Kazakhstan National Holiday “Constitution Day”

Sorry it has been a few days since we posted... we have had some internet challenegs. We are also sorry that you will need to wait another day or two to see our new son. Mainly because we want our children to be the first to see him and there are still a few details we are working out. Instead this blog update will be about one of Kazakhstan’s National Holidays… on August 30, 2007 Kazakhstan celebrated their 11th national holiday called “Constitution Day”, which marked the 11th year since they established their constitution.

Like the US Constitution, Kazakhstan’s constitution starts with a preamble… “We, the people of Kazakhstan, united by a common historic fate, creating a state on the indigenous Kazakh land, considering ourselves a peace loving and civil society, dedicated to the ideals of freedom, equality and concord, wishing to take a worthy place in the world community, realizing our high responsibility before the present and future generations, proceeding from our sovereign right, accept this Constitution.”

Also like our country’s holidays the government, banks, and other institutions were closed. This meant unfortunately that we could not visit our new little boy. But we were able to participate with the people of Astana as they celebrate this historic day in their abundant history. Near City Hall they had a large stage with three huge video screens as well as numerous vendors selling food and drinks. The event was hosted by two popular DJs and started out with more traditional music and costumes, but as the festivities progressed they became more contemporary. The best way I could describe one of the more contemporary groups was to call them the Russian Spice Girls. It was very enjoyable, even though we could not understand most of the words and we definitely absorb part of their rich culture.

We have now been here a full week and are starting to miss home, but we are also enjoying this experience as we learn about our new son’s heritage. We have now spent six days, about two hours each day, with our new little man. We are finally starting to see him warm up to us and we are getting brief glimmers of his personality. The first few days he would just sit their and give us puzzling looks. Today he dug in investing his new toy bag and choose the toys he wanted to play with…
Sorry he is still a little camera shy, but your sill see him soon. Thank you again for following along with us in this adventure. God has been awesome to surround us with such great friends back in the states, but also new friends here in Kazakhstan!

Blessings,

Jay & Jen