Dear friends,
I must guess that some of you who haven't heard from me
since last summer have wondered what happened with our adoption? Let me quickly apologize for not making time
to write and assure you that everything went well and is going well. Sasha is great and we couldn't be
happier. I’ve been working on sending
something now for quite sometime, but I just never finish the letter and
assembling of a collection of photos.
Now it is just after Thanksgiving and ski season has already
started. In any event, on to my summary
of our Russian trips composed over a period of time. You’ll need to look at Sasha’s web site, http://home.comcast.net/~arsampson
, for the pictures that go along with this story.
(10 Nov 03)
I'm taking advantage
of quiet time now (10 Nov) to begin this letter somewhere over the Atlantic
Ocean on my return flight from South Africa (a couple of hours ago we landed in
the Cape Verde Islands for refueling).
I am really looking forward to getting home. Perhaps I’ll say more about this trip at a later date. I had been planning to post a set of
pictures on our web site, but just haven’t managed to get around to it, so I’ll
probably just attach a few photos here.
You will recall that our first trip to Russia, the first
week of June, went well and involved just a couple of days in Maikop, the city
nearest Sasha’s orphanage, seeing Sasha and doing some necessary
paperwork. [Sasha
& Mama, in our hotel room, 3 June] This was followed by a couple of fun days in Moscow, joined by
both Sveta (who happens to be in NYC right now) and Tanya. [Sveta &
Tanya in Moscow, 5 June]
Our second trip to
pick up Sasha and take him home took place the first two weeks of August. The day after our arrival in Moscow (Aug 2)
we flew to Krasnodar---1st/business class because there were no coach seats
left; we didn't appreciate spending the money, but we sure appreciated the
space compared to coach/"sardine" class on a vintage YAK-42 jetliner. But I shouldn't complain too much in view of
the position I'm in right now on this 747 where it is almost impossible to use
my laptop, squeezed as it is against my stomach with the screen at a
sub-optimal.angle.
We were picked up in Krasnodar, as before, by Denis, our
driver/caseworker, and Igor, our translater.
[Igor & Denis, 4 Aug] These guys were just great and we are
greatly thankful for them. If we were
ever to go through something like this again (and we are not currently
planning to!), these are the guys we would want to work with. It was hot.
After the 2-hr drive to Maikop, we made the 1-hr drive to the village of
Sasha's orphanage where he was staying at the home of a teacher because the
school is closed during the summer. We
were only able to visit briefly at this point as he was not allowed to come and
stay with us until after the court hearing, scheduled for the next day, Aug
4. For the court hearing the next day,
Denis drove again from Maikop to this village near his school to pick up his
teacher as a representative of the school and a woman who was essentially the
chief school district administrator.
Both of them were required for the court hearing. Everything started out smoothly at the 10:00
am court hearing, attended by our team of 4 (Denis, Igor, teacher, and school
district administrator), the judge, and a state prosecutor, until the judge
surprised our team by asking whether the woman who had housed and cared for
Sasha for the month or two before he was placed in the orphanage, or the family
now taking care of his half-sister, had been asked if they would take/adopt
Sasha! You can imagine our feelings at
the possibility that something could go wrong after this one year process. There had been no contact with either of
these two families in the 2 1/2 years since Sasha had been taken away from his
mother and stepfather.by the courts.
Our hearing was recessed until 3:30 in the afternoon so that they could
be contacted All that was available
were addresses. Nonetheless, Denis was
confident that he could find them in the village near Krasnodar where they
lived, a 2-hour drive away. He not only
found them but came back with 2 notarized letters saying that these families
could not adopt Sasha and that they were happy that we were doing so. The court session resumed and concluded
successfully, with the all-important granting of our request to wave the
formally required 10-day waiting period following any court decision. It would have been a crushing blow if we had
had to spend another 10 days before we could take Sasha from Maikop.
There was an unanticipated benefit to the unexpected
anxiety-producing turn of events at our court hearing: we were put in touch
with the family of Sasha's half sister and on the return trip from Maikop to
Krasnodar for the flight back to Moscow, we were able to visit them and Sasha
saw his half sister for the first time in 2 1/2 years. Sasha's half-sister, Faina, is living with
the family of the brother of Sasha's stepfather and they welcomed us
warmly. In fact, it was quite a family
gathering with lots of little kids, babushkas (grandmothers) and friends,
refreshments and thankful toasts to us.
Sasha gave Faina a little present he had wrapped and he has since sent
her a birthday present. [w/ Faina’s family, 6 Aug]
Before that happened, following the court hearing our now
happy team drove back out to the village of his school to return the teacher
and administrator to their homes and pick up Sasha. (Denis has now made this 2-hr round-trip journey twice, along with
the 4-hr round-trip drive for the notarized letters from the families mentioned
above!) Incidentally, we had given or
sent Sasha various clothes and toys in the time since he first visited in
August 2002, and had even left a suitcase with him in June in hopes that we
might be able to bring some of this back home, but that isn't the way it
works. We got Sasha with the t-shirt
and shorts he was wearing, and that was it.
In Maikop we outfitted him in the new clothes we had brought (and had to
go shopping to buy him some more underwear).
[Sasha trying on new clothes, 4 Aug] We had to spend a 3 more nights in Maikop to
arrange his passport and other documents.
We met up with another family from the Seattle area who were adopting
two older (13-14) year old brothers.
They were still in Maikop (staying with a Russian family, rather than a
hotel like us) because the 10-day waiting period for their adoption had not
been waived. But they were amazingly
adaptive/resilient, taking this all in stride and enjoying there stay with a
large Russian family. We enjoyed
visiting this family and doing a little shopping in Maikop, but nothing else
noteworthy happened over the next couple of days before we left to visit
Sasha’s half-sister’s family and fly back to Moscow.
Back in Moscow we were met at the airport, as usual, by
our Russian-caretaker Svetlana (not “our Sveta”) and our driver. As we had to stay over a weekend and process
papers at both the U.S. Embassy and Russian consulate, we were to spend another
7 days before flying home. All the
formal paperwork went smoothly. Waiting
for us in Moscow at the Hotel Ukraina were Tanya again, this time with her
boyfriend Vanya. The next day (Friday,
Aug 8) Oleg arrived from the Ukraine.
We have to say that we had just a great time. Sasha was always on the hand of either Oleg, Tanya or Vanya. Here is a photo of the gang at our favorite
Moscow restaurant, “Moo-Moo” (translated from Russian!). [Dinner at
“MooMoo” in Moscow, 8 Aug] We saw sights, went shopping, almost saw a show at the
“Dolphinarium”, did see a movie (Lora Croft in Toomraiders II?) and had a great
time on the amusement park rides at Gorky Park. [All wet at Gorky Park, 11 Aug] Later this day Tanya and Vanya had to leave
for their flight home, and then Oleg left the next day, leaving the three of us
to continue riding the Moscow Metro alone. We successfully found a large park
at which there is a small ski hill and a very large ski jump (you could ski
right past the bottom of the chairlift and into the Moscow River if you were so
inclined) near Moscow State University.
Due to the fact that we were unable to get an Aeroflot
flight directly back to Seattle, we took advantage of our necessary return
route through NYC and rented a car and drove up to New England for a couple of
days. Rick and Suzi were the first of
our friends to meet Sasha as we stayed with them in Connecticult for one
evening (just before the big power black-out) and then drove to Cape Cod where
Sasha met Grandma and Grandpa as well as his uncles, aunts and cousins from New
Hampshire (except, unfortunately, for Joe).
Sasha loves the water and had a great time at the beach. He really enjoyed meeting his young cousins
and was especially thankful for the scooter and bike that Mike gave him.
[I’ll interrupt this narrative now and probably finish
writing and editing with Sandy when I get back to Seattle. I have to save some battery for some real
work I must do for a presentation I’m making at a site visit on Wednesday.]
[11/21/03]
Two weeks later and I’m getting back to this. In fact, the timing is good as we had our
first parent-teacher conference last night with Sasha’s teacher. He is in a “bilingual orientation center” 4th
grade class together with 11 Mexicans and 1 Philippino. He is really doing great. To quote his teacher: “Sasha has made many new friends. He enjoys school and can’t understand why
some others don’t. … Sasha is enthusiastic.
He loves everything we do and tries to do his best.” In fact, he is progressing fast enough that
he may be ready to exit this class and move into a regular 4th grade
class by the end of January. And that
is great progress. Sandy works with him
every night on phonics and reading.
The photo above shows him with two other Russian adoptees
at a birthday party for his good friend Sergei (now Aidan) on the right. [Max, Sasha &
Sergei, 30 Sept] Since his arrival back in Seattle Sasha has
especially enjoyed swimming and biking.
He doesn’t have any real athletic background, but he is really looking
forward to skiing (on new skis thanks to Uncle Jeff!) and can’t wait to see
snow and go to the mountains. We’ll be
skiing at Whistler on his birthday, Dec. 20.
He has just started to play on an 8-9 yr old recreational basketball
team. Having seen one practice I must
say that my son is somewhat clueless out on the court at this stage, but he
sure is enjoying it. In fact, I don’t
think he understands how serious sports should be! He runs around in drills with a big grin on his face! Indeed, more than one person has commented
on how happy he is all the time. He has
a great smile and a good heart. And he
is a pretty good eater too. You can see
in the picture with Sandy that he loves crab!
[Eating crab, 5 Oct] We can’t believe how lucky we are! I guess that God decided that we were to be
gifted with wonderful Russian-speaking kids!
He is rambunctious, funny, and affectionate. He also loves music and is singing with a small children’s choir
at St Patrick’s. (We’ve got an adorable
video of him singing a considerable solo at graduation ceremonies at his
orphanage in Russia. I’ll try to
convert it to digital so I can send out a short clip.) Of course, there have been blow-ups. He is strong-willed, has a temper, and can
put on a pretty serious pout when he doesn’t get his way, but that is getting
better. Our little guy is also quite the “know-it-all” for someone so young.
[1 Dec 03]
Well, the leaves are
pretty much gone from the tree in front of our house and the ski areas are
getting an early start this year. [Japanese maple & Sasha, 16 Nov] In fact, we took Sasha for his first day
skiing at Snoqualmie Pass this past Saturday after Thanksgiving. He loved it, totally exhausted himself, and
can’t stop talking about when we can go skiing again. [Moma & Sasha on the slopes; Moma
& Sasha after skiing, 29 Nov]
We’re sorry to be missing
our friends back east this Christmas, but we decided that Sasha’s first
Christmas in America should be spent “at home”. We still have plenty of space for visitors, so come on out and
meet our new son!
Love,
Paul