Visa Appointment

The United States consul has declared that Buttercup and Hibiscus were deserted by their mother and abandoned by their father, and that therefore they have no parents and meet the official definition of orphans.  Thus, they will be able to immigrate to America with orphan relative visas.  We can pick up the visas and travel documents on Friday.


I should be jumping up and down for joy or wanting to go out and celebrate, but I'm just absolutely exhausted. I guess after all the thinking about it and worrying about it, and a very long afternoon with some very wild children and plenty of confusion, it's just over and I'm feeling leftover. I was debating whether to do something to celebrate for dinner, but I couldn't deal with the thought of taking the children anywhere else. But I didn't want to cook either. So I picked up roadside food: chapatis, roasted maize, and samosas, and we ate on the porch. And I keep thinking, now I can start planning on how I'm going to pack and what else we need to do before we leave.... I start to think and my brain just fuzzles out.  It's either too many details or too unreal.  After all these months and all these complications and all this waiting, I can't believe that it's over.  The paperwork, the time in Uganda, any of it.


Since the appointment wasn't until mid-afternoon, Buttercup and I had a calm morning at home, which was much appreciated.  The driver showed up around noon, and I tried to get dressed and make us all look pretty -- I even put on makeup and wore nice earrings!  I didn't know how formal we were supposed to be, but I always figure that it is better to err on the side of being a little bit too nice.  Besides, I figured that for once I was seeing another white person, and she would recognize white-person clean hair or white-person put-together face!

Then we picked the children up from school, which of course had all sorts of drama.  Emerson didn't want to go change his clothes by himself.  He didn't want to go with a teacher, he wanted to go with me, but I needed to talk with someone.  They hadn't had lunch yet; Hibiscus wanted some before we left.  I told her to eat quickly, and she inhaled an entire plateful before Emerson even made it to the changing room.  Buttercup wanted out of the car, and I told her she could go if she didn't get dirty; I turned around and she was crawling around in the dust, and then she wouldn't get back in the car when it was time to go.  And in the middle she threw a fit because I wouldn't let her eat lunch at school, since we had just left the lunch table at home, and she had eaten until she was ready to pop.  Once we were in the car, I had brought a snack for the kids, and while I wasn't looking Hibiscus (who just ate an entire lunch) gobbled up most of it while Emerson (who had eaten nothing) was barely munching his first one.  This came to my attention because Hibiscus started whining that her stomach hurt.  Which is what happens when you eat an entire plate of rich food, four hot dogs, and a banana in about ten minutes flat, and I told her I had no sympathy whatsoever, especially since Emerson was still hungry but all the food was in Hibiscus's bloated belly.  And so on and so forth: all the little dramas of having three children, and taking them out of their routine to do way too many boring errands.  But they were required to be at this one, so I stuffed them in pretty clothes and dragged them along.

Their teacher, Derrick, also came along, because I had asked if he knew someone who could come with us to help with the kids.  He was a lifesaver!  The children continued to be wild and crazy the entire time.  Not only did they not want to sit still (which I admit is not very fascinating), they were directly disobedient and defiant, like repeatedly running out of the area where we were allowed to wait, with the armed guard telling them to stay in the gate.  At some point, they have had capacity to allow themselves to be entertained with something non-ideal but fairly interesting, because they know that it is important.  Like driving in the car to safari or during the court date.  I am starting to think that all their positive social skills have disappeared during this month of school break-cum-paperwork errands.  They have all been especially scattered and difficult lately.


It was a bad place to not care about rules, because the US Embassy has enough rules and regulations to sink a small ship, or probably even a medium-large tanker.  Just walking through the gate to go into the compound is somewhere between annoying and impossible, depending on what documents you have in hand.  I suppose it is just as well that they do a security check fourteen different times (what could I manage to hide in my coin purse, really?), but what drives me crazy is the list of things that you're not allowed to bring inside.  I don't mind that some things are disallowed, but it is the list itself that bothers me.  It is about a page and a half, single spaced, with all these little things like "phone, ipod, laptop computer, cables, powder, cosmetics, nail clippers" and so on and so forth, for two pages.  So the first time I went through I carefully checked all the items on my list with the guard, who put them in a little box and gave me the key.  And then I went through the next security checkpoint, and they took all these other things out of my bag and told me to give them back.  Because, you see, an e-reader is not on the list, but what the list is ACTUALLY trying to say is "all types of electronics," so a Nook is not allowed.  We could skip about a page of listing and a great deal of confusion if they wrote that.  They also returned my small sunscreen bottle as "cosmetics," which it isn't, but I suppose the category they want is "liquids and creams," like the airlines.  So I think the list should be improved to describe categories instead of trying to name all the specific things that might fit into the categories!

One category they do list is all food and drink, so we had to leave our water bottles at the gate.  Last time I was there they had one of those office-style water-tanks, but this time the water had run out and the person who was supposed to bring a new tank naturally hadn't brought one, because this is Uganda and Ugandans do not hurry to get their work done.  Between the heat, the waiting, nerves, and talking, I wanted a drink of water so badly!  It is often those little things that color a whole experience, and I think whenever I remember our visa appointment I will immediately be thirsty.

As I wrote last night, we had this vague "all the families show up and we will try and get through the appointments," which didn't make much sense.  We got through the security complications somewhere around two o'clock, when we were supposed to show up.  I saw four or five families waiting in the outside waiting area of the immigration visa area as we arrived, but then several of them left.  I don't know why.  I don't know if they didn't have their paperwork, or were told to come back at a specific time, or what on earth happened.  I recognized several of them from other points on this long journey, including one mother who has been waiting at the same time as us ever since the passport office.  I hope they all are okay.

We were advised to go inside, and I think only one other family went before us, but they were the only ones still waiting.  I sat around and tried to help the kids do activities for a while, but then I didn't understand why the birth parents weren't there.  I had texted Miss B on the way over, and she had replied that everything was fine and they were coming.  She is usually very prompt for important dates, so by 2:30 I was worried.  After some discussion with the man at the desk (receptionist? guard? greeter?), it turned out that they were stuck waiting on the benches outside the Embassy gates.  So I went down to "confirm their identity" and bring them back with me, which involved leaving my visitor's badge as I left the immigration area, and then going through the entire process of entering the compound all over again.  But much more slowly, with two sick adults instead of three lively children (and someone from the orphanage helping liase for them).  I tried to enjoy my very slow walk up the sidewalk, and appreciate that I wasn't stuck in a room being nervous and trying to control three uncontrollable children.  But it's hard for me to walk slowly when I'm tense.

By the time I got back to the correct area, it was about our turn to go in.  I was told to come in with the children.  I had expected some kind of room where we would all sit down and perhaps be asked questions, but this was like going to a bank teller, but private.  I went in the little door marked "3" and stood at a counter, and the consul official sat behind the counter which was a desk for her, and there was a glass wall between us, and a slot underneath to pass papers back and forth.  The children came in with me, but immediately went insane and couldn't stop climbing on things (there was absolutely nothing to climb on but the trash basket and straight up the walls, so up they went), and complaining loudly and repeatedly that they couldn't see, and mama MAma MAMAAAA did you know my toe hurts? and so on.  The official said that if they would be more comfortable outside they could sit in the waiting area, and then they refused to leave, and Hibiscus and Emerson started crying that they didn't want to be away from me, while Buttercup entertained herself by opening and closing the door, and sometimes putting herself on opposite sides of it.  I was about ready to take them by their ears and deposit them anywhere far enough away that I could hear her voice on the other side of the glass, but luckily something happened, and Derrick grabbed their attention, and finally they left and stayed gone.  Things went much more smoothly then.

The goal of this interview is to confirm that the children meet the international definition of "orphan," which is complicated.  There are eight different ways that a child can be classified as an orphan, and it is possible to adopt a child in-country, that the country qualifies as needing adoption but the US does not qualify as being an orphan, and then they don't issue a visa.  (However, hopefully an honest lawyer would point out the problems at the beginning!)  I had no idea what the appointment would be like, but it went along well.  The official went over the paperwork with me and asked some little questions.  During the intake appointment, the intake person had told me to change a couple of things that didn't make sense to me, and the consul official told me to change them back.  I had to sign that I would get the girls fully vaccinated within 30 days of arriving in the U.S.  Interestingly enough, the consul official seemed to really respect that I had been here so long and knew the girls and their situation so well.  I was prepared for her to be very picky and very detail-oriented, which she was, but she seemed to acknowledge and respect that I knew the details, instead of doubting me.  She asked a couple of general questions, such as having me describe the girls' family situation, and she asked what I honestly thought of the orphanage, and what my impressions of the birth family was and why I thought they had relinquished the children.  The only hitch was that she wanted to see the original relinquishment forms that the parents had signed when the children came to Abato.  There have been about four more, more official forms that the parents have since signed, so the lawyer hadn't included those.  She said that I might have to make another appointment so she could see them.

Then I was excused, and found everyone waiting in the outside waiting area, which allowed the children to be even more chaotic than before.  After a few minutes, each of the birth parents was called in, and probably each spent ten minutes being interviewed (with an interpreter).  Then there was another pause and I was invited back in again.

The consul official explained what I wrote in the first sentence, about the official status of the parents, and why the girls are considered official orphans.  She said the parents had had a better than average understanding of what adoption means, and that the father was very clear and articulate about when and how and why he relinquished the children to Abato, so she wasn't worried about seeing the documents.  She gave me back all my paperwork except for the girls' passports, because they will put the visas in them.  Our "travel packet" will be ready at noon on Friday.

And that was it.  So, unless our luck holds and they manage to have a fire in the records room between now and Friday, or something like that, we will be completely done in 38 hours.  This is the last piece of paper between our family, and our home in Oregon.


As I have said, I just don't believe it yet.  I want to just go back into our regular routine, and I think about the things that need to get done tomorrow and how I'm going to manage them.  I suppose I will also start making lists of things that we need to do in Uganda, and figure out how I'm going to plan our time.  It will probably take about another two weeks to get everything ready, and also wait for airline tickets at a reasonable price.  Perhaps it will be difficult, still being here when I know that we have the documents to go.  But I think, as sick of living in Uganda as I am right now, I still will need some time to decompress and transition away.  It has been a long time.  For every little thing that I think about and irritates me, there are probably twenty little things that I take for granted and take care of calmly.

But that's all tomorrow.  Tonight, I'm exhausted.  And I'm hoping it's real.