Optimistic?

(Note: Chris, there's a response to your comment down at the bottom of this post!)

Okay, I'm trying to stay optimistic here. After asking around a bit, I'm finding that it's not very common at all for the Ministry of Education to ask for an updated FBI clearance (especially since it's not set to expire for another 6 months). No one has any idea what this means. I called the FBI today - they received our fingerprints but said it will be 3 and a half to 4 weeks until we get the report back. Then we have to notarize it, drive it to Springfield for apostilling, and get it to our adoption agency. Then it has to make it all the way to Kazakhstan. I know that in the grand scheme of the nearly 3 year wait, this is a drop in the bucket... but it's not feeling so much like a "drop" right now. It's feeling like yet another hurdle that's adding another month or two on to the wait. I don't get this... I was feeling like we were so close, and now it feels like it's slipping further away again.



On a brighter note, we went to a really nice reception last night at our agency for one of their Kazakh staff who is in charge of development and humanitarian aid. It was nice to meet someone who is involved in the process of adoption via the development side of things. I got to try out my 2 words of Kazakh (I tried to say hello). Not terribly successful. I had a bit more luck with my limited Russian. She gave bars of Kazakh chocolate to the handful of waiting parents who attended the meeting and I was at least able to thank her appropriately in Russian! :^)



Also, thanks for all your comments about our goats! They are doing a little better today. They're pretty sore and not putting any weight on their injured legs. They're also not eating much (which is REALLY weird for a goat). But they seem calm and they like their new surroundings. Here are some pictures of them in their new "nest", close to the science center on campus:

We have several Kenyan students who have grown up raising goats, so I asked them to give our goats good Swahili names. I described the two goats' personalities to them, and they came up with Matatizo (for the white one... which means "Trouble") and Masumbuko (for the brown one... which means "Bad With People"). Pretty accurate names... Mata likes to test the limits of things and get into trouble, and Buko is really jumpy, skittish, and runs away from people.

Close up of Mata... she's so cute!!!!

The building has a door that leads out into this unused garden/paddock area where we are keeping them now... and the goats have discovered their reflections in the glass. So far, they're just fascinated with the strange goats in the windows. The computer network people (who work behind the door) have enjoyed the goats' company but found their constant stares a bit distracting, so they lowered the shade.

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Note to Chris: Yes, I have the same question (about electronic fingerprinting). Why CAN'T we do that????? I don't know... but the FBI insists on the old fashioned way. When we did the state police background check two years ago, they did electronic fingerprinting - it was awesome! Our local police department actually takes our fingerprints for us, then we mail them into the FBI office. The first two times we did this, they used this cool red ink (well, it was red on your fingers, but turned black on the paper). It was not messy and it made perfectly clear prints on the paper. This time, they had the old black, gloppy ink. The fingerprints were really messy - we even had him re-do Russell's because they were so dark and it was hard to see detail. I'm kinda worried the FBI will reject them and make us do it over again. Ugh.