A Busy Day!

Monday, November 11th

Halyna, our facilitator had told us to be ready to go when she called between 9 and 9:30.  We were instructed to go to Children's Services and pick up a document and deliver it to her at the SDA office.  Time was of the essence as they only accepted this document at SDA until 1pm.  (I thought she had told me 12:00 pm, so I was really nervous!)  We decided to leave the apartment about 8:45 and sit and wait at McDonalds near the Metro station, that way we would be that much closer when we received the call. We had just sat down to eat our breakfast when Halyna called and said that she couldn't get an answer at Children's Services and asked if we could just head over there and wait.  We hurriedly gulped down our food and walked to the Metro.  We got off at the first stop and walked the rest of the way to Children's Services.  I tried to open the door of the office where Halyna had gone in to the prior week, but it was locked, so we sat down and waited.  After awhile I called Halyna and asked her if we were at the right place because it appeared that no one was in that particular office.  She assured me we were in the right place and that she had just spoken to the girl.  She had been at court for the morning and was just now returning to the office.  As we sat there several people came by and stood in line for another office.  Many of them would stop and say something to us in Russian.  We would mumble something about only speaking English and then they would smile and walk away.  Finally, I asked a lady if she spoke English.  She said "a little".  So, I asked her what everyone was asking us.  That was too hard of a question I guess, because she shook her head and waved her hand.  We assume they were asking us if we were in line, but I really have no clue.  We waited and waited and waited.  Finally the girl arrived and nodded to us in recognition and then she went in and out of the office, doing who knows what.  I'm assuming she was getting the necessary signatures that we needed for our document.  Finally she called us in at around 11:45 am., gave us the document and sent us on our way.  We thought there was no way we were going to make it in time.  I called Halyna and she told me that there was a waiting cab that was going to whisk us away to the SDA office.  As we were walking down the sidewalk, Irina, the girl from the office came running out.  She had forgotten to give us our dossier back.  We had no clue that she was supposed to do that.  We were so thankful that she caught us before we left.  We found our taxi and he of course starts to talk to us in Russian.  I finally used my one Russian phrase...."ya ne gavaroote parooski"....which I means "I do not speak Russian".  He laughed and nodded his head. He dropped us off at the SDA office and we ran in and found Halyna waiting in line.  She breathed a sigh of relief and was called in a few minutes later to submit the paperwork.  After that was all done we walked over to Celentano's Pizza across the street, ate lunch and talked.  I had wanted to look for more necklaces like I had bought last year so we headed down the street that is lined with all sorts of vendors. We did not find that particular vendor, but found lots of other nice things, though we didn't buy anything (except Tim bought a scarf for Halyna that he saw her looking at). We then headed up the street to get some more notarizations done.  Tim needed to find a bank first to do some exchanging, so we did that and then went to find a "Stationery Store" to buy a pack a paper for the Children's Services office. (Something they had asked for.)  Halyna took us up this dark stairway and into this small room.  This was the store. I wish I would have had the nerve to take a picture.  Quite funny.  They did have quite a few things for sale; paper, pens, other office supplies, etc., but the room was smaller then my bedroom at home.  Oh well...that's how it is done in Ukraine.  We then went to the Notary and got done what we needed to get done.  We had decided at lunch to have our whole dossier copied so that if things change for Bogdan, we will have a copy of it to initially work with, even though they will need the original one eventually.  After that we headed for the Court House.  This involved a Metro ride and a marshrutka ride and about 10 minutes of walking.  I took a picture of the Court House last year, but didn't take one this year.  It is painted a Pepto-Bismol pink.  Very lovely.  Very lovely, indeed. On our way there we realized we were missing something very important and without this we might run into some delays.  Tim decided to call Dave at the apartment to see if he could possibly bring this to us, because we wouldn't have time to go to their apartment and get back to the Court House in time.  Thankfully Dave was home and agreed to bring us what we needed. Tim went to the bus stop to meet him and Halyna and I waited.  The judge was not in her office and we had no guarantee that she was going to be returning, but we took the chance because we wanted to get everything submitted that day if possible.  Finally about 4:45 she came walking in.  Halyna spoke with her briefly and the judge instructed her to be submit our paperwork to her assistant. Whew! We made it.  While we were in the assistant's office, Tim and Dave arrived.  Thankfully, everything was submitted! We walked back to the bus stop.  Halyna headed for the train station to go home and we headed back to the apartment.  Wow.  So this is what it feels like when everything is going as smooth as it can go in Ukraine.