Apples are from Kazakhstan

I see that there are quite a few people reading this blog recently and perhaps waiting for updates. So, welcome and here goes. :)

The Dossier is now at the Kaz consulate here in Ottawa and we await the return of the person who handles them, hopefully this week (Its Sunday today). Liana will call on Wednesday and check. Since they are no dossiers submitted yet, ours should still be the first one, so hopefully should not take too long. (Fingers crossed)

While we wait, I am trying to find out more about the land that's so hard to get information about. Everyone seems to only say one word when they hear 'Kazakhstan', its that ridiculous character in a film that had nothing to do with it, which upsets me a bit since its rude and ignorant. So, I want to try and inform people while I learn more about this land as well.

Highly recommend 2 things. The first is a documentary series called 'Long Way Round' chronicling the journey of the famous actor Ewan Mcgregor (who btw is a father of 4 children, 2 of whom are adopted-1 from Mongolia) and his friend Charley, going around the world on a motorcycle. Its an amazing watch and very interesting since episode 4 is their journey through Kazakhstan (including a bit about Aktobe!) Its on youtube - a continuous 45 min episode each. The whole series is pretty awesome!

The other is a book I discovered out of all the other reading material I was able to find. Its called 'Apples are from Kazakhstan'. I love it! The author spent about a year living there, meeting people, researching its past and getting an understanding of who they are, how they think and why they think how they think. I think its a pretty awesome read (Im half thru and quite glad to have discovered it) and helps gain a lot of insight into this country which was closed to outsiders under the Russian rule.
Happy Reading! :) Its wonderfully encouraging & motivating hearing from all of you, so feel free to write to me personally or comment on the posts here.

Dossier ready and being sent to Kaz Consulate

So! Liana has recieved the marriage certificate copies authenticated by Foreign Affairs Canada and the dossier is now ready and complete. She will be sending it by courier to the Kaz consulate in Ottawa and call them next week to check when the Counsellor is coming back from his business trip and if she can arrange to come down personally to Ottawa and pick it up. Once that's done the Dossier goes to Kaz.

In other news, its very interesting to see that over 450 people have read this blog thus far! From countries like US, Canada, UK, Russia, Spain, UAE, Australia, India, Germany, Belgium, Ireland, Azerbaijan and more. If any of you are PAPs (Prospective Adoptive Parents), hope this can help you in some way. Being a blog under the new rules and guidelines after Kaz has re-opened, we hope this can save time and avoid any mistakes that we make along the way with paperwork and other processes, so that your children can come home and be with you sooner than expected. :)

Love hearing from you, feel free to leave comments and suggestions that may help us too, pls. 

Thank God for Dee! Marriage Cert authenticated by Foreign Affairs Canada!

After a few days of panic and contingency planning we are out of these woods!

Even poor Dad had to get involved and he spent half a day running around in Delhi at the FA ministry of India trying to see if they could attest our MC in Delhi, India. Finally I told him to wait for a day and to let us try and see if FA Canada will see how ridiculous this is and that they can and should accept our Canadian Notarised Indian Marriage Certificate.

Deepak took all his properly filed documents used for our immigration all those years back, citizenship and all other processes we have gone through over the years and never had a problem with our MC. He showed them to the lady at FA, Ottawa, convinced her that we couldn't possibly have gone through all that without it being a valid one and that we have no other choice but to give them a notarised copy at best. Thankfully, after seeing the original and all the documents Dee had from the processes before, she agreed and authenticated it right then and there! Whew!

Its going to cost us 3 weeks, since the Kaz consul has gone away on business now, and due to this delay Liana missed the meeting she was planning on this week with him. Now he is supposed to be back 1st week of November so she can only meet him then to get our file legalised at the Kaz consulate. That's the next hurdle before the dossier is sent to Kaz. So, for now, Liana has all the docs, everything is GTG for the Kaz consulate and now we just wait till he gets back.

No Can Do, says Indian Embassy.

Great! So, Dee went to the Indian embassy here in Ottawa and they have said very clearly that they do not sign and stamp copies of marriage certificates or attest them. SInce Foreign Affairs only wants that, don't know what's going to happen. Now we're waiting for Liana to send us the notarised copies of the MC so that Dee can take them to FAffairs and tell them this is the only option as the embassy says they dont do what FA wants. ANd there's no way we're going to go to India just to get our MC attested from the FA ministry there and then the embassy here will consider putting a stamp. So, when your own country of birth decides to not accept that their own documents and help their ex-citizens when all logic proves that the 1st thing we would have had proven true would be the MC for our work permits, immigration, OCI (Overseas Citizen of India), Canadian Citizenship etc...that says something about things.

Foreign Affairs Canada. Hiccup.

Ok, so the documents have all been translated and were sent to Foreign Affairs last week. Heard back today from Liana saying everything save for 1 did not get authenticated. What I was fearing-Our Marriage Certificate from India. This will cost us dearly in terms of time, because the Kaz consul is going away on business and wont be back till mid-November. :( SO if we miss the appointment this week we lose about a month. No fixing that now. So, if you're married anywhere except in Ontario PLS, CALL FOREIGN AFFAIRS FIRST AND CHECK WHAT YOU NEED TO DO ABOUT THE CERT so you can avoid this delay.
Its not too hard a fix, just some work

• we now have to go to the Indian embassy, 
• find a way to get them to sign and stamp copies of our marriage certificate,
• take those to the Foreign Affairs office 
• get them to authenticate it
• send it again to Liana in Toronto.

The sad part is that the process is delayed because the Kaz consul is going out of town till November, so Liana cant get the documents signed off at the Kazakhstan Consulate till he is back.

Ah well, it is what it is. We've got to believe there is a reason for this delay. Im always reminded of that movie 'The Adjustment Bureau' when there are delays in life. You miss a train, you dont reach where you were supposed to, etc...its all part of the big plan. Adjustments made to our life so that we can meet who we have to, be where we actually need to at the time we need to.

So, while we're disappointed with this delay that will cost us about a month now,there must be a reason for it, its just that we dont see it right now. And all this will be a distant memory once this whole process is complete and we meet our child. :)

Documents sent for Dossier to our agency co-ordinator, the lovely Liana..

Yesterday was a rush rush day with us scrambling to get photocopies, colored ones esp for our pics scanned together on an A4, marriage certs, colored passport copies, getting 3x4cm pics clicked for more forms (for the Kaz consulate registeration) and getting the money order (in USD!). You can get them from the Post Office by the way, which was good to know. All done, we scrambled to reach Purolator before their 7:30pm closing time and made it in the nick of time! Whew!
So, Liana should have everything today, in Toronto.

Most of the translations are complete and the rest will be done by tomorrow (into Russian and Kazakh) so by late Thursday or Friday she should be able to start the next steps. These are:

• Liana needs to have them witnessed and signed
• Have the translations attached to them
• Authentication at Foreign Affairs Canada, and then 
• The Kazakh Consulate in Ottawa. 

She is hoping to bring the dossier herself and take a train to Ottawa to see the person incharge of Adoptions, at the Kaz Consulate by Friday next week as long as Foreign Affairs can do the authentication quickly. So for now, we wait to see by when FA will return the dossier.

She also mentioned that the wait for a referral, once the dossier is sent to Kaz, might not even be the full 3 month period but shorter since there are so many children on the database up for adoption since there Kaz was closed for adoptions for the last 2 yrs almost. I feel so sad thinking about all those children who lost out on having homes and parents who gave up because of Kaz closing down. 

Letter of Sponsorship from Immigration!

Yippee!!! Just recieved the letter from immigration confirming we are GTG for sponsorship and our file looks good. Now this letter along with all other documents are being translated into Russian and Kazakh by Liana's contacts. Once that's done and a few more forms signed this week, she will bring our Dossier to the Kaz consulate here in Ottawa for approval and then the dossier is sent to Kaz!
Hoping it will be sent to Kaz by mid-Oct. Then we wait for 3 months, as per the timeline.

Everything is on track and going as per schedule. Touchwood. Let's hope it stays that way.

And we just completed 4 months from the official start of this journey. Our Home Study started on 1st June 2012.