Gift to take

Our agency gave us a list of people we needed gifts for: * Orphanage Staff 6-9 ladies * Orphanage Director * Inspector of Custody * Judge * Lawyer * Coordinator * Interpreter * Drivers All were women expect our driver. Your list may be different. Some favorites included: Make-up sets are always a good thing because they cost 2-3 times as much there. Parker or other nice ink pen sets are costly there. Stationary sets. Jewlery. We found a great deal on a jewlery box at the Bombay Company for the Orphanage Director. Some people gave t-shirts from thier home town (our Coordinator made a point of wearing one while we were there because we were from the same state.) Our Coordinator went through our gifts when we were there to help us put things together, incase we needed to do some more shopping. One gift that we thought was great, the Thirsty Stone Coasters with pictures of Light houses and birds from our state) did not get the attention we thought becuase they do not use coasters. Best Wishes.

Pretty scarves, homemade soaps and bath salts, jewelry sets, pen sets, wallets. We gave them a post card of our hometown and a note with our photo on it thanking them for being part of our adoption (translated into Russian)

I think I had to bring 8 gifts, including at least one gift for a man. I brought: a small crystal-like perfume bottle, 2 jewelry boxes from Bombay Co (good deals and nice, but took up too much room), several pairs of gloves, a silver bead bracelet, a tie and cigar case, a lipstick case, candle and candle snuffer (which was more trouble than it was worth at security-- I definitely got a "crazy american" look for that one :)) However, none of these gifts went to the ladies who were actually taking care of my daughter-- on my 2nd trip, I sent back Bath & Bodyworks bodywashes and lotions and a small pin for each of them. There is plenty of stuff to buy there, but you are better off bringing it from home-- just keep it small because you will need the room in your suitcase for everything else!

I found makeup at CVS on sale, plus small bottles of lotion, and made up gift bags for the caretakers. I also took some small figurines of angels. When I got there and got to know my regional coordinator and driver/translator I got gifts for them there, and they were very nice [wallet/lighter set and lined leather gloves] and NOT expensive. I also took some Braves tee shirts - they appreciate sports things from your hometown or state. When I adopted my daughter I was there in fall and was able to take calendars from my state, which was very easy to pack. Don't panic if you get there and dno't have enough. There are always options locally. Before you go, if you will be using a credit card, be sure and call the company and tell them, so they won't cut off your card thinking it's been stolen! A lot of hotels will take credit cards. Mine did. Good luck! Dee

Dee makes a good point about advising your credit card company, and I would add one additional note: choose which cards you bring/use carefully. One of my credit card companies had a higher interest (29.9%) for international charges-- in addition to a small transaction fee that they all charged.

We carry on 6 Don Quixote and they loves the parfums. They dont have it in Kz, you must thing that in Kz have not any of them.

The gifts for the director, the doctors and the coordinator should be "nicer" gifts. I found that they have much more beautiful scarves in Kaz then we have here, IMHO. I found some very nice necklaces on sale. They were the cirlce necklace and they had tiny tiny genuine diamonds in them for (they were marked down a lot---I paid maybe $30) for the director and doctors and my coordinator. I put them in a shell box since I live in a beach town. They LOVED them!! For the caretakes I took a smaller version of the shell box, lipstick, nail polish, mascara and eye shadow that I found on sale with a post card of where I am from along with individual size kissables chocolate (something they couldn't get there). These went over very well. They love anything from the U.S. I took extra shell neclaces and bracelets (inexpensive) just in case. I had several people that I really liked who helped me out a lot, so I ended up giving them these bracelets and neclaces and they were very well received. You don't have to spend a lot of money, but I do want to say this. You feel like you are spending a lot of time and money on gifts, but when I got there I was so glad I had taken the time to pick out nice gifts (bought on sale or inexpensive) because I was so grateful for these people who took care of my daughter, that I wanted to give them things they would like to say thank you!!

I forgot, I also took thank you card with me and in Russian I wrote thank you, not spaciba, but the actual Russian letters and then got my translator to show me how to write our last name and included that for the director and doctors. That went over very well too.

We brought jewelry for the orphanage director, and cosmetics, pantyhoses, calendars, lotions, pens for the caretakers.

We were told our letter of invite arrived and our agent was just waiting on the number, well we waited and waited for a month we heard nothing. i got mad and called and she said sorry it was never really issued, just that is was in the process. So on June 7th our letter was really issued and they pushed us to get over there. So we hurried and got air tickets for the next monday like 7 days after our invite arrived. The day before we were to leave i was home trying to get everything in order so we could leave the next morning when we got a phone call from our agent telling us to cancel our flight we couldnt travel, and she said she would have more infor the next day. I had to call her because she never called and she said the mother came back and wanted the baby back. So now i am waiting again. Wed our agent told us she would get more info for us soon, but by record showing we will be waiting around for a while. :mad: :mad: :( Hope everyone else is doing better. Beckie

Hi Beckie, hang in there honey and the fortune will smile at you again. You will see it will. :)

I hope everything has worked out since your last reply. I'm in a similar situation with waiting on the LOI. My agency just lost their license 7-31-08 so that's thrown a huge, ugly curveball. If your situation has improved, it will give me hope!!

We have not traveled yet but our agent said they want to get us over there before our visa expires on Sept 10th. So hopefully we travel soon. I will keep you posted. Beckie