SDA Paperwork

We were supposed to go between 4 and 5 to pick up our SDA paperwork which will give us permission to visit Katya. We got there at 4 and the lady signing the paperwork didn’t get there until about 5:30. Apparently, one of the people was on vacation and the other one was very busy – yada, yada, yada…

While were were waiting, we walked around the streets which has many different vendors selling souvenirs. One of the vendors talked us into buying a large nesting doll. She said the piece was authentic Ukrainian instead of Russian and she took all the dolls out and lined them up in a row and explained all the detail on the dolls. For example, on the big doll the mama and papa are both together because man and woman are equal. And one of the girl dolls is wearing a cap that covers her hair because she is married versus the other girl that has her hair down with flowers and ribbon indicating that she is single. She told us a bunch of other stuff about the doll and I wish that I would have thought to write it down earlier, but I didn’t and now I don’t remember it. In any case, the doll was pretty cool, so we bought it. The lady that sold us the doll spoke perfect English. According to Elena, this is because the vendors finally figured out that they could sell more stuff if they could speak English, since it is really only tourists that will buy their stuff (as Elena put it, “Why would I want their stuff when I live here?”). The lady told us that she learned English at the University. Imagine spending the time going to a University and then ending up selling dolls on the streets. Maybe she makes more money doing that than she would otherwise…

Elena called us back to the SDA building to wait because the paper signing lady was supposed to be there shortly, which ended up being in another half an hour. We killed the time by chatting with another couple that was there from Dallas, Texas, adopting a seven year old girl. They had hosted their girl last August and had to wait on her paperwork being ready. Their attorney told us that Utah has the most Ukrainian adoptions per capita than any other US state – way to go Utah!

When we finally got to meet the paper signing lady, she was really very nice. She actually smiled and at the end wished us good luck. All of our information was recorded in a paper ledger and there was not a computer in sight. I was telling Oleg and Oksana later that in our office, we are “paperless” and everything is scanned into the computer and is very easy to find (thanks to you, Mike R.:). They found this to be a very novel idea.