This is where we live. Our apartment building is the shorter one in the photo (sandwiched between the two taller ones). We are on the 4th floor (if you look closely, we are the only apartment with an air conditioner unit - not that we've ever used it).
This is a shot from our room of the street below.
And this an 'interesting' soviet-era mural on the side of a building.
Petro is a city of about 250,000. It's located in northern KZ, right near the Russian border. It's considered western siberia, and looks the part. It's May now, and the temp is in the 50's. The other day it even started to snow. Most of the town is of Russian heritage. There is no tourism industry here, so there really is no one here who speaks English. This has been the biggest change for us. With all the traveling we've done, we are used to seeing at least some signs in English, and finding people who at least speak a little. Here there is absolutely no English, and since English and Russian do not use the same alphabet, transliteration is harder. In fact, we are only 2 of about 10 Americans in town. There are a few other couples here adopting, and we've heard of some Peace Corps people in town - other than that, no westerns.
So what do we do on a typical day? Well, it's pretty much groundhog day here. We wake up around 9am. We try to do a routine of exercising, quiet times, and reading in the morning. Around 3pm we are picked up to visit the boys. We get back around 7pm. We then eat dinner, and usually go play cards with a few other Americans that we've met. We then start it all over again the next day.
Oh yeah, we do have satellite TV, but it's all in Russian. Even the western shows (Discovery, MTV, Animal Planet) are dubbed. So we occasionally get our fix of watching kickboxing or MTV. Nothing like watching 'Pimp My Ride' in Russian. :)
We have a kitchen in our apartment, so we eat in most nights. There are a number of 'grocery stores' nearby - think Safeway, but 1/10th the size. A few times a week we go out - usually to a handful of restaurants that have picture menus.
As we said, we've met some American's here who are also adopting. We've grown close to Ethan and Mary, who are from Tennessee and are adopting a little girl (Julia). They are set to leave in a week. We also just met another couple from Northen Virginia, and hope to continue hanging out with them.
Well, that's it for now. We hope to upload some video of our apartment soon. Hope you like our version of a "virtual tour" :)
3 comments:
Have you guys talked to the case worker about changing the boys names this late in their lives? For their sakes (letting them keep at least one part of their identity) I would think it would be best to let them keep them. Might stave off some hostility later in their lives. I taught a little girl who was adopted when she was 3. We were chatting one day, just the two of us, and she opened up about her "old life". She remembered everything, including her other name. In fact, she said, "my real name is ___". It was pretty telling. Just a thought....
Enjoy every minute of "groundhog day" and the incredible memories that you are making! You are wisely using the time to build relationships with other adoptive parents, which will pay big dividends later.
(Jaclyn-- please note, the metaphor for the "Groundhog Day" movie does not mean you can slap Dave every time he tries to kiss you. I apologize if you are disappointed by this realization.)
Great post! It really helped me feel like I was there. Praying for you guys and looking forward to seeing the new Miller family.
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