LET’S GO, KIDS. TODAY IS JUDGEMENT DAY.

Wednesday, July 11, 2007

I get up early each day and take an hour–long walk. Last night at bedtime, Andry asked to go with me on my next morning walk. Olya said she wanted to go also.

I didn’t believe them, but the children were up after the third call at 7am.

We walked through the row of embassy houses eating ripe cherries from the overhanging cherry trees, past the Motherland plaza, past the SSSR (USSR nostalgic) restaurant, past the Percherskaya Lavra complex; stopped and had coffee and strawberries, then circled back to our apartment.

On the walk Andry chatted with me in his mixture of Spanish and Ukrainian–flavored English. His sense of humor is coming through more every day. He said to me, “ Today, when judge sez yes or no, he sazs yes, he sazs––get outta hee.”

When Ron and the kids got back Yelana and Vasilly, our translator and driver, called to say there was a change of plan; not what you want to hear as you are getting dressed to go to court. Instead of Vlad, our main facilitator, we were going with Yelana. Vlad was supposed to go with us to court, but at the last minute was ill and couldn’t make it.

To make the situation worse the kids, who were also anxious, were expressing it by hiding each other’s going-to-court clothes. It was almost impossible to get the kids ready. For the first time in many days we had to use a serious tone. But Yelana showed up on time; we got the kids out of the apartment (Andry actually ironed his pants before we left).

The drive to Bucha is about forty minutes from our apartment; Vasilly made it in 25. It was the first time we have actually been speeding on the sidewalk. He had no other choice because the traffic was dead-locked in every direction.

We stopped at an administrative building in Bucha to see the “Inspector”. Yelana went in, stayed about twenty minutes. The “Inspector” came over to the car, spoke to Vasilly and walked away, apparently on the way to the court house. Yelana finally came out and we pulled away to go to the courthouse ourselves. After stops, Yelana getting out and asking directions, we pull up in front of the courthouse at about fifteen minutes to two.

We were early. A group of courthouse workers was still having their lunch outside.

Shortly after two we were sent for and we went inside like a line of ducks.

The courtroom, which felt a bit like a storeroom, needed to be twice as big to realistically hold its furniture. We rose from our seats when the judge and his entourage came in and sat down. The prosecutor, a young man in his thirties, short-sleeve shirt and tie, sat on our right, a microphone on his desktop.

The judge, also in his shirtsleeves, but tie–less, sat, one woman on his left and two other women on his right. We were told later that two of the women were jury members. The other women, the court reporter, was wearing a see-through black lace shirt and black bra, what women in the States would wear out to a night club not on-the-job. The judge appeared to be in his mid-forties.

The process started with a long spate of Ukrainian legalese from the judge, Yelana translating as he spoke. Yelana did a terrific job. Then we went through a number of “Ron, stand up and answer questions from the judge––then sit down”, Pippa was asked to do the same. All of the questions seemed to be standard procedure. The prosecutor, however, asked Ron a very pointed question: if he thought his health would hold up to the stress of raising Andry. Good question. He avoided a direct answer by replying that he still played football (soccer) every Sunday with twenty-year-old students.

Then the judge asked Andry to stand. We thought the judge would simply ask him if he wanted to be adopted by our family and Andry would say “yes” and everything would be finished. The judged asked Andry the question as we had expected and then went on to ask him a couple of tricky questions we didn’t expect. Andry’s answers would make or break the adoption. Andry was very poised and answered perfectly. Later he admitted his hands had “lots of water” on them.

The end of court was a fog. The judge casually said something and walked out with the women. We were told to leave the room and come back in half an hour. We assumed that was when we would get the final ruling from the judge and jury. Yelana scurried off to talk with the Inspector about another paper she thought we might need. Ron, Pippa and the kids went outside where our driver, Vasilly, was waiting for us. He had not been allowed into the courtroom and was anxiously waiting for the result. We gave him our best I-don’t-know shrug, which is understood in any language. He looked worried.

Eventually, Yelana came out. She said the judge had approved our adoption when we were still in the courtroom! She thought we had understood this. The judge had just invited us back in half an hour to proof read the official adoption decree. And we didn’t need any more paperwork.

Phew.

Andry is ALMOST ours and we are ALMOST his forever. (Before a Ukrainian adoption is absolutely official there is a mandatory 10 day wait. We have never heard of anything happening during the waiting period to disrupt an adoption but we are a little anxious anyway.)

We took pictures in front of the courthouse and then went to celebrate with another delicious Ukrainian meal. We were starving. We had missed lunch but I doubt any of us would have been able to eat anyway.




Andry chatted and giggled and teased and jabbered all the way to the restaurant, at the restaurant, back to our apartment and at our apartment. For a long, long time he ran around the living-room sliding in his socks. Then he developed a plan. He wanted to paint his face with my make-up so he could scare Olya. It didn’t work but he had fun trying.