day 5 crash and burn

This day started out OK. We met Oksana and the driver at 6 am to drive to Krivey Rog which is the longest city in Europe (seriously) The drive was an adventure. Even though Oksana hired a new driver he still drove fast enough to make our Mom Riches' blood boil and even make me nervous. Dave and Tyler and I sat in the back seat which was quite crowded and as it turned out we really didn't need to make the day long trip because Oksana handled everything beautifully. We spent a long time in McDonalds which is why there are so many pictures posted previous to this entry. Their WIFI is really fast compared to what we have here in this town. Things got worse when we returned to Dnepro. We went to meet with a woman who had agreed to do a separation of Alina and Oleg from their little brother who they say they don't even know. When Oksana called to see if we could pick up the paper so we could get the conclusion done and get this show on the road, the woman said that she had changed her mind and wouldn't do it. We rushed over there and Oksana told us to cry and plead etc. We walked into the most awful building I have seen in my life and went into the woman's office. She was dressed nice but this building would have been condemned 50 years ago in the US. The ceiling looked like it would cave in any minute and there were holes and rotting wood everywhere all covered with ugly paint to try to make it all a pretty needs-to-be-condemned building. The woman and Oksana and Tyler all yelled a bunch of stuff in Ukrainian and then they told us to go and wait in the hall. As we were out there waiting for a rat to jump out and bite us,, I told Dave "I can't believe that we are in this rat hole groveling to this woman for a paper. It was really bad, no exaggerations.

Then we went home and I made some stroganoff for Oksana and us as she did her laundry in our washer. She was so stressed from the encounter that she went for a little walk while the dinner cooked. When she got back she said that she saw Irina, who is the orphanage director here who just returned from vacation today. She said that we have an issue with Alina. The boys are eager to go but Alina is having a hard time making a commitment. We had been worried after the sister/cousin incident but thought she was excited to be in our family. We have an appointment with Irina tomorrow at 10 am to hear what she says about Alina. We were relieved to find out today that the kids don't have to go to court in this region and so since she has written her letter of desire to be adopted we thought it was smooth sailing. Far from it.

We decided to run over to the orphanage before they ended visiting hours at 8 pm. Dave and Tyler ran ahead and I followed a couple of minutes later after Oksana got her laundry. When I got there I was greeted at the back fence by Vitaly who said "IPOD" and held out his hand. I told him "no Mom" and held out my arm for a hug. He quickly hugged me and took the ipod and was off to the store with his friend. I asked where Papa was and they said in the front with Alina. I went up front only to find Dave and Tyler but no Alina. I asked where she was and they said, "We saw her and she ran away" This happened again and finally we sent a teacher to go and get her. She came outside with us and Dave told her that it hurt his feelings when she ran away. He asked if she didn't like him or something and she said no and then we tried to ask her what was the matter and she said something like she knew but she didn't want to. We don't know what she meant but the way that she turned and walked off was enough to make us wonder what is going on.

We don't know if it is because she had the talk with the relative or the talk with Irina or the fact that Ruslana and Anya came back today from having a fun weekend at a Ukrainian family's home or what but we were crushed. We tried to talk to Oleg and he just kept running away with his friends and said "Softra" (tomorrow)

Well I hope the sun comes out tomorrow but tonight I have felt crushed. Did we really leave our family who actually loves us and spend all this time and money preparing to here to these conditions so that we could be rejected and ignored like this. I know that I am feeling sorry for myself but it was a downer day. We don't know what will happen. In between tears, we have joked about just taking Vitaly and going home ASAP. Or taking Vitaly and going to Italy (in Russian Italy rhymes with Vitaly) We don't want to force a girl to be adopted who doesn't want to leave here. We don't want to spend weeks and weeks here if this is not going to work out. We do want to do the right thing. Whoever was praying for Alina and took a little break, could you start up again? Please?? We don't know what we want to happen but we are hopeful for a little glimmer of something soon to point us in the right direction.