Abigail is bright and smart and very organized like Dori. She also is very into computers like Tony. We can't post any photos here on a public space, but trust us when we tell you she is super adorable (not that we are biased or anything). Below I am including some of the journaling I did throughout the week while we were there:
Monday - She had been waiting in the next room over for at least half an hour while we were talking with the director and psychologist. I gave up on my questions and said, "can we meet her now?" So nervous. In she came, smiling just as nicely and sweetly as she was in the photos and videos we had received. We all were a little bit formal, as we are when we meet new people with so much on the line. I can only describe it in terms of how one might feel on a first date when you really hope the other person likes you and aren't sure how it will turn out, but on a deeper level of parent to child. Gladly, our translator, the director, and the psychologist all helped get the conversation started and eventually we settled back into awkwardness of translated conversation, where either one or the other side is waiting to find out what the other one just said. Abigail has had some progress in her English language learning. In English, she can count to twenty, knows her colors, can do basic welcome greetings (hello, goodbye, thank you), and she may understand more. She did know "table" and "beautiful". We found out that she has not learned the English words for days of the week yet.
I don't think seatbelts are popular with Abigail because each time we got in or out of the car, I said "seatbelt" and showed her to put it on. Overall, Abigail was very respectful, sweet, kind and thoughtful (holding doors open for adults, etc.) however, the psychologist said she does have an independent spirit, which we may not see much of yet in this introductory phase. I could tell this though from the slight reluctance to comply with seatbelt rules. But only one small issue for the whole day.
We had a fun afternoon doing beading, and making the foam sticker crosses. We gave Abigail a gift photobook of ourselves, our home and Texas photos, and reviewed that with her too. We didn't talk so much in the afternoon as just spend time together. Finally it was time to go, and the director said after we left Abigail could give the butterscotch candies and gum that we had brought for the kids to them. Abigail walked us all the way to the car, hugged us and seemed excited for us to come tomorrow,
Tuesday - We got to see the room where Abigail sleeps, the living room area where she spends time with her "family" group, and the kitchen area where they eat and learn to cook. She lives in a two story building that used to be a standard orphanage with dormitory (rows of twin beds) setting. They remodeled into the family type format where a group of 10 kids live in a more family type area with smaller number of kids in a room, and the living room, and kitchen to spend time in what feels more like a family type environment. It is a good beginning, but not a foster home type environment like we expected. Rather imagine a college dorm hallway where some rooms are bedrooms, one is set up as a living room, and one set up as a kitchen. That was more the feel.
We went to tour the Tarjishki Monastery. Abigail was very interested in learning about history. She is so inquisitive and bright. Our translator said that she and the psychologist were talking about how well-balanced she is in that she is not over-excited easily or spoiled. I am not sure why but our translator said often the orphans are spoiled and expect gifts in their behavior. Perhaps from a lot of donations? Not sure. But anyway, our translator said Abigail's focus on tasks was VERY unusual for the orphans she has seen over the years in her job working as an adoption translator.
We pulled out the computer and let Abigail type some stuff. It was interesting to see her try to type words on an English language keyboard. She said computers is her favorite class in school. At her age they are not allowed on the internet so the things she is learning is matters such as creating documents in a word processing system and the like.
Wednesday - There is one way in which Abigail is similar to Tony rather than me. Abigail is not a picky eater. We asked her if there were any foods she didn't like to eat, and she couldn't think of any. Admittedly orphanage life may have given her a limited food experience, but we do not think she has been underfed. She and the other kids we have seen at a glance in the orphanage seem healthy and well fed (though not overfed). Abigail regulates her eating well. She has ordered Coca-Cola every day for lunch, but only drinks maybe 6 to 8 ounces of it. Only today did she drink all 12 ounces. She had a huge plate of spaghetti today and she stopped when she was full, and didn't order dessert. Even though she had been eager for dessert the other two days. I was incredibly impressed with her stopping eating when she was full. Our translator said that Bulgaria has a much stronger culture than what she has seen in some parts of America for eating fruits and vegetables (we found two fruit and vegetable markets while we were out this evening, but couldn't find a place to buy milk). Kids don't know to be picky. Abigail said that she was willing to try any foods. Admittedly she may develop food preferences over time, but I was so glad to discover right now she doesn't seem to have food issues that can sometimes be seen by kids coming out of orphanage life. I do believe she has been a favorite at the orphanage and gotten very good treatment.
I do believe our little girl has some exposure to the Disney channel. :) Her favorite star is Demi Lovato. She is a super, super fan of Demi Lovato. So of course I shall now have to research her music and figure out what is worth listening to and what Abigail will need to be taught are not appropriate subjects or themes. I am hoping Demi Lovato is still young enough to have decent themes and songs.
Thursday - We had a great visit with Abigail today. She loves showing her english skills on our laptop. She can type phonetically many words. We were sad to leave for the last time today. She said she will be waiting for us and believes that we will be back, so she was not sad. We have hired an English tutor. The lady works at the orphanage for a miniscule wage and the small amount we paid will greatly help her. She did not want the money, but we gave it to the director to give to her. We will email Abigail and call her as often as it will work with our schedules. She is so excited about her new name. She plans on using it tomorrow when she returns to school. We also gave her a Bible, she was very excited, her English teacher will help her as she learns to read in English. She appears to pick up English quite quickly.
Friday - We found the Bulgarian Archaeological Museum. It was 10 leva apiece, and well worth the money for the antiquities that one gets to see there. It had the added advantage of being warm. There were a bunch of guards there because a lot of the antiquities are out in the open (grave stone markers, columns, statutes, etc.) and not behind glass. There were signs saying stay back 70 cm or an alarm would sound. Next time I come I really need to know my cm to inches conversions better because it is really hard to know how far to stand back without that conversion. But we just figured to not get too close would be okay. In one room on the second floor, Tony accidentally got his camera bag a little too close when he leaned in to look at a description of a piece and the alarm sounded. Made me jump, but fortunately, the guards just walked into the room to make sure we weren't trying for a museum heist, and when they realized that all was well, went back to their post. Crisis averted. They wanted to make sure we saw the whole museum too, there were three floors, and I am worn out with walking this week, so I told Tony we could skip the third floor if he agreed. We started to head back down to the first floor when one of the docents motioned something to the effect of "no, no" and pointed up. Apparently there was a specific pattern expected to be followed. So ... we saw the WHOLE museum. Of course if we spoke in Bulgarian we probably could have said we wanted to go back down, not up, but I didn't want to cause a stir with that many guards around, so we saw the third floor items too. Which were very nice, several gold and silver pieces.
After the Museum, we went down to an area we were told about underneath one of the main roads by the Presidential Palace, where there were different shops for tourist items. We bought three items in the shops there and then determined if we were going to have the foot energy to get back to the apartment, we had better start heading back.
We eventually decided to go back to the apartment because a different driver from our agency (the same one that picked us up from the airport) was coming at 2:15 to take us to the Notary office to sign papers. So at the notary we signed the official papers that will go to the Bulgarian Ministry of Justice and the U.S. government accepting our adoption of Abigail.
Thanks for following our journey, and I hope by sometime in July we will be doing this again for the second trip to pick-up Abigail.
