SEQUIM — Her name is Sasha.
She has short, pixie-cut brown hair that frames a face with chiseled features and icy blue eyes.
She’s a gregarious, intelligent and highly social child with a taste for pickles, an adoration for a cocker-spaniel mix named Chester and a love for just about anything pink.
But much about the bubbly girl is a mystery still being unraveled by Karla and Lex Morgan, a Sequim couple who traveled thousands of miles in March to the Republic of Kazakhstan to bring her into the fold of their family.
That includes Sasha’s age.
“Her birth certificate says she’ll be 10 in September. But we think she’s closer to 8,” said Karla Morgan, gazing at the playful child with obvious maternal affection.
Sasha grabs a pen and writes her name in Russian and in English, grinning with obvious pride at her accomplishment.
“Exactly!” she says in an animated tone, attempting to reproduce with perfection the English word she’s overheard.
From orphanage
Sasha has spent her entire life among more than 100 other children at an orphanage in the former Soviet republic, situated in Central Asia but bordering Russia, China and the Caspian Sea.
After the fall of the Soviet Union, independent republics re-embraced their traditional heritages and religions.
Kazakhstan is a primarily Muslim nation with a cultural taboo against unwed parenting, which leads to a large number of infants being placed into orphanages.
It’s not an ideal life for a child, Morgan said, but the government-run system seems to stress excellent care for the orphans and eagerly promotes adoptions by western couples such as Karla and her husband.