Today we meet Takhmina

After a quick breakfast and run to find a bank open to exchange money (most banks don't open till 10am), we were off to the Department of Education. There we waited our turn to speak to the officials as international adopters come here for only two hours on Tuesday mornings. We had to describe our home and family life, showed a photo album of ourselves, and then when satisfied with our responses, were shown a picture of a little girl named Takhmina. Once some paperwork was signed we were released to go visit orphanage number 5.

Finding this orphanage turned out to be quite a challenge. The normal location was being renovated, and the temporary one was hidden in a maze of small side streets that Anya and Vitali had never been to before. Asking people in the area proved to be unhelpful as well until one old babushka pointed us in the correct direction.

The head doctor was not available as she was at some conference, and nobody would allow us to see Takhmina until she returned. Finally she did and after some preliminary discussions regarding health and background we went up and they brought in Takhmina. She was wary a bit which is normal, but showed very stubborn tendencies. When someone tried to pull a toy away from her she would not let go and made it quite known she did not like that. We got a chance to spend time with her, but all too quickly the caretaker came to take her back, stating that that was all for the first day.

Tomorrow we'll post pictures. Technically we were not supposed to take pictures today and the one's I snuck in on the BlackBerry were not very good.