Documents, Documents, Documents

Friday, December 19th

St. Nickolas Day

Jacob and I didn’t get out of bed as early as we should have. It was almost 9:00am and Ira had already left. We finally got ourselves together at about 11:00am and headed out. We needed to get money exchanged and go to the market. I have also been thinking about the boy’s clothes. If we are going to have more than a few days with Alexander before we go home, I believe we will need a few more things. So we also are going to the toy store where they have clothing. I am sure if we went to the flea market we could find something cheaper but it is just easier for us at the toy store. We go to the bank nearest our apartment and they shake their head that they are not exchanging money. We are not sure why. We go to another bank and get another no. We are perplexed at what is happening. We notice that the Hryvnia has gone down from over 8.00 to 7.00 to $1 US dollar. We then try another larger bank and there is a mob of people in there. I told Mother that this is not safe, because of the amount of money we were exchanging. We are afraid that we will have to give up but we really need to exchange money. We are almost completely out of Hryvnia. So as we are walking to the toy store there is another bank and we go in to find they are exchanging money. There are some people in line but not near as many as the other bank. It does take us a little while but we finally get the money exchanged. We believe that the banks have run out of Hryvnia. (We found out later that last night the Hryvnia had almost reached 10.00 to $1.00. This is very serious for the Ukrainian economy. Prices have gone up drastically on many things.) We are not far from the toy store and once we get there we find two shirts, a pair of pants and some socks. Then to the market for a few things and back to the apartment. Mother has been feeling pretty bad with her cold. She has been coughing quite a bit and shouldn’t have gone out. Plus her heel is still in a lot of pain from the spur. We are wondering what Ira is having to go thru to get the rest of the documents that we need.

At about 2:30pm I get a call from her that she needs me to sign a document. She is sending the driver to pick me up. I quickly get ready and go downstairs to wait for the driver. He shows up in about 10 minutes and takes me to Ira. She is at one of the two birth certificate offices that we have to deal with because of two different regions of where Alexander has been born and lived. I still do not understand all of this. You might say we need a notarized document to make another notarized document ok. The amount of paper work that has to done is mind boggling. It seems overly complicated. Ira looks very tired and exhausted from the day. She hasn’t had anything to eat either. She informs me that of another document that is missing. It is the registration document showing that the child is born in Ukraine. This is filled out at the same time of the child’s birth. Alexander’s mother never did this. Ira said she has never had this problem with the missing registration document. More on this later. The birth certificate office that I meet up with Ira has a very nice lady to work with and she is able to get the birth certificate done about an hour later. We are in a time crunch to get back to the other birth certificate office, where Ira has already been. This “other” B.C. office has a very mean and unwilling boss lady, who has called Ira many names and accused her of terrible things. We finally receive the “first” B.C. and run to the taxi. He drives like he is in Atlanta to the “other” B.C. office. Once we get there Ira and the unwilling boss lady start having many words. Ira has been told that they only work on Tuesday for birth certificates. Ira also knows that they are getting ready to covert the paper files on the computer and will be closed starting Monday through the middle of January. The unwilling boss lady does not know that Ira knows this. Ira knows that we have to have this B.C. today or it will take several more weeks to finish all of the paper work. Then this boss lady calls her director, who is already done working for the day, and has Ira talk to her. This director says what do you want, you need to make an appointment, and Ira tells her that she didn’t call her but that the “boss lady” did. The director says what do you want, so Ira tells her what we need. The director then talks to the “boss lady” and things go better after that. The “boss lady” also says it is St. Nicolas Day and Christmas time and that chocolates and etc would be appreciated. So Ira gets money from me and goes buys chocolates and things for the ladies. During this whole time I am sitting out in this large foyer without heat. These ladies are in this one room off of the foyer with heat. So after all of the drama they prepare the B.C. We are there for over an hour. The “boss lady” comes to me, with a big smile and motions for me to come into another room and there is a wedding chapel, which is very nice. It is strange for people to be so two faced. Then just a little while later Ira motions for me to come into the office. I am not sure what I am doing but then they motion for me to sign in the ledger book, they give the B.C. to Ira and off we go. It is of course getting late. Ira ask if we could go get something to eat and suggest the Café Angelina. Our driver, who had picked up his son while we were at the last B.C. office has to pick up his wife first then takes us to the Café, his family is going home. We have a nice supper, talk a lot. Ira calls different taxi for us to go back to the apartment. It has been a very long day for us- mostly for Ira.