[catabaia]

We are so excited, our dossier was translated and will soon be sent to Kaz. We just had to send an extra form -regarding keeping Kaz citizenship until child reaches 18 yo. I hope there will be no more papers.

So we are oficially on the waiting list

However, here comes the money question. Roughly, how much should we expect to spend there (on housing, food etc) excluding the price of tickets? We are planning to make 2 trips, is impossible for us to take so much time off from work, and we prefer to spend time with the child when she/he comes home for a better adjustment.

[KaronD]

The cost while there will depend on several factors. The first will be where you are going. We were in Uralsk. Our greatest expence was the hotel, but we were able to move into a much more affordable appartment that we found on our own. You need to think about how much you will be cooking and how fancy you want your food. We could speek enough Russian and do enough sharades to get what we wanted at the cheep resturants and we also did not need a translator that saved us money. If you would like to see our budget please send me a private message.

[DET62]

Your agency should really be answering these questions, and/or putting you in touch with other families who can answer your questions.

I would figure about $2,000 for each plane ticket, and about $100-200 for each night in a hotel. Apartments are sometimes cheaper.

Things are not generally as expensive in Kaz. In our region [Petropavlovsk] the hotel was about $100 a day and that included breakfast and dinner. I usually ate lunch for about $3-7.

Kids clothes are very expensive there. I bought my 10 year old son jeans, a shirt, and shoes, and the bill was $75!

You might want to wait and buy gifts there, depending on your region. I found some nice gifts in the open air markets for very little money. Alternatively, take souvenirs from your home state and city. I took Atlanta Braves tee shirts and calendars of Georgia sites, also. In any foreign adoption there are always gifts.

Good luck!
Dee

[Mich71]

We were in Astana last year, and our agency gave us a great list of expected expenses, such as apartment cost, translator and driver fee, documents processing fees, along with some basic meal costs. We were told to bring $10,000. We used our credit card when we could, but even the places that took charge cards had problems with the machines working all the time.
Best of Luck in the waiting and preparing for the next big step.

[catabaia]

We do not know the region yet. My agency also has a 11.000$ fee, we need to pay cash when we arrive in Kazakhstan, I hope this will cover some expenses (at least driver and translator fee are in the contract). Until now, I was only concentrating on the endless papers and sudenly so many problems show up. I wish I asked them more questions from the beginning. Thank you so much all of you for the reply.