Children’s Protection Day and Pleasant Surprises……

June 1, 2007 is called Children’s Protection Day in many Asian and European countries. In Kazakhstan it is a day off of work and a day for parties, music, songs and celebration by and for all the children. At the baby home the middle aged kids, 2 to 4 yrs, put on a wonderful series of skits and sang some songs. I am continually amazed that the caregivers are able to get 15 excited kids to sit in order and stay still. The room was decorated with balloons and streamers and shiny tape on the floor. Each of the older kids had something to say or did a small puzzle for the crowd to show off how smart they are. The highlight of the party was when the rooster showed up. One of the caregivers cock-a-doodled into the room to be met by excited screams and much running around. Apparently this has some symbolism surrounding the daddy chicken looking for his chicks. There were two small areas taped out on the floor. All the children would hide in one of the areas then the rooster would come around and find them. They would then all scream with excitement and run to the other area laughing raucously. This was followed by a puppet show and then it was all kids favorite time of any party – snacktime. Each child was treated to a juice box, a marshmallow cream pie and an ice cream cone. This influx of refined sugar whipped up the already excited crowd in to a frenzy. Jacob slept through the whole thing with the rest of his peeps.

After the first party we took a walk around town to investigate the other festivities. At one of the main town squares, there was a big gathering of people surrounding a decorated stage. A parade of local kids maybe 12 thru 18 were dressed up fancifully and singing songs to loud thumping music. They were not very good because we could not understand any of the words to the songs. But they seemed to be having a good time and the crowd was enjoying the show. We realized just how small this town is because during our 30 minute walk-around we saw every single person we have met here including toothless trackman. Many of the caregivers from the baby home were also in the crowd. Each time we met one of them they would ask that we take their picture with their own kids.

We also received some extremely good news today. As an example of how things can change quickly, our facilitator somehow managed to get our court date moved up to Friday the 8th. That is a week from today! If all goes well this could put us out of Arkalyk that same Friday evening and back home somewhere around the 11th or 12th . This is really big news for those of us who are getting a little homesick for friends, family and familiar food. More to come on this subject but we were so excited today that we plan to celebrate by sitting in our room, watching a movie and drinking a beer. Woohoo….

See you all soon..
Tim and Sherri