Hannah and Cole,
Stanley was with us at the Topkapi Palace yesterday.
It was a BIG place and we only showed a few pictures yesterday. The palace is where the king (called the Sultan) of the Ottoman empire lived. It was a palace from the early 1500s (about 20 years after Columbus discovered America), until 1922 when it was turned into a museum.
There was a LOT to see, and we only saw part of it. There were jewels, swords, and clothes from that whole time period when this was a palace. They even had a suit of armor that one of the Sultans wore!
Maybe your mom remembers some of the mosaic tile buildings we saw in Iran. A lot of the decorations looked like that.
There is a lot of information about this famous palace here.
Now that court is done in Russia, we’ve escaped to Istanbul for a few days. There’s little for us to do in Russia until the Judge’s ruling becomes effective. We can’t get our child yet (because the Judge’s ruling hasn’t taken effect). Besides, the highs have been in the low double digits in Ekat this past week and we desperately need to thaw out.
Here are a few pictures of Topkapi Palace from earlier today:
Caligraphy at the gates of the inner palace
Views of the outside of the Throne Room pavilion
Inside the Throne Room pavilion
Inside the innermost court of the palace where only the Sultan could go
A beautiful fountain in the innermost court
Some of the most impressive sights were forbidden to photograph. There are several rooms with holy relics such as swords of the Caliphs, golden rainspouts from the Kabbah in Mecca, the Mantel of the Prophet Mohammed, jewelry that makes your eyes pop and so on. May of the items from Mecca were brought to Istanbul when they “wore out” and were replaced; such holy things were not discarded, rather they were placed into storage and are now on display some 400 to 1300 years later.
Someone asked me to give a little more information on our court experience and on what happens now. It’s a good suggestion, and if I don’t write it down chances are that I will forget.
The court hearing was held in a very modern building in a spartan, but comfortable room. There were 8 people in the room:
- My wife and me
- An interpreter
- The head doctor of the orphanage
- A social worker reporting on our interaction with the child and delivering a recommendation if the adoption was in the best interest of the child
- The Judge
- A Prosecutor, whose role is to listen to the proceeding and see that the law is followed
- A court recorder
All, except the recorder could speak, though the interpreter didn’t deliver testimony. All had the right to ask for questions to be repeated, and to ask questions of other participants.
Orphans in Russia have the right to be adopted, so the hearing was to determine if our petition for adoption was in the best interest of the child.
The hearing began with introduction of all participants, an introduction of the purpose, some other administrativa. We then spoke, first me and then Rachel. Our “speech” gave our motivation to adopt, the timeline of our adoption activities in Russia, a description of our trips and meeting with the child, our parental philosophy, preparation to parent, our understanding of the medical condition of the child, our understanding of the legal consequences of the adoption and our legal responsibilities, a description of our home, etc. It was prepared from a list of questions and issues provided by our agency.
My part lasted approximately 20 minutes (40 with translation), and then Rachel spoke for approximately 10 minutes. Throughout, the Judge would interject with questions as she saw fit. After Rachel was done speaking, the Prosecutor opted to question her further for a total of about 20 minutes (with translation).
After we spoke, first the Social Worker, then the Head Doctor spoke. We learned some additional history of our boy through their testimony.
By 11:00 (the hearing started at approximately 9:20), all but the judge exited the room while the Judge quickly deliberated her ruling. At 11:10 we were called back in and she delivered her ruling. It was all quite businesslike and, in some places, I rather got the impression that participants were going through the motions of a ceremony that had been repeated so many times.
We understand that the Judge could be quite harsh with her questioning. Her questions for us were quite reasonable and few, and focused mostly on confirming we understood our obligations, had been given medical information, and understood what care for our child was required, given the medical information.
The preparation for this even was quite stressful. It was the focus of our lives for 8 months. Now that it is over, we need to re-focus on doing what is needed to become a family.
at 11:10 am, on 9 December 2009, Alexander Roman Kagy entered our family. Weight: about 28 pounds. Length: Mid-thigh on Chris. Shoe size: 28.
YAHOO!!!!
We spent time prepping today again for court. We go on at 9:00am, and if all goes well, should know the result by noon.
Keep your fingers crossed!
The last five days have been an interesting progression of interaction between the three of us. We’ve come to understand a few things about Roman, some of his likes and dislikes, just how sharp he is, and how independent he’s grown in his current environment.
We discovered pretty quickly that he loves music. If we hum a tune or make a sound, he’ll do his best to mimic it or he’ll start to dance. The room in which we’ve been spending time with him has an upright piano, and he will walk over to it, pull himself up on a chair, try to open the keys. We’ll help get it open and we will “play songs” together.
He enjoys physical play,when one of us is holding him and playing airplane or sitting together and playing the piano, or something like that. He’s starting to understand how to play together, but it’s difficult and he won’t do it for long. We can take a ball and throw it between the three of us, for instance, but anything much more involved will come later. He won’t sit on a lap for a story yet, for instance.
It’s amazing how quickly a 2.5 year old will absorb things. He’s already learned at least three words of English and has parroted many others. I would pick him up, and say “up!” and lift him over my head; the say “down!” and bring him down so we were face to face. This is the kind of physical play he’s enjoyed, but it didn’t take long and he pointed up, said “up!” and so forth. The real surprise came when I was wearing a sweater with a sipper front and holding him. He took the zipper in his had and was playing with it. I said ‘up” and he zipped the sweater up; I said “down” and he unzipped it. We all were stunned (and now understand completely how closely we will have to watch what we say).
For such a youngster, he’s incredibly independent. Or maybe that’s not so odd for a slightly developmentally delayed 2.5 year old. As he grew more comfortable with us over the five days so far, he’s pushed the boundaries a little further each day. We’re finding it a challenge to enforce boundaries in his environment – we don’ t know what the boundaries are, and he appears to have no fear. Many times he won’t take no for an answer (of course), but if he starts to get too rough, he does respond well when we ask him to be gentle.
We’ve looked at pictures of each of us with him and he recognizes himself and us. He identifies us as mama and papa. I am sure he can’t really knows what the words connote, but we are they. He’s asked his caregivers if we are coming, so we’re pretty sure he’s at least enjoying the time with us.
Today there were two other prospective familes in the playroom with us for the last 30 minutes we were there. By that time he was getting pretty tired and the commotion was bothering him a bit. He was quite content to be held, as long as he could watch what was going on. He almost fell asleep as he was being held. It was _this_ close. In any case, when we returned him to his caregivers today at the end of our time, it was pretty clear he was a little upset about it. We’re enjoying that while it lasts, because we know he’s going to be just, if not more, upset when he realizes he’s being taken from that environment.
It was confirmed to us today that our court hearing will be at aproximately 9:00am on Wednesday morning. By noon we should know the outcome and our parental status.
Know how the light in the early morning or evening has that wonderful softness? How it comes in at such a low angle and gives a wonderful color to things? It’s like that all day here at this time of year.
If I hold my hands out at arm’s length, the sun doesn’t get much more than two hand-widths above the horizon in the height of the day.
It’s _cold_ but beautiful.
On our trip out here, we had a long layover in Frankfurt. It seems every flight east that doesn’t go through London goes through Frankfurt. It’s a big airport, but gets a lot of volume, so it is almost always busy and crowded.
This time, we decided to take advantage of our layover and sightsee a little. Once we landed, we checked in to ensure that our connecting flight was still on schedule, rearranged our carryon so we could check most of it in the left-luggage stand at the airport, and then jumped on a train that went up the Rhein to Mainz.
Mainz is a long-established city (thousands of years old) and the part we saw is a charming collection of platz’ surrounded by pretty buildings, connected by small streets. The city is most noted for is honored son, Gutenberg, of printing press fame. One of the churches in the city has a set of stained-glass windows designed by Marc Chagalle; they were the last windows he did before he died, and they honestly look like watercolor paintings captured in glass. The subtle variations and softness in the colors is amazing!
In the main platz near the cathedral the Christmas market (Fasnachtmarkt (I think!)) was set up and full of people out socializing. The booths selling Gleuwien and roast chestnuts were the most popular, however you could find every kind of food, sweet, or craft you wanted if you just looked enough. There were lots of tourists, yes, but there were a lot of Meentzers too.
After walking around for a couple hours, it felt good to sit and enjoyed a cup of Gleuwien, before winding our way back to the train station to catch our flight out to Ekaterinburg.
Made it this morning and had a couple good hours at the orphanage today. We’re exhausted, but off to a good start. Much playing was done by all.
Off we go. The adventure of a lifetime begins.