Dnipro

Well, 24 hours later we are in Dnipro sitting in Constantine's apartment using the internet! Again! We love the internet here. What would we do with all of our time without it. It keeps us sane!

We had quite the adventure getting to Dnipro in our car. I'm not sure what we should say about it, but to be honest, our adventures, I'm sure will deter anyone else from wanting to drive their own car. Just let Adoption Way help you, but I guarantee we have had more fun and laughs doing what we've done!

We set out of Kiev at 8:30 in the morning on Thursday. Victor met us at our apartment and we left together. We set the GPS for Dnipro....(however you spell that town) and got on our way. Just near the airport we headed Southeast on somewhat of a main highway. We were warned that cops patrolled this part of the highway heavily and to watch our speed. The funny thing is, so many of the drivers fly through the streets here and Drew wasn't going all that fast but a cop waved him over. (Drew interjecting) Teh cops do not chase you down with their lights on like in the U.S. Rather they stand at the side of the road and wave a baton/flashlight at you to pull over. I tried the "i am American, do you speak english" approach. Finally Vicotr spoke up in Ukrainian as he could see the cop was getting frustrated. He asked Victor to sttep out of the car and talk to him. He asked the cop if there was a way we could work it out so we did not have to deal with a citation and the courts. 200 gryvna ($25 USD) later we were off. It must have been a good gift (bribe) because he told us the approximate distance of the next 3 cops patrolling. I took the time to understand the speed limit signs better so that we would not be out any more money. despite my efforts, the next cop waived us over. I could not understand why because I had slowed dowwn. Other cars had zipped by us notg too long before this and I never saw brake lights. Nonetheless, I complied with his wishes and pulled over. He showed me his radar gun which said 79 kilometers per hour. I know I was only in the low 60"s. I plead my case in english to which he just got frustrated. He finally asked for my documents. While I was getting my drivers license, vehicle registration and rental contract, Jen leans over and says, "Hey officer, do you just want our money?" The officer just laughed at what she said which let us know he understood exactly what she was saying. Agian, after tyring the I'm American and don't understand you approach, Victor finally began to speak Ukrainian. This time we were escorted to a little shack with a 2nd officer. He sat down and opened up his citation book. Again, we asked if there was anything we could do. Victor explained we were missionaries hear to adopt a girl from Dniprodzherzinsk. I flashed 100 gryvna which he nodded his head and closed the book. We quickly walked back to the car and left. As a result of these two experiences, the trip now was going to take at least an hour longer because I was not about to get pulled over again. If we saw a group standing by the side of the road, we slowed down even if there was no speed limit signs.

Jen again...we were able to laugh about our two pit stops and just enjoy the rest of the drive. We took two more stops, one more fill up the tank with gas and another at McDonald's for lunch. We arrived in Dnipro at about 4 pm and headed straight for the Social Worker's office. It was the same ladies we met with last year. They looked up our old record and asked if everything was the same. We said yes, all the employment, family, home, etc, etc, were all the same. They mentioned that they had heard about us being pulled over and thought it was a shame on their country that they gave us a hard time when we weren't being outright unlawful on the road. I guess they are going to bring up our situation with the officials they meet with next week and tell them if cops find families on the road that are here for adoption, they just need to let them go without problems. So our driving might help future families!!! That'a a bright spot right!

After the social workers we went to the notary to get a couple other documents. Oxana had all the paperwork done yesterday so we should get "the conclusion" documents today from the social workers and that goes on to the SDA (back to Kiev) for their approval. I believe Oxana is going home for the weekend and she might take those documents back with her to the SDA and once she has the approval documents from the SDA then we can have court. Oxana says she should know an exact court date for us by the end of today. We just have to have those documents back from the SDA before that court date.

After the notary, we headed to the orphanage. We didn't go through the whole "surprise, we're here" ordeal we went through last year, where the child writes the letter that she wants to be adopted. Apparently, Masha wrote her letter a week ago with the orphanage attorney. She had been waiting for us in the offices and came running out as soon as she knew we were there. I was amazed when I first saw her. She is all grown up. A year and a half ago she still seemed like a girl to me. Now she is a full blown teenager! I couldn't believe how much she had changed. It was so fun to see her again. It was a wonderful reunion. It was short lived though because we had gotten to the orphanage late. We visited for about an hour and had dinner that was prepared by Nadiya then left for the apartment.

One more car story! We got a flat heading to the apartment. Drew got stuck climbing the very bad, narrow road leading up to the apartment and we all three, Victor, Oxana and I had to push to get him out of a hole he was stuck in. The adventures with this car are never ending! Once we were parked we came up to the apartment with all our luggage and settled in for the night.

This morning we called George and he met us at the car to help with the flat tire. I'm going to let Drew type up this part of the story again. He's better at this stuff than I am. (Drew) I had asked them to have George bring a tire iron. The one in the rental was too short and I could not get enough leverage to loosen the lug nuts. I did find a crow bar which I used to loosen two lug nuts but I ended up bending the tire iron trying to loosen the other two. Needless to say, George arrived with a guy from a tire store who quickly removed the tire. I pulled the spare out of the trunk and was quickly told to not do any work. The guy took the tire and they said he would be back in 20 minutes with the tire fixed and would install the tire. I was happy to change the tire myself, but I guess that is not how they do it here. Anyways, he returned and installed the tire. I was curious how much we would be charged. George shook his head no when I gave the money signal with my hand. We will see if they ask us for some money later. Hopefully, no more car stories.

We're headed to the orphanage now to take pictures and give gifts and the donation and, of course, to see Masha. I'll post pictures tonight when were back.

Oh, by the way, we did see Ruslan. He is in the same class as Masha. She took us up there to meet her teacher. We didn't have his gift with us at the time, but we'll be sure to include this picture when we do see him again!