Thursday 13: Smorgasbord of updates

13 interesting things that have happened or we have planned in the past week.

1. Recently it's been nice and warm!  It's probably hit 50 degrees the last two days - A very welcome change.
2. Last night we were able to visit Andrey, the vocational student who was in South Africa - He seems well and in good spirits as he is studying to become a ships engineer.
3. We are coming to the end of our first week with the after-school program - We'll add a few new kids everyday and will max-out at about 30 after a few weeks.  We're still nailing down the schedule but the kids are great and we have a good time with them.
4. We are trying to potty train Campbell at the moment and it's going....  well, poorly.  Any thoughts or hints would be appreciated.  Our main issue is not that he doesn't let us know when he needs to go, it's that he refuses to sit on the toilet at all.
5. As mentioned in the previous semi-controversial post, I will be going rabbit and pheasant hunting this weekend with my new hunting buddy Roman.
6. Jenya and I plan to go to the northeastern city of Donetsk to see Shakhtar play Tottenham in the UEFA Cup on February 18th.  It'll be about a 3 day round trip by train and an absolutely memorable one.  My first professional game and it's my Ukrainian team and a decent English side in the second-highest European club competition.
7. At the end of March we will be going to Belarus to do a Hope Center style camp at an orphanage.  It should be a exciting time for our staff and we hope they let us back in this time.
8. For April and May we have our Bulgarian friend Kremena (from Sweden) visiting as an intern!  This is will overlap with our other friend Meghan who will come here on May 2nd after she finishes school in Egypt.  How fun and international we are!
9. Sarah went to the village of Bagerava to visit some of her favorite kids from camp last year.
10. I was in Bagerava earlier in the week to bring some much needed aid to a few families.  An apartment building in town burned down leaving many families without anything.  Further efforts may include providing beds for all the buildings former residents.
11. Sergey M. is back in town today after having been the MC at a concert in Kiev featuring Coldplay and the Ting Tings among others.  He's become kind of famous over here.  He will be here for a month helping out with the after-school program.
12. The grocery store still had diapers yesterday.  This was by no means assured so we were excited to get another week's supply.
13. Did I mention that I'm going hunting?

Chinese Food

Last night we decided that we really needed some Chinese food.  You may wonder why a person would visit Sweden and then eat Chinese food but I have a reasonable explanation.  In Ukraine you can get 3 kinds of food: Ukrainian (potatoes, borsch, sala, etc.), mayonnaise pizza and Tatar food.  That's it!  No Indian...no Mexican... no burgers...no Italian.  It's not that we don't like Ukrainian food but we are used to a little more variety.

So when we got to Stockholm, a reasonably diverse and cosmopolitan city, we decided that we were going to hit up all the places that serve something else... anything else.  And Chinese it was...

When we walked up, they had the menu posted on the door and the item that immediately caught my attention was called "Sexy Mee."  I laughed like a 12 year old and since the description looked tasty, we ordered that and 2 others.  One of those was called "Black Bean Chicken" or something like that but when we opened our orders at home, this is how they were labeled.

So once again I behaved like a 12 year old and decided to post the picture.  I hope you can make out the writing.

Yet another change...

I went to the Swedish embassy today for a 2nd, or 3rd, or 7th opinion on our visa issue.  The trip involved multiple transfers on the metro and going to an island with which Paul wasn't familiar.  It was at least a nice outing; the sun was out and it was nice and warm.  It was also interesting because Paul couldn't go with me the whole way so I had to figure out the light rail portion myself and then find the embassy.  It was really my first outing by myself but I did fine and only missed my stop once.

Upon arriving at the embassy I learned that by their understanding, our visa was still valid and we should be able to enter Ukraine.  This is the same information that we heard from the Ukrainian embassy in DC and would later hear from the one in San Francisco.  Basically according to the Ukrainian foreign service, we are authorized to enter the country and stay until our visa expires at the end of October.

Here is where the problems lie....

The department who has been telling us all along that we barred from entry is passport control/immigration.  Today we learned that they are independent and have no obligation to admit someone even if they have a valid visa.  It is completely within their jurisdiction and Tanya talked to the highest person in that department.  He told her that he made the call to ban us for the rest of the year and that we had no recourse to argue this decision.  Of course that isn't true; there are always people who can compel him to reverse the decision but unfortunately we do not know these people.

Tanya will continue to attempt to persuade him to allow us in until Tuesday when we will have to bite the bullet and get flights back to Colorado where we can start the process of preparing to return in 2009.

Immigration Update

I have resisted updating the blog on our current status and plans because they change by the moment.  The issues with this seem to revolve around the government of Ukraine's inability to understand their own laws and further problems with enforcing them honestly and fairly.

At last post, it seemed that we had been added to an immigration black-list.  As it turns out, our contacts in Ukraine learned that we are just not allowed to enter the country on any visa until 2009.

As a last ditch effort, I visited the Ukrainian embassy here in Stockholm where I learned that while it was true that we violated the law by not registering beyond 6 months, the fine should have been MUCH lower (indicating that we were paying a bribe) and there is no reason that we should not be able to return.  Such a ban is indicated by a stamp in the passport itself, which we don't have.  The attitude of the people at passport control seem to back up this explanation - they were fairly helpful and made no statements to indicate that we were no longer welcome on this visa.  Further, the person I spoke to here said he was unaware of a 180-day restriction (other than needing to register) for yearly visas.  Since Ukraine has the same travel policy towards Sweden and the US, I suspect that he knows what he's talking about.

The next step is to contact the embassy in San Francisco where our visas were issued (as will next year's visas) and see if there is a note regarding our return or a block on renewal.

Please keep praying....

Bad news

As we've mentioned, we are on a lovely vacation to visit Paul in Stockholm.  Our enjoyment of what must be one of the great European cities has been tempered by an on-going problem.

On the way out of Kiev we were stopped at passport control and taken into the back offices.  They informed us that the type of visa that we have (1-year tourist visa) limited us to stays of 180 days or less.  Since we were well over that amount we were found to be in violation of immigration law and fined $300 USD.  They were pleased that we were willing to pay the fine and let us go just in time to catch our flight to Stockholm.

On a hunch I asked Tanya to check with her contacts as to whether the violation had effected our continuing efforts to get an extension to our current visa.  She came back with the answer that not only could she not extend our current visa, but we also can't return from our current vacation.

We did some checking on this and learned that we are in fact on a no-entry blacklist, thereby making our return to Ukraine a less likely possibility.  We have been told that we can re-apply for another visa in the new year, but there are no guarantees.

In the meantime, we are here in Stockholm trying to enjoy ourselves during this time.  Our tickets back to Simferopol will be forfeited.  We are trying to change our tickets that were to return us in December so that we can get home next week.  We will be back in Colorado for at least 3.5 months - 3 of them cold - and I have 1 pair of pants, 1 pair of shoes and a sweatshirt.  I really need my clothes but there isn't really a cost effective way to get them back.

Stockholm Day 1

For those of you who don't have facebook, here are some pictures of our trip to Stockholm.  Weather has been cool (50s to 60s) and somewhat overcast, but still beautiful.  

This is Old City where the Royal Palace is.  It was our destination for the day.

Here we are in Old City.  There are all kinds of streets like this with all kinds of shops... including an ice cream place with homemade waffle cones that we will be visiting later this week.

Still have to pay for the potty, but this one was very nice.  Maybe because it was outside of the Royal Palace.

Here is Campbell guarding the Royal Palace.

Excuse me??

This is the french hot dog.  A french bread cored out, filled with ketchup and then filled with a hot dog.  A great invention for toddlers... keeping the mess to a minimum.

We have much more planned for the week.  The forecast is rain, rain, and more rain.  So we will see how well the pictures turn out.  We are loving every minute of it though.  

Old friends and air travel

Some of our girls from the IVA program came back to visit us on Saturday.  It was nice to catch up with Oksana and Sasha...

...as well as Lena.

Did I forget to mention that we were going to Sweden?  Yes, we are currently here and will be for 10 days.  Other than a brief problem at passport control on the way out of Kiev, everything went well.

We got to see the girls again at the airport.  My old friend Lena (on the far left) brought her twin sister Inna (I think you can figure out which she is).  Of course my new friend Lena (next to me in the back) was there and we had a nice 15 minutes before we had to go through security.  It was Lena and Inna's birthday so it was nice to give them some chocolates and wish them a good day.

Cam and Sarry on the first flight (Simferopol-Kiev)
This is Stockholm.  What a cool city!  It is spread across dozens of islands on the east coast and I have really liked the feel and atmosphere so far.  It is nice break from eastern Europe.
There will be more photos and adventures to follow but for now I have to sign off and go get some groceries.