyrillic, so our first task is always to figure out which part of the sign is in Russian. That’s easy enough if the sign is somewhat self-evident, but, if not, you can spend a while reading the sign. Occasionally we stand and stare at a sign for long enough that passersby slow down and start to read the sign with us, wondering what delights it promises.

Of course, pictures or pictograms on a sign usually help. Take a look at this photo.

The red cross with the 24 gives it away to a certain extent. It’s obviously a medical facility of some kind that’s open 24 hours a day.The word on the left is ДӘРІXАНА. Because Russian doesn’t use the upside down “e”, we know that word is in Kazkah. So we look to the right. We sound out the word АПТЕКА. Slowly we say “ap-tye-ka”. Ah, that’s quite similar to the word “apothecary” in English. This is a pharmacy.

Of course, you can be misled a bit. Consider the next photo.

Easy. Another medical facility. Obviously a clinic of some kind, where they speak English. The doctor looks comfortingly familiar. And we can call if we have questions. Even call their cell phones, the 8 701 numbers. Wait a minute. The doctor looks a little too familiar. That’s John Stamos, from the television show ER. Now we’re becoming suspicious. We start sounding out the big text. Kom-put-… ahh. This is a sign for a computer repair store. The text at the bottom is asking if our computer is sick. Thank heavens we didn’t call them and start babbling about our medical problems. [No, moms, we’re not sick.] That would’ve been… entertaining. For them, at least.

Some pictures have obvious meaning, even if you don’t know the details. We were advised at home that you can’t go wrong if you pay close attention to the pictures on the milk cartons in the grocery stores. There are cows, horses, and camels. We stayed with the bovine cartons, with much success. Therefore, we scurried for our dictionary in a panic when our cook showed up with a fresh carton of milk for us the other day:

Say Hello to…

Alexey Daniel Holgate

The end of today, Thursday August 10 2009, is the end of the period in which Alexey’s adoption can be appealed. That means that as of 12 Midnight Kazakhstan time (2 PM EDT) he is officially our son!

[ Dad is posting this blog entry a few minutes early because he just can’t wait until Midnight :-) ]

It is a time of great happiness for the two of us. Hopefully for Alexey too!

We chose Alexey’s middle name, Daniel, because we liked it. But after we chose it, we realized that it is perhaps symbolic of Alexey. He was in the lion’s den, like Daniel in the Bible (Book of Daniel, chapter 6). Daniel did nothing wrong, but was sentenced to spend 30 days in the lion’s den, which is what it sounds like. He escaped from it because of his faith. Alexey has never lived in a home with a family. He has been in his own lion’s den for almost a year. But his spirit held and he never gave up hope.

Below is a picture which illustrates both Alexey’s future and his past. We took it a few weeks ago. It shows the three of us, including Alexey in goofy, fun clothing, ready to move forward. We are in front of a very small portion of the washing at the Baby Home. On a normal day outside, you can see as many as a hundred pairs of pants and as many shirts drying. And dozens of diapers, sheets, and changing cloths, as in this picture. Many of those are not much more than rags. Because the drying is done outside, almost all of the clothing, sheets, and diapers are quite rough on the skin. But they are now in his past. The clothes that we brought in for Alexey are the first clothes that are his alone. And likely the first soft clothes he’s ever worn.

But today is not a day to become tearful over. It’s a day to rejoice.

Thank you so much to all of you for your support.

Monika, John, and Alexey.

Pictures from Astana

We visited Astana, the capital of Kazakhstan, a couple of Fridays ago. It has some futuristic architecture. Here are a few pictures:

The gas company building has a large arch beneath it, something, we are told, like l’arche de la Defense in Paris, if you know it:

Next is an intriguing egg-shaped building in front of two wavy office buildings in behind. The waviness is not caused by a bad camera lens:

The Baiterek Tower. You can go up into the ball (or egg) 97 metres above ground. There is a Kazakh legend about a “Baiterek”. It is an ancient tree of life. Its roots are in the subterranean world, the trunk in the earthly world, and the crown in the heavens. Every year a sacred bird, Samruk, lays a golden egg in the crown. Every year it is consumed by a dragon, Aidakhar, which lived at the base of the tree. This is representative of the cycle of life, of summer and winter, and of rebirth: 

Two elderly Kazakh ladies in traditional dress accompanied by their granddaughter outside the Baiterek Tower. They went to the top of the tower to place their hands in the President’s handprint impressed into a piece of gold there. See our earlier post called “Hands on in the Baiterek Tower for more information about that:

A view from inside the tower towards the Presidential Palace at the end of the Water and Green Park. The shiny gold buildings on either side are office towers. Curving out from them on either side are two government of Kazakhstan office buildings. Combined, they give the impression of an eagle, one of the symbols of Kazakhstan:

A closeup view of one of the golden office towers:

 

Below is an intriguing mix of architectures. There is the glass of a Western-style building mixing with the light stone block and domes of an Eastern-style building.

The Nur Astana Mosque provides space for 5000 worshippers. The main dome rises to 43 metres. It is surrounded by 25 smaller domes. The four minarets are 62 metres tall. Its construction was funded by the Emir of Qatar:

When Is Labour Day Not Labour Day?

Happy Labour Day to everyone in Canada! We hope you have a great Monday off as part of the last long weekend of Summer (sigh). Labour Day was founded in Canada. Did you know that, according to Wikipedia, it has been celebrated on the first Monday in September in Canada since the 1880s? You can trace it back to April 14, 1872, when a parade was staged in support of the Toronto Typographical Union's strike to demand a mere 58-hour work-week.

Of course, Kazakhstan used to be a part of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) before its dissolution. May 1 (May Day) was celebrated for many years throughout the communist world, as in many other places, as International Workers' Solidarity Day. So, one would expect that a holiday in commemoration of labour would continue to be held in Kazakhstan. Nyet. After gaining independence, the May 1 holiday was renamed here as the Day of Unity of the People of Kazakhstan: a day to celebrate the ethnic diversity of Kazkahstan. Fortunately, it's still a labourless day.    

A Non-Utilitarian Few Days

Avid readers will remember that we’ve had our share of trouble with water and sewage. Well, since Wednesday, there have been a series of “issues” on the utility front.

We haven’t had hot hot water since Wednesday. Sometimes it’s lukewarm, sometimes it’s tepid, sometimes it’s colder than the cold water. But we can manage. If we need to, we can heat up some water on the gas stove to do the dishes. Showers are simply, how shall we say it, refreshing.

So we thought nothing of inviting over one of our translators and her husband for dinner on Thursday. After all, we could slowly do the dishes later. We went to the local supermarket (супермаркет, in Russian) and bought our food for dinner in the morning. We had decided to make ethnic food for our guests: Canadian. So we were making a nice beef stew with a bit of red wine thrown in for flavour, along with mashed potatoes. Our translator even got into the swing of things, because she volunteered to make an apple pie. So our guests arrived and asked if they could wash their hands before dinner. Sure, we said. Feel free to use our bottle of Purell.

The cold water came back at about 7:30 PM, but the hot didn’t come back until about 9:00 PM. And it was red. And it smelled like sulphuric acid had been added to it. A lovely smell permeated our kitchen/living/dining room as we finished our dinner. But all in all, our dinner was a success.

The hot water still hasn’t been hot since then, but at least we have some water.

Yesterday (Friday) at 5:25 PM, the lights went out. We had been warned that in the summer, the electricity can be rationed if their is too much demand caused by air conditioners. But it was only 10 degrees outside, and had been raining all day. That didn’t sound like rationing. It sounded more like a problem with the system, because of the volume of rain. Besides, they wouldn’t ration the power at supper time, would they? The entire neighbourhood was without power. We thought that the repairs would be carried out quickly, given the widespread nature of the blackout. So we cooked our dinner on the gas stove. Why is that exceptional? Because the gas is only on for about half of the time. One week on, one week off. We have an electric hot plate for the gasless days. So we lit some candles and had a romantic dinner with Alexey. We sat in the dark for only 5 hours before the electricity came back on. 5 hours to the exact minute. Hmm. Maybe they did cut off our power deliberately.

You just never know what’s going to happen here.

Hands On in the Baiterek Tower

When we travelled to Astana, we visited the Baiterek Tower. It’s a big golden ball sitting on top of a silver-coloured tower. It was built to commemorate the declaration of Astana as the capital of Kazakhstan. The ball, covered in gold-coloured glass, sits at 97 metres above the ground. 1997 was the year that Astana was declared to be the capital. You take an elevator up the to the ball. If you like, you can walk up another two flights of stairs to the top level, the one you see in the photo here. In the center of that level, there is a large malachite plinth. Surrounding it at the top is a large warriors belt, with many symbolic badges made of gold and silver. On top of that there is a 5 kg silver disc. Sitting on that is a triangular shaped 2 kg block of gold. The handprint of President Nazarbaev is imprinted into it. A guide explained the meaning of the tower to us in English. Visitors are urged to place their hands into the President’s handprint and to make a wish. As we awaited our turn to put our hands into the gold handprint, many Kazakhstani people preceded us. They took the ritual very seriously. Many obviously were there on a pilgrimage of sorts. Senior citizens in formal traditional dress were there. Young parents in their best clothes were there with their infant baby in a white dress. There was only a low hum of conversation. Finally it was our turn to place our hands into the handprint and to make a wish. Patriotic music began playing over the sound system as we touched the gold. There are very few non-Kazakhstani people who visit the tower. We were humbled and delighted to find that we were being honoured by the music as distinguished foreign visitors.

In the background of the photo, gold tinted because of the glass, you can see a few of the very modern buildings in Astana. We will soon post more pictures, Internet access allowing.