Day 20 - A horse is a horse of course a horse

Today was emotional for everyone involved! We started by going to A's classroom. Chris reached out his arms for A to come to him, instead another little girl latched onto his leg. This started about 5 other kids coming to hug on Chris. These children are so hungry for love and attention. Our translator told us that many of them are in more of a foster situation, but it is clear that they do not have parents or any loved ones coming to visit. It is a shame that this program is becoming more difficult to complete, there are still so many children who deserve a loving home.

Our little girl was going to run to her Papa but once the other girl did, she was fine with coming to me instead. I was worried that she might get jealous of the other children hugging on him but she was fine with it. She started out in a great mood, but quickly got hungry and subsequently tired. She fell asleep again while I was trying to to comfort her. I feel like we are being the bad guys. We are the ones who are holding her back from getting lunch. Today she mainly looked at our translator longingly while crying. I am sure to her it seems like it is our fault that she cannot go with her to get her lunch. I am convinced that her lunch should be at 10:50 because this is when she starts getting fussy everyday. Apparently breakfast is at 6:00 and they do not eat lunch until 11:20. This is the longest period of the day without food, and this when they decided it was a good time for us to see her. I am happy to be able to comfort her, but I am eager to be able to meet all her needs, especially hunger.

We finally did some touristy things today. We went to a Kazakh restaurant and had horse meat, which tastes a lot like venison to me. There was very traditional Kazakh dishes like Besh Barmark (soup with mutton and kazy cooked in a broth with onions and noodles), kazy (a dried and heavily seasoned horse meat), and some rolls that were like the world's best doughnut but without glaze. The kazy was really good, but a little weird at the same time because there was 3 different cuts to try. The first one was pretty lean and it was the best, and the second one was almost exactly even strips of meat and fat. The third, however, is horse stomach. The flavor of this was pretty good, but the texture was exactly like you would think a stomach would be! Too much for us, but we were adventurous enough to try it.

We also were able to see the town square and the mosque. Tomorrow we will go to the Orthodox Church and some other sights. It is still very cold but not as dangerous, so we are trying to get this all in before we leave next Thursday. Oh yeah, we leave next Thursday. We will be able to see her that morning and fly out that afternoon. I am trying to focus on preparing our home for her. This is the only thing that makes it remotely okay in my mind that we are leaving.