Thursday

It’s Thursday already! It was sunny most of the day, and then fog rolled in late afternoon from the three rivers that converge here in Uralsk – the Ural, the Chagan, and the Derkul.

We are all so surprised how quickly time is flying here. In town, they are putting up holiday decorations in some of the public areas and plazas– lights on the pine trees, lit swags, and colorful lit balls in trees on and posts. We’re told they are primarily for New Year’s, but also for the Russian Orthodox Christmas too, which is in early January.

I’ve meant to address the language issue in my posts, so I’ll do it today. Kazakhs speak Russian and Kazakh. I understand that Kazakh has several more letters in its alphabet than Russian and is harder to learn, but that the country is moving towards adopting Kazakh as its official language, as another step in developing the Republic. Written Russian uses the Cyrillic alphabet, which is really odd to our eyes at first because it uses what looks like Roman letters in, but surprisingly it’s not too hard to pick up on. For example, a “C” has an “S” sound to us, a “P” has an “R, and “H” has an “N.” The Target type store in Almaty is RAMCTOP, pronounced Ramstor(e). I haven’t figured out all the letters yet (and some don’t have any Roman counterparts) but it’s fun to try to read some of the store signs – “HAH” is “Nan” or a bread store. When listening to Russian, it sounds very easy and smooth, like French. Most people know a couple of English words, not a lot, but we’re surprised to see that many ads and signs are also in English. We have our interpreter with us most of the time, but we try to say at least the basics in Russian. “Drast –vee- teye” is hello. “Pa –zhalsta” – is please. “Paka paka” is see you later. We try. Anyway, there’s a little taste of how we communicate here.

Aidan was subdued this morning when we first picked him up today, sucking his thumb and relaxing, but got happy and excited as usual when we changed his clothes. He just loves to be naked. Scott was changing him, and he looked up at him laughing and smiling and happy as a clam, as if to say “Thanks Dad! This is great!” We’ve brought enough sleepers for him that we haven’t repeated one yet, and he looks cute in all of them, we think. Also, during our morning visit we were able to talk to the doctor about Aidan. In a nutshell, he’s in good shape and developing normally, which is great to hear! The whole time we were talking to the doctor, I was taking notes and Scott had Aidan. Well, Aidan realized he wasn’t the center of attention so he started blowing raspberries, and kept it up the whole conversation. All of us we’re laughing at him by the end. Also, at one point he decided that Scott’s shirt pocket was the perfect place to store Lobby the lobster teether, unbeknownst to Scott. Hilarious! The doctor said that the caregivers had told her that he has started making noises and sounds that they had never heard him make before. We thought that was cool. Maybe he’s trying to imitate our speech. Also, we found out that today that our pre-court practice session is next Tuesday, the 20th, and court is Wednesday the 21st. If all goes well, we’ll get to pick up the kids on Thursday the 22nd! Only one week away!!

For lunch we ate with Ann at the hotel so we could post pictures. I had a traditional Kazakh/Russian rice dish, which tasted like curry rice with carrots and meat. Wasn’t sure if it was beef, could have been horse, which is a very common meat here. Really, it was good. Scott had pasta. The food here at the hotel is very good.

In the afternoon, Aidan was a little sleepy. He fussed a little to be picked up and to be put down. He’s never really cried, he just gets irritable, probably because he’s tired and wants to sleep but also wants to play. He always settles down when we stand up and walk around with him on our shoulder. He probably likes that because he can lay his head down but still watch what’s going on the room.

We went to a Kazakh souvenir shop on our way back to the hotel and bought some remembrances from Uralsk for Aidan. Assia helped us make our purchases. It was a small shop but had many cute things. We’re deciding on a few other things so we’ll probably go back there before we leave Uralsk.

Tomorrow we’ll be halfway home! Hard to believe!

See you!