Hard to believe it is July 5th, 2007. We hope you all had a nice 4th, lots of BBQ’s, hotdogs, beer, fireworks, and friend and family time. We tried to find a 4th celebration somewhere here in Kiev, but we were unable to find the American flag strutting proudly here in the city. Again, don’t they know what the 4th means to us and the world?

And so we wait……….. and we wait……….. and we wait just a little more. We bide our time, lie low, play a waiting game, tread patiently, goof around, hang around, hang out, stay idle. In addition we lag, laze, loaf, loiter, loll, lounge, mosey, poke along, saunter, screw off, scrounge around, schlep along, sit around, stay, stroll, tarry, toddle, tool, toy, trail, trifle and waste time. I n addition, we persevere, persist, restrain, submit, tolerate, yield, resist and rest. (Thanks to Dictionary.com for this garrulous outbreak.)

I have always said patience is a virtue. Well we are being very virtuous right now, especially “Let’s do it now” Molly. I know you have all placed your bets in Vegas or your local bookie as to Molly’s waiting threshold. Well in my opinion, the house will pay off. She is being very patient, but understandably disappointed that we do not have more concrete information as to the availability of a girl for us to bring home and make a part of our family.

And so we wait… hold on, I have already said that. We went and bought a chess set/ backgammon board to appease our free time. I fully expect that before we leave, we may take a side trip to Moscow to challenge Garry Kasparov to a chess match. My money is on Molly. She is a quick study. She has already learned the Sicilian and Ruy Lopez openings when she has white! In addition, when she defends with black, she employs King’s Indian or Grunfeld’s strategy. Unbelievable!

In between chess matches and backgammon, we went to the local fortress, I mean US Embassy. It is sedately situated in a quiet neighborhood, next to a placid family park where children ride bikes and spend time with their parents or grandparents. Yet across the street is this foreboding tall green fence enclosing a rather sterile large building surrounding other buildings, which protect yet other facilities. To protect the green fence are very cumbrous concrete pylons and barricades further flanked with a Ukrainian security entourage. These men were serious with very serious facial expressions. As a lark, I thought I would walk up to the entrance to say hello to a fellow American. Within seconds, there were guards coming toward me. I spoke in the best Midwest American accent I could muster to find out if I could go inside and just see the place. Oh no. Even though I may be an American, I am not allowed on the sovereign soil. I was told to go to the American Consulate several blocks away. If was quite startling and revealing. I imagine if I was in a country hostile to the US, I would probably be shot if I got that close to the concrete barricades protecting the green fence, which protects the big building, which protects the small building etc. It was all very feudal. We saw some models of ancient Kiev where the outer villages protected the inner wall of the grounds that surrounded the castle. It felt much the same. I guess what goes around comes around.

So, we decided to temper our concern and drink some Beer. I don’t know if you remember from my previous blogs, but they do like their Beer here in Kiev. So we found a very nice air-conditioned bar with free bathrooms no less and imbibed in a few beers. We walked to the SDA (State Adoption Agency) from there and met our in country coordinator (our infamous in-country coordinator) to try to pin him down as to a date we will know something.

Let me tell you about our in country coordinator. He is not a bad fellow. We know he really wants to find us a child to bring home. We believe he is trying. There just are not healthy girls in the 2 to 6 age range available now. There may a child in a week, or two weeks, or a month, or 4 months or whatever. But there are no healthy girls now and there were none two weeks ago when we arrived. So let’s get back to our in country coordinator.

Over the 15 days we have been working with him, we have learned some things about him. He has a family to feed, 2 boys in college and a seven year old boy. He drives an unpretentious Mazda 626, but we are told her also owns a Mercedes. His white pin stripe suit, pointed soft white shoes are contrasted with a slick dark sunglasses that he lifts off his nose when he wants to get serious. He is in his forties and carries himself with self confidence. And, money is important to him. Yes, very important.

Another observation is that in he dances around the truth. We remember every word he says. So when he shuffles his story from day to day, we remember the inconsistencies. He is the type of person we have all met who you are not sure is telling you a true or fictitious story. I don’t think he intentional waxes the truth. He just does not tell you what he really knows. So he makes up stories, not malevolently but almost benevolently. To his demise, he is not a consistent or adept at keeping his narrative straight.

And we believe his tales are driven by expectations. Our in country coordinator does like to disappoint people. So what he does is fabricates stories to fill our ears with what he thinks we want to hear. And he knows what we want - a healthy child to come back with us to Boulder. For example, yesterday he spoke with Molly and said he has found a girl in a small orphanage about an hour from Kiev. We tempered our excitement as we have heard similar stories before. Yet, we picked up a little quickness in our gait, food tasted just a little better and time passed more quickly.

So today, we talk with him and he is backing off his optimism from yesterday. We just want the real scoop, but he dances around it. As we get to know more people here and interact with them, I think this type of response is cultural. Maybe being subjugated by the Soviets forced these people to subconsciously dance around the truth.

And so we wait…….

While at an Irish pub, we met a very nice Canadian woman from Saskatchewan who is a dancer in a Ukrainian Dancing Troup. She told us about a Ukrainian professional company that is giving a performance about Cinderella. So we are going to the beautiful Kiev Opera House tomorrow to see this. It should be very entertaining.

Meanwhile we wait…………………