Some things about Arkalyk

Privyet! That means ‘hi’ in Russian! If you look at the bottom you’ll see another word in Russian. It’s 9:38am- in Colorado. I would be awake there. Hey, I’m awake here, in Arkalyk! I have learned some Russian words and I have made some Kazakh friends. The town just like really small, but there is a ferris wheel in it. I wasn’t expecting there to be a ferris wheel about centered! I don’t think the ferris wheel works, but it could. But some of the cars are really broken up and the part that moves it is really rusty. The roads here are like slushy, muddy floods. There’s a tower right outside our bedroom window in our flat (I am writing ‘flat’ cause I want the kids to interrupt and say “What’s a flat?” while Mrs. Murray is reading!). The tower is really tall, I think it’s a TV tower but it also could be a tower for airplanes. That’s what Marshon told us, except there is no airport here that works, so we are confused.

The cars are so small, most of them, they’re like a big monster came and smashed them into bits and they had to rebuild them teeny-weeny-tiny. The taxi ride back from Habiba’s house was like extreme driving. We went in these holes and went “boom, ooohhhh, boom, ohhhh, boom, ohhhh…”. And we went in this hole where we went “OOOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHHHHHH” and the last few minutes I thought I felt the ground scraping on the bottom of the car.

The orphanage was a pretty interesting place, with all of the kids running around. It was also quite an interesting thing looking around the orphanage for my brother. Just saying ‘hmmmm…. I don’t think this is my brother….’, and ‘hmmmmm…. That one might be…’. The first day I felt a little nervous going to the orphanage because I didn’t know quite what it was going to be like. It was pretty good once I got there, cause it just was better than I thought. Because I was just like more OK with it once I got in the room because it was a big room, instead of a small room with 10 kids running around. I liked it how it was mostly. The kids were cute and fun but this boy who we thought we were going to adopt was so focused on this balloon that we couldn’t get his attention, so we had to take the balloon out. He went right out after it and one of the caregivers got it for him, not knowing we didn’t want him to have it. But we also played in the snow with all of the kids, and it was fun. And we also found my brother, at least he might be my brother if another Kazakh family doesn’t adopt him. It’s 90% yes and 10% no on the scale. But I am hoping he is going to be my brother.

The Naurez festival, that’s their biggest festival, the Spring and New Year’s festival, even though it’s not at New Year’s on our calendar but is at the first day of spring. But it is their New Year’s on their calendar, just not on ours. There was lots of dancing, there were Yurts, we saw people with fancy costumes, we saw a tug-of-war, we saw running, we saw Kazakh singing and Kazakh national dancing. We had lunch after that and they served the Kazakh National dish, which is horsemeat sausage with noodles, and daddy decided to try it. Only one bite though, he didn’t like it. But I am not grossed out by the fact that he tried it, and the fact that it’s horsemeat. But my mommy is. And my daddy is too. At lunch this little girl that was 6 years old also, danced for us and she put on two different costumes and she danced. And on the festival stage that was inflated, there was this girl who was 7 or 8 or something, singing. And there were a LOT of people there. The whole town was there. Well, actually, it’s not the whole town, it’s the whole region.

(Jaden trying to dig to Colorado- "Hello friends!")

I am going to go to bed now. Paka! (Paka that means bye! in Russian) I did learn a few words in Russian, didn’t I!