Day 10 - The Easy Button

God must have pushed the EASY button for us today. Everything went so smoothly. Traffic parted. The weather was great. Nina Deanna was perfect again. Oh, and we learned that we get to come home from this first trip early! Instead of December 5, we are heading home November 27 which is the end of the bonding period. Our regional coordinator Natalia is trying to expedite our application so we can get the court date as soon as possible. We are praying for a mid-December court date so we can be home from our second trip before Christmas. The end goal of course is to bring Nina home on the third trip in mid-January.

On with the day. I promised an updated picture of our driver Adil and here is the way we most often see him.

He may be reminding you of the neighbor from Home Improvement by now.

Maybe things aren’t so good. It is our last protein bar which has served as our breakfast staple.

In the category of knowing-your-Kazakh-culture, we learned that it is the responsibility of the youngest son to take care of the parents, and he must live with them their entire lives. The older siblings have the opportunity to move out. I don’t think Jomama wants me moving back in though. We should leave the responsibility thing with the firstborn which is a fine US tradition.

In other Kazakh culture news, the parents have the right to claim their son’s firstborn child (their grandchild) as their own son or daughter. Can you imagine the resentment the daughter-in-law must feel giving up her child to her husband’s parents? However, the father has the right to break tradition, and this is exactly what Adil did with his baby girl. He told his parents that he and his wife are keeping their daughter and his parents where ok with it.

Scattered through the city and countryside are monuments to Kazakhstan’s great warriors. We pass this guy daily. He must have drawn the short straw or been off grabbing goats when they were handing out memorial plots. He is 78 km from the city with very little traffic coming his way. Poor lonely dude.

We received independent verification today from USA Today (courtesy of our friend Rob Nabb who tracks such things - picture at top) that goat grabbing is indeed all the rage in Central Asian countries. In the Afghan version, they use a (headless) calf instead of a lamb. But it is the same general idea in Kazakhstan.

Moving on to the reason we are here, we arrive ½ hour early at the baby house as today’s good fortune allowed. We go through the normal routine and decide it is time for some exercise. She could move very little during our earlier visits, but today she is raising and holding up her head much better. She also figures out that her legs can go straight up in the air. She likes learning about these new bodily functions. She is getting stronger and happier each day.


We see some serious movement while listening to Mississippi Queen. Instead of laughing at Toucan like yesterday, today is all about imitating his behavior. This is our first attempt at posting video. Check it out. (Mom, before you panic, you must hit the little arrow on the lower left of the picture for the movie to play - good luck!)

Nina can handle about one hour with us before she is tired and ready for a nap. Daddy has the great idea that she needs to have her new outfit on before the nap. It is a good idea but poor execution. Apparently, he is not very good at putting baby shirts over baby heads. Nina starts waling so much that Nurse Goldtooth comes in to ensure everything is ok. Nina finally calms down with Mommy and Goldtooth tending to her, but gives Daddy the evil eye for about 10 minutes.

Note: no one has actually captured Nurse Goldtooth’s defining feature on film. Fleeting like Sasquatch and more elusive than Nessy, her smile vanishes when cameras are present. But this writer has seen it and is committed to securing the footage before leaving the country

Mommy calms her down; coordinating outfits help. Nina keeps an eye on bad Daddy.

Nina soon gets over it.

Other observations:

Back at the apartment, Monte observes that our shower resembles Austin Powers’ cryogenic chamber prior to the infamous “evacuation phase” at the urinal.

I observe that some (not many) of the things in Kazakhstan are better than in the US. Here is the prime and possibly only example – a miniaturized version of my favorite candy bar. Lots of them in a big inexpensive box.

They are so small they have no calories (or so it seems).

While you ponder these things, we are heading out to dinner. One more video before we go.