May 17, 2008

A wonderful day in “the nature”

Today Svetlana, Mariya and her family planned a picnic for us and John and Sarah the newly arrived American couple.   Julie and I did some final shopping and banking in the morning and were picked up by Sasha @ 2PM.   We then went over and picked up John and Sarah.  They are a couple from Georgia that arrived in Petro on Wednesday.  They have 5 children at home (4 boys and 1 girl) and came here to adopt a little girl(s).  We greeted them and made introductions and then were off to meet Svetlana, Mariya, her mother Olga and her aunt and uncle Sergei and Tatyana. 

As Sasha drove us out into the country side Julie enjoyed the opportunity to talk with another American couple.  Beside me and Mariya she has had no one to talk with for a month.   She has been couped up with me for 7/24 for 4 weeks and knows my listening skills are limited are best.    She enjoyed sharing with John and Sarah our experience since it was coming to an end and learning about their lives and the start of their adoption journey.  I had to keep reminding her that she needed to keep breathing while talking.  Alex and Ben call her a “chitter chatter box” and she was in her prime this afternoon.

Sasha and Sergei negotiated the rough terrain and we arrived at a camping spot along the river.   We unloaded all the food and cooking supplies.   Sasha quickly had firewood cut and the grill ready for barbeque.   The rest of us helped prep the food and setup the blankets with area for all the fruit, vegetable and all sorts of assorted goodies.   Except for Julie and Sarah as Julie was busy chitter chattering.

They quickly had all the meat put on skewers and placed on the grill.  We all gathered around the blankets and sat down for a wonderful feast.   We all talked and laughed with Mariya interpreting everything they said for us and vice versa.  A little while later Anna arrived with her friend Sasha.  This is Mariya’s older sister who is just as beautiful and sweet as Mariya.   She is a piano and music teacher at school and had to finish classes for the day before meeting us.  The food and company were great.  We celebrated with a few toasts with Sasha delicious home brew.   We celebrated our new friendships, our adoption of our 2 wonderful children.  

We played a little volleyball after lunch.  We all got in a circle and tried to keep the ball in the air as much as possible going back and forth.   We all had a great time but none of us are ready for the Olympic volleyball team.   We spent as much time chasing the ball down as we did playing.   We all had a great time and lots of laughs.   Sergei was fishing and caught a couple of fish.   We then walked around and enjoyed the “nature”, the beautiful area on a beautiful sunny day and taking pictures.   At around 6 or 7PM we started to clean everything up and head back to town. 

We had to say good bye to Mariya’s mom Olga and her sister Anna as this would be the last time we see them.   What an amazing family.   We made the drive back to Petro and Sasha dropped us of first.   We said good bye to John and Sarah and wished them the best on the rest of their trip.  

We then went to our apartment for the last night and started packing.  Tomorrow’s good byes to Mariya, Sasha and Svetlana are going to be very difficult.

The Hrenko Family

Adoption Journey to Kazakhstan

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