Signed the papers...

I signed the papers yesterday to accept my referral. I will be posting pictures only after court. She is a little camera shy anyway and I haven't gotten many good ones. But here is a sneak peak.

We have been meeting in the nurses office. It is hot and there is boiling water at all times on the hotplate behind her. The orphanage is undergoing renovations so they don't have a lot of space for me to go to.

The bad news is that she hates me! - no, but I definitely am not someone she knows and I'm trying to take that has a good sign. She cries everytime they hand her to me and then holds onto me and cries into my shoulder as if she will die if she looks at me.

She definitely knows Russian better than English and everytime I talk to her in English she gets this little sniffle. So, I am pulling out all of the stops trying to learn simple words in Russian. I didn't feel like I had to do this with the other ones, but she definitely responds to my attempts.

Today she only cried for about 20 minutes and then spent the next hour playing with me so it was better. Of course, I had asked if I could take her outside and walk around and when they came to take her at 11:30 I thought that was it. But they got her dressed for outside and brought her to me...of course, she hated me again!! How dare they make her spend time with this stranger. We found a little plastic see saw and she liked the rocking motion so we were friends again.

I can imagine that it will be a loooooonnnnnnngggggg plane ride home when I finally take her home.

Gotta go, this is the only computer with internet access in the business center so don't want to hog it. the good news it is $8 dollars an hour - compared to the $20 an hour in Moscow. Oh well, the $20 was worth it to have access on my laptop in my room.

One more day to visit tomorrow and then back to Moscow at night. Home on Saturday. Hopefully I will be able to have a better flight.