Aida's Adoption - Leap Day with Aida, Part 1

To get to the good stuff about Aida, you'll have to read through the boring commentary here that tells you where we are right now. :D

I am on a rollercoaster. Two days ago, I was at the lowest low. Well...maybe not the lowest, but pretty darn low! Things sank a little lower in the middle of the night. Around 1AM, I received a phone call from Hedda, which did not bring good news.

Maybe I need to back up just a tiny bit. The adoption process in Uganda is full of checks. Every check you go through, you explain how you found the child, what their situation is, and then the powers that be make a decision on whether this child can remain with you. No one step is any more or less important than another. If you pass court and are granted legal guardianship, but then don't pass your orphan interview, you are back to square 1, except that now you are legally responsible for a child in a foreign country and unable to bring them to your country. 80% of the families adopting from Uganda, and actually, almost (with a few exceptions) every other open country in the world, are pursuing the adoptions of young, healthy infant girls. To be an older boy with a SN, you automatically have 3 strikes against you. Aida has 2 strikes - she is neither young nor healthy. The desire of these families who desire only a healthy infant opens the door, especially in countries with only a few ethical laws concerning children, for child trafficking. A false report is made, false information concerning who found the child, or which relatives brought the child in after the parents died, etc. The adoptive parents swoop into the country, whisk their way through court (with "expediting fees" - bribery), and then face the embassy orphan interview. In the past few years, adoptions from Uganda have numbered in the low hundreds. Last year, just a few more than 200 were completed. It is only early 2012 and already there are more than 600 pending USCIS cases for Uganda filed. This is so concerning for both the Ugandan government, seeing a mass exodus mostly consisting of healthy infant girls, and the US Government, who sees this coming right on the heels of major adoption corruption in Ethiopia. Immediately after Christmas, the embassy tightened their procedure and started sending most of their petitions to the higher-ups in Nairobi, Kenya to do further investigation on the cases being presented. Only the most clear-cut cases were making it through with no investigation, and Aida's is not a clear-cut case.

Last night, Hedda called me with the discouraging news that a family had their visa held up at the embassy today, and the possible reason was that the child had 2 living parents, just like Aida. We talked over every single possibility of what to do next. Even though it wasn't logical, I just kept feeling the most at peace about going about it all in a straight-forward manner. Just keep going with the plan we have and trust that the Lord will work in the hearts of the embassy officials. Hedda and I eventually came to the conclusion that we would hurriedly assemble the rest of the documents for a medical visa, just in case, and that she would email the embassy and try to get clarification on the situation. I hung up with her and Skyped with Doug for quite some time. Without telling him which direction my heart was leading, I laid out the situation and was not surprised to hear that his conclusion was the same. The Lord has laid out the path for us to continue based on the facts of Aida's case and hoping that officials will find it compelling with all it's truth. So, I hung up with Doug after laying out exactly what each of us needed to do today.

I woke up to a phone call that Aidah was on her way to Kampala for a cardiology appointment and that if I could meet them at the heart hospital I could meet the doctor and ask the hundreds of questions that I had for him. I asked the housekeeper to call a driver immediately, and specifically requested one that spoke at least a smidgen of English (yes, this becomes important in a minute), and threw on some clothes, pulled my hair back and gulped down some breakfast. In a few minutes I heard a honking from outside the metal gate, and I dashed out to meet the driver. Jumping in the car, he said, "Where go?" "Hmmm...." I remember thinking. "The English doesn't sound very promising." But onward we went, as I gave him the part of town he needed to go to (New Mulago), and we bounced over the lake-sized potholes and almost flew through the windshield as he liberally applied the gas, and then immediately, the brake. 15 minutes later, we were wandering aimlessly around New Mulago looking for the heart hospital, when my phone rang. It was Jurjanne, giving us directions and very clear ones! "When you go in the front gate of the hospital, go straight! Don't turn left or right. Then you will come to the emergency sign, and you will take a sharp left. Your driver will come to a closed blue gate, and this is where you hop out and I will meet you on the other side of the gate." This sounds so easy! As we headed through the front gate of Mulago Hospital, I pointed straight ahead.

"Huh?" said the driver, as he took a sharp right.

"NO!" I not-quite-shouted. "Straight straight!"

"Ah yes, straight straight!!!" the driver said as he barreled ahead going...well...straight straight, the wrong way.

"No! Stop! Stop! Go back!"

"Ah yes, go back! Here we go!" as we continued to fly over massive speed bumps in completely the wrong direction.

"ARGH!!!! TURN AROUND PLEASE!"

Screeeeeeech! The driver slams on his brakes in front of a closed metal blue gate and a guard who tells him to turn around immediately in English. Remarkably, he starts turning around, right around the time that Jurjanne calls me again to ask where I am. I explained what happened, and she said, "It's ok, I am coming to find you now!" So she started walking toward where she thought we would be. And I told the driver to please go back. Which causes him to put on his parking brake and stop right beside the road. I sigh loudly, being the arrogant American traveler that I hate so badly. I could feel my heart pounding faster and faster in frustration. The phone rings again. Jurjanne again. "Where are you Mary? Are you coming back to the main gate?" "Yes Jurjanne, we are facing in the right direction at least...." Suddenly a horrific grinding of metal and jarring of the car. I turn to see a large SUV, driven by a Muzungu lady, wedged between our car and the blue gate. And then, of course all hell breaks loose. The drivers are shouting, the police are called, Jurjanne tells me to grab my stuff and just walk to meet her, the police yell at me that I cannot touch one thing as it's all "evidence". I ask, "Evidence of what?" Finally, remembering some advice given to me before I left on my trip, I flash my US military ID and tell them that I need my things. Immediately, the police went quiet and slack-jawed, unlocked the car door, let me grab my bag and computer, and waved goodbye to me politely as I told the driver I would call him and headed down the road at a brisk jog.

And now, my dear friends, I must say that I will continue this later. I have to go pick up my mother at the airport!

Love you all!