A Case of "The Grip"--Hence, A Slow Week in Astana, Kazakhstan - 12 April 2009

Anne spent most of the week in bed with the flu, or what people call around her, "The Grip". It almost sounds worse than the flu, don't you think! But Mira and Zhanna both said that it definitely was "The Grip"! And it's pretty hard getting out doing things when one feels that lousy! We had to excuse ourselves from the English classes at the university and the English club on Wednesday. But with the help of the antibiotics and other medicine that we brought from home, Anne was able to start feeling better by the end of the week!!

The week wasn't a total loss, because we were able to get the letter from the Ministry of Health stating that we would be able to do another Neonatal Resuscitation Training here in Kazakhstan!! Yeah!! It has taken two weeks to get the letter signed; now Sveta, in Almaty, can began to get pre-custom clearance, which will allow humanitarian equipment through without additional charges. As soon as we get clearance, the Church will ship the equipment by DHL and it should be here in Almaty within 10 days. But the problem is getting it through customs, which takes two months even though we have pre-customs clearance and the training is the first week in July. We are a month behind, compared to last year, on this project so we are a little nervous!! We just keep praying that everything will work out!!

Friday, we visited another NGO about a possible project for some deaf young adults. They are remodeling a room, which we were able to look at, for this project to take place and we hope we will be able to help them with it. We will keep you informed of the progress.

Saturday, we went to the handicapped English Club. Afterwards, Elena Kolmogrova, the chairman of a handicapped children's group that we have done a project for, visited with us about doing another project for her. It is really a worthwhile project and we hope that we will be able to help her, also. We will keep you updated on this project as well.

On the way home, we realized we didn't have any pictures for the blog and we certainly CAN'T have a picture less blog!!!! So we walked to a park that we have been going to take pictures of, anyway, and shot these:

This is a new monument that was put up last year for Astana's Birthday.

At the top of the monument is the representation of the top of the yurta, which is a symbol of unity in Kazakhstan.

We liked the inscription on the raised stone on the floor of the monument. We hope and pray that Astana will become a spiritual capital, too!! Through the monument, you can see the Radisson Hotel, and to the right of it is our apartment building.

There were other statues in the park also; this one of a little boy looking at swallows building a nest...

and a monument of the "Kubuz", one of Kazakhstan's national instruments

It was such a cold windy day and as we walked home we decided to take a couple of pictures of the Esil River (or Ishim).

As you can see, the river is finally melting which is a month later that it did last year! Last week when we were out, there were still fisherman ice fishing! It looked a little scary then!!

We hope this week will be a little more productive than last week, but we continually count our blessing because we haven't had many health issues and that has been great!

We would like to wish everyone a "Happy Easter"!! That is the reason we are here doing what we are doing!

Love to all,

Elder and Sister Welling