At the mosque...

Islam is on the rise in Kazkahstan- here we are in front of the largest mosque in all of Kazakhstan...it was built in 2001 in honor of some Kazakh muslem leader. We got a tour of the entire mosque, but I had to wear this nifty robe over my head and body. Do you think it makes me look virginal? Yeah, I didn't think so either! It is really a beautiful building. Over 1500 men and 1200 women could pray in it at one time. Its huge!

Random photo of Pavel naked (almost!)

Day in the country

On Sunday, Sergei and Tatiana drove us north from Pavlodar about an hour to see the countryside. We took the road to Siberia, which is only a 2-hour drive from Pavlodar (we cannot go into russia though because we don't have the proper visas). We went out on the Irtysh River to see all the ice fishing! A first for both of us. You may think this is a very macho sport, but notice the 8 inch long fishing rods! They only catch these fish that are about 3 inches long- so they have to catch dozens to make a meal- which requires them, of course, to be out all day. Guys!

In Pavlodar

This is a random assortment of photos from our life in Pavlodar. Here is a picture of Jenny in a Russian major's dress uniform (can't tell you- top secret), the green door that leads to our apartment (we are on the 4th floor), and a picture of the baby house, where Pavel currently lives. Also, the President of Kazkahstan enjoys seeing his picture every where! President Nzarbayev has been in power since before the break up of the Soviet Union in 1992, and will be in power at least until 2012. And finally a picture of Grove on a Kazakh horse....nice ride!

Our paintings

These are the two paintings we are mailing home. The bottom one is the one Anuar gave us, called "Silence"- it is a depiction of the Irtysh River that runs through the middle of Pavlodar- flowing from the mountains of China, through Russia into the Orb River and then dumping out into the Artic Sea. It is a beautiful river- very wide. The top one is the one we bought- it is called "Batyr" and means "the warrior"- can you see him in the picture?

Our "team" here in Pavlodar

Pavlodar literally means "gift to Pavel." This city was gifted by the Czar Alexander to his son, Pavel in the late 1800s. We are working with wonderful people here. They take extremely good care of us. Our attorney is Svetlana (she is the blond). We would always want Svetlana on our side- she is really good! We have a driver, Sergie, and 2 translators: Elina and Tatiana. Tatiana goes to the baby house with us every day and to the store, internet cafe, etc. She is a real sweetheart- we both love her. Elina is our official translator for court and all our legal documents. She is great too.

And more pictures of the babe...

The visits with Pavel continue to go great. We look forward to them every day. We visit with him from 9am-10am, when he has to go down for his nap. He is teething and chews on everything. A few days ago, I got to feed him after our visit. You should see the way they feed the babies here- there is no messing around. Pavel sat in a little chair at a little table and ate and drank in under 4 minutes flat. They feed them with huge tablespoons and he drank out of a china coffee cup (with my help). Grove thinks the “orphan way of feeding” is great! No monkey business- and no mess! The orphanage is really pretty wonderful. It is extremely clean, very well organized and the care takers that we have been around are really good to these kids. This “baby house” has 80-100 kids in it from newborns to 4 year olds. Once they get past 4, they go to a regular orphanage. We have only seen 4-5 other babies that are in Pavel’s group. The rest of the kids are in another part of the building so we haven’t seen where they stay. The only bummer is that we have to keep doing this every day for the next 3 weeks. We really want to bust him out NOW and bring him to our apartment, but then we would probably be arrested.