We drove past the Haitian Police headquarters, where we were stopped on the street, to respect the flag-raising that was going on right then. They raised the flag, saluted it, then let us get on our way.
After we'd gone a ways, we kept noticing that Terriot kept talking to a few people out his window. One of them we recognized as Ernst, our driver that brought us to GLA from the airport. Pretty soon after that we were headed down a residential street to Magaly's house. The other adoptive mom we were with, who understood/spoke Creole, told us that he'd been talking to people out the window asking them to call Magaly and tell her we were almost to her house, because Terriot didn't have his cell phone with him that day. Magaly came out about the time we arrived, and followed us in her car as we headed the rest of the way to the US Embassy.
However, shortly after leaving Magaly's house, we came to a small traffic jam, and then realized it was because the road we needed to be on was washed out from the rain the night before. There was a huge rut where you could see the rain water had carved a little river down the street the night before. There may have been a path on the edge of the road down the hill, but there was a truck stuck spinning its wheels trying to get up the hill there.
Terriot conferred with the locals out the window, whether there was another road that would get us around and back to the main road where we needed to be. Someone told him there was and pointed and gave him and another driver a little bit more information, and off we went. And if we thought the main (-ish) roads were rough, these felt like we were driving through farm fields. Soooooo bumpy! I somehow hadn't had any problems with forgetting to take my dramamine the day before, but was very glad I'd remembered to take it that morning!
We did indeed make it back to the main road, and made it to the US Embassy between 8:30 and 9:00. We had purposely left most of our electronics back at the guest house except for our camera and cell phones which we left with Terriot, along with our water bottles in the vehicle. We headed inside with less drama at the security entrance. We waited quite a while for them to call us up, one family at a time.
They didn't only have us sign our documents in front of the official - she actually interviewed us. It wasn't very private, as she was using the microphone on the other side of the glass so we could hear her - the same one she used to call us up to her window. She asked us some demographic questions about us and about James, questions about our trip, when we met James and how the first meeting went. She then asked us if we felt like we have bonded with James. Uh, um, well, as much as you can with a child who's under 2 years old and can only spend 2 hours with him. She also asked if we thought he recognized us. Uh, he's not even two years old yet, so we had to be honest with her and tell her we weren't sure. We did tell her that we thought he'd been told that we were coming and he was excited when we arrived, and held his arms up for us to pick him up. She didn't really react to our answers, just was writing them down on her questionnaire. Then she had us sign our documents and it was the next family's turn. They, of course, had the benefit of hearing our interview, so had a few moments to think about their responses.
When both of us had finished with our interview/signing, our jobs here in Haiti were done. Both court appearances, and our I-600 signing were accomplished! We headed back out to meet Terriot, and he took us back to the Guest House. I took lots of scenery photos on the way back from the Embassy to the Guest house.
I assume the person/family living in this tent runs this nursery, selling the plants along the side of the road.
Tent city on a hillside somewhere between the Embassy and Kenscoff.
We drove past President Martelly's house. Many trees along the road in his neighborhood were painted like this. Terriot said that GSMM was some sort of political organization. There were GSMM bilboards along the roads too. Also in his neighborhood were many of the pink signs with his face on them. I didn't look up translations for what these signs said.
A park we drove past a few times. I didn't look up what the banners over the roads said, but a few of them had dates on them, like we might see in the states, advertising a summer festival or something.
Another park with a fountain, but apparently traffic was moving freely because I didn't get a very good picture of the fountain fast enough.
A very full tap-tap!
Terriot was in a hurry to get back into Port-au-Prince for another adoption errand/appointment, so just dropped us off at the guest house and headed on his way. We debated whether we should have him take us to the main house, but we both wanted to change clothes, so we got off at the guest house, around 11 or 11:30.
Once there, the pastor's wife asked us what our plans were for the rest of the day, if we'd planned on just staying there or going to the main house. Of course, we'd planned on going to the main house after a bit, but we'd no idea how we were to get there. We'd been told it was only about a 15-minute walk, but we didn't know the way through the maze of walls, curves and hills. She also hadn't planned on us for lunch - we were to eat our meals at the main house. We had plenty of snack foods we could have lasted until dinner, but she said there was a big bowl of soup in the fridge, so we had a small bowl.
A few minutes later she came back and told us that Susie and Melissa would be coming to the toddler house to pick up a few kids from the main house who come to the toddler house every morning for preschool. We could ride back to the main house with them. We waited a while for them, but realized that it didn't matter anyway, because James has lunch around noon followed by a nap. GLA does not like you to interrupt the kids' schedules, so we would not have been able to spend that time with him anyway.
Around 12:30, we were on our way back to the main house. However, the plan was foiled when on the second-to-last hill, there was a water truck broken down, blocking the road. Melissa didn't know another route to the main house, so she called Emmelyne to bring the Gator. Jock, Susie and I brought walked the three 2-year-olds (Susie carrying one who was already asleep) down the steep hill to meet Emmelyne with the gator for the rest of the trip to the house. I think we finally arrived around 1:00. Always an adventure! As it was, James was napping when we got to the main house, so we got a few photos of our precious boy sleeping. :)
The little girl standing up in her crib next to all the other sleeping babies was the same one that had fallen asleep on the way back from the Toddler House. She had apparently slept through lunch and was up earlier than the rest of the babies. :)
1 comment:
Love the quirky "let me remind you you are in Haiti where things don't often make sense"...
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