Our weekend and plans for upcoming week

We were by ourselves this weekend. We walked all around the city again and are starting to get a flavour for it. We saw brides and grooms getting their pictures done in the park on a beautiful Saturday afternoon. What was amusing was observing the wedding parties and friends strolling about while openly consuming alcohol. We also witnessed some pretty typical scenes: babushkhas walking with canes and older men playing chess in the park...exactly like you would imagine a small russian town to be. What is wonderful is the mix of both the Kaz and Russian cultures. Just when you think...so russian, you hear the mosque's call to prayer. Irina was very interested in bilinguilism in Canada since it's pretty much the same in Kaz...bureaucrates work in both languages, Russian and Kazak. Funny how things are so similar! I keep going from French to English and she says that it works the same here.

Irina informed us that we will be returning to the baby house on Monday to visit with a child that we had thought we might not be able to adopt for reasons unrelated to health. It now appears that this child may indeed be available. We'll visit the baby house and try to get more information but at least it's a lead. She also advised us that our coordinator would be meeting up with us by mid-week to discuss all of our options and see where to go from here. (we hope that this week proves to be more successful!).