Chow

Another day, another chance to play. We are enjoying the beautiful spring weather. We are able to take Mariah outside each day. We are enjoying our time with her. We try and bring her a snack each day. She loves her snacks! It has been delightful to take a daily walk around the orphanage and see what new flowers are blooming. We have met many very nice people while we have been here. The caretakers have been very helpful. We have also met adopting families from Israel, Italy and the U.S.
We have learned one word in Italian. Chow means both hello and goodbye as far as we can tell. We use it often with the Italian family we have met here. It has been a great experience for us to meet people from so many different countries. We are also learning a few Russian words. Spa see ba means thank you. That is a great word to know in any culture. We try and use it often. If you only know one word, it is a pretty good word to know! We have also had a few funny experiences due to our lack of communication. The day we went to court the boys really needed to find a bathroom. We found a lady in the court house that didn't look too busy. We tried every word we could think of to ask where the bathroom was. Water closet? Toilet? Bathroom? No luck. I thought the potty dance was a universal symbol but apparently not. Oh well. We will have to look that up in our Russian dictionary. We eventually did find an outdoor potty that was truly European. Fine for the boys. Not so fine for Mom. We did find a restaurant that had all the latest plumbing. Thank goodness.