We did it!!!! We received permission from the MOE today to visit the orphanage (i.e. Aydar!!!). It was a very long day. We were told to be ready for an 11:00 appointment. At 11:15, we were told to go to lunch, and come back at 12:30. At 12:30, we were told to come back at 2:30 (we were getting nervous at this point). At 2:30, we waited…..and waited…..and waited. Oh yeah—we were waiting by the front door all of this time. We saw men in uniforms go into the building, and learned that they were “prosecutors”—in other words, auditors. So, we had to wait for them to finish, although we had no idea when that would happen.
Finally, at 6:00, John and I were told to go in. Olga (our coordinator) and Assya (our translator) were in another room on the phone. John and I were useless in our own defense! We gathered them, only to find that Olga was not on the invitation, so she could not attend the interview. Yikes! So, John, Assya and I went up to the Ministry of Education, where we were promptly told (twice) that our visas were incorrect, but that she would accept them because we had waited so long (our visas were written in Kazakh for the “Dept. of Education” instead of “Ministry of Education”—an old template that our adoption agency used when applying for our visas). We answered a few questions…what are our occupations, do we know that they have no healthy children, do we have any biological children, do we believe there will be jealousy between the children, who will stay home with the child and for how long, etc.
Finally, we were told that they would send permission to the orphanage for us to visit, and that they should have the permission by noon tomorrow. Assya is a college senior, and had missed two classes for us. She just made it to a 7:00 exam. We truly appreciate her dedication.
We had a great dinner to celebrate, and are going to call it an early night. We are very excited to see Aydar, and will take a lot of pictures. Miss you all! Give Karis big hugs and kisses for us! Goodnight.
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