Gifts?

candace2006

May 21, 2006

I'm in my homestudy level and in the meantime a lot of things come to mind. One of those is "gifts."

In another group I asked about who should get gifts during the adoption trip, what makes for a gift that a male or female would like, and about the size (could they all fit in my suitcase?):rolleyes:

To me the best thing would be to bring a few hundred dollars in cash, and envelopes, and give those who are supposed to get gifts a few dollars in the envelope. By doing that, there's no extra baggage charges at the airport, no need to carry a heavy suitcase, and cash is a gift that both men and women would like. Well, at least I wouldn't mind receiving some.:woohoo:

But, I was told THAT would be insulting the helpers. That the custom says there have to be gifts. I wonder if anyone has actually been there, and have given cash instead of gifts. Did that work?

Other than the translator, driver, and head of orphanage, who else gets gifts? Does the judge gets gifts, how about the person at the NAC... errr... SDA?

:cheer:

Max'smom

May 23, 2006

I pm-ed you.

Advertisements

candace2006

May 23, 2006

My mail here is messed up, sometimes it erases my messages when I want to read them. Maybe I press the wrong buttons, or something. So, I did not get to read yours, if you could maybe print it here, if it's okay. Thanks.

:thankyou:

mamaofthreeboys

May 23, 2006

I would be interested in knowing as well if you don't mind posting please :)

jmchowat

May 24, 2006

We adopted in 2001 and 2005 and the gift giving has changed a lot. In 2001, we gave gifts to the NAC people, passport office workers, notaries, you name it. In 2005, we only gave gifts to the orphanage staff and the doctors who signed our son's medical certificate (we needed 8 different specialites and we got them all done in one morning!!!) The doctor's signatures was an unusual thing. We took a huge amount of gifts for the orphanage staff (40 or 50) because we adopted from 2 different orphanages. We did 2 trips to Ukraine because we got caught in the NAC shutdown last Chrirstmas, so when we went back, we had already met the people we took gifts for. I had taken a lot on trip 1, but took extra on trip 2 because I had specific things in mind.

I knitted scarves for all the ladies in the orphanage that took care of our children (about 20 or 25 of them), then I took wallets, hats and scarf sets, woolen gloves, a shawl for one of the orphanage directors because I saw her wearing them, some bath and body stuff (but not much-too heavy). We gave our driver money because he did a huge amount for us, we also bought him a baseball cap and his son PJs from the Disney store. We traveled in the Winter, so we took cold weather accessories more than anything. I also had an assortment of nail polish, necklaces that a friend made for me. We also bought chocolates for the ladies that looked after our children and we bought a bunch of candy/chips/etc and made up goody bags for all the children in Daniel's group. I also knitted a huge amount of hats, scarves, gloves, clothing for the younger children in Maggie's group. We took gift bags to put everything in, don't take tissue though, they don't care about it. I got a bunch at the dollar store. We took all the gifts to the orphanages and left them with the directors when we picked our children up, they waited to give them out on National Women's Day which was the week after were were there.

Basically, I started gift buying as soon as we signed with our agency. Anything that was on super-sale and easy to carry, I bought. My bargain was finding men's woolen fully lined gloves and hats at Bass that were 90% off!!!! My advice is take things that are as light as possible, easy to stuff around your other luggage, not going to break or leak and can be used by anyone.

You can give money to certain people, such as your drivers, facilitators, etc but I would suggest gifts for the orphanage people. If you went in the Fall, I would suggest hats (the soft knitted ones are worn by a lot of ladies), gloves, scarves (are not really worn as much), they will always use them. Jewelry is good for Summer, it's small and easy to pack.

Of course, you can get a bunch of stuff in Ukraine. You'll have plenty of time to shop during your 10 day wait after court. You can buy pretty much anything. Cigarettes, alcohol, chocolates, clothes & medicine for the orphanages, whatever. I doubt you'd find gift bags, so take them with you. Take the maximum amount of cigarettes you can get in the duty free (or buy them here), the men will love you for it (even if it doesn't feel right to you!!). Marlboro are a hit as they are different here. A bottle of scotch would be handy too, but heavy to carry.

When packing, remember the weight limit has been reduced to 50 lbs when you fly, but it's the in-country travel that will kill you if you have too much luggage

candace2006

May 24, 2006

I'm thinking that hats, scarves, and gloves or mittens... knitted stuff ... are well received. The nail color suggestion is good and not too expensive. I wish I could find a place that sells makeup samples, without the heavy bottles or jars.

I'm glad you mentioned the "not feeling good" about giving alcohol and ciggarettes. I was thinking "ugh... would I feel guilty about giving them future lung cancers and cirrhosises?" But, like my dad, smoking will kill him but he loves it. It's one of those dangerous pleasures people long for, like speed car racing, bungie jumping, or mountain climbing.

I've seen a pack of 12 of those little bottles of liquor, not too expensive. I would split them among 12 people... 12 gifts right there...heh!