First I-600 Embassy Appointment

What a super fulfilling day today was!!!!!

I got up at 4am to get ready for the day. Dieudonne and I left at 4:30am for Delmas 41. I have a lot of respect for Dieudonne, the main Lamardelle driver, because he does this EVERY SINGLE DAY! He leaves at around 4:30am every morning to go to Delmas and down town Port-au-Prince to pick up all the staff members for the day. And then he will be running errands all day, all around the main cities of Haiti and then do the same trip back and forth again to take the staff members back to their homes. He never gets back to the orphanage before 7 or 7:30pm, sometimes even as late as 9pm if traffic was bad. He is a very dedicated husband, father, father, and individual.

So I got to Delmas 41 at around 5:45am. I saw the orphanage doctor come strolling into the office at around 6:10am and was wondering who was going to pick him up? I thought that he was going to go to Kenscoff, since normally Wednesdays are the days he heads up to Kenscoff, but I was informed that he had switched the schedule, so now he was going to Lamardelle on Wednesdays. But Dieudonne had already left with the staff??? Uh oh! So I called the driver and he didn't pick up the phone, so I called Stephanie. Turns out the doctor was suppose to be at Delmas 41 at 6 o'clock, on the dot, not a minute later. He was 10 to 15 minutes late and apparently they didn't wait for him. They weren't going to turn back for him either, so another driver was coming to pick him up at around 9:30am or 10am. Oh my goodness, that's like in 4 hours of time from now!!!!! Yeah, that was very awkward. If it was me, I would just turn the car around and get him instead of sending another driver all the way to get the doctor. Like I've said, we've been having problems with the logistic department. It made it really awkward to sit next to the doctor for the next hour and a half. I just kept on apologizing to him for the miscommunication and logistical problems. He did not seem to be very happy about it. He never really opened up to me, from the very first day that I met him. No idea. Oh well.

So Roberto came and picked me up with the adoptive parents at around 7:45am. We had an I-600 appointment at the U.S. Embassy at 8am. An I-600 is an appointment in the Adoption process that will later determine what kind of Visa the adopted child will receive in their passport. We were booking it through traffic since we were going to be late! We got to the embassy at 8:20am and talked our way through the crowd. Good thing the embassy people already knew who we were, since we come here very often. We went through two security check-points and the guard took Brunette's phone away from her, since that is not allowed in there. He just put it in his pocket and told us to move along....um....does this not seem right to anyone???? We were in a hurry, so we just went on. We got to the waiting area and no one was at the window. I mean, the waiting area was completly filled with people, but the window staff were all empty. We later found out that the staff was having a staff meeting. It was the meeting right before Thanksgiving, since U.S. embassy will get the two days off for Thanksgiving, I guess they had a lot to talk about. All two and a half hours worth of meeting minutes. I guess scheduling a meeting during office hours is not a big deal here in Haiti for the U.S. Embassy. Oh my goodness. So by 10am, everyone was restless. I have already been use to this Haitian culture, but for the adoptive parents it was torture. I just kept on explaining to them that the Haitian culture was all about curve balls and there are always multiple plans that fall through in the end, that we just have to wait and be patient. It was very hard for them to understand this fact. It did not help that they did not have breakfast this morning, since they left at around 6am from Kenscoff, so they were starving. I was use to not having meals whenever I make a trip from Lamardelle to Kenscoff, so I was fine, but them not so much. I was worried since the embassy was a no drink, no food, no outside communication place. I just kept telling them to hold on. So at around 1pm we finally got everything ready and out of there. When we were checking out Brunette went to get her phone and turns out the person forgot to give her a number for her phone ( Well duh! He just put it in his pocket! Remember/????? Something wrong with this picture!!!), so they couldn't give it back to her. She had to prove it was her phone but exiting, getting another phone, walking back to embassy and calling her own phone with the other phone to prove it was hers. WOW! What an ordeal! Everyone was very happy to be leaving the U.S. Embassy. I hope the next I-600 will not be this intense, since I will be coming here by myself with the adoptive families!

The director ended up picking up another adoptive parents at the airport while we were at the embassy! We all got into one car and headed up to Kenscoff together. I made sure to tell the director that everyone was starving since no one had eaten anything all day! We got to a sandwich place at around 3:30pm and everyone was super happy to have some food in their tummies! It has been a while since I've had a sub and a coke! What a treat!

This week at Kenscoff is going to be full of adventures with the two sets of adoptive parents! I am super excited to get to know them and to tell them all about their wonderful children!