Embassy Appointment = Monday

The fun around here just never seems to end.

On Wednesday of this week, we headed to the Embassy to drop off our paperwork. We assumed this would be a simple step since we were pretty sure we had everything we needed.

There were 3 issues with our paperwork. Viola's passport had the wrong birth month and the documents stating that the grandparents were terminating all of their rights were not sufficient. She also said she wanted all the affidavits from court. She said that if we turned in all of these things by Thursday afternoon, we could stay on schedule for our actual appointment on Monday. This meant, we would have to go back to the dreaded passport office and make trips to both of the kid's villages on Wednesday and Thursday.

So, once again, we found our 'short' day turning in to a long one as we stopped by the passport office and headed to Mpigi to get another document signed by Gideon's grandparents. We were grateful when our contact finally came and met with us on Wednesday [of course we'd already been there for 3 hours]. We were thankful when she said it would be done on Thursday. With that, we took off for Mpigi.

Thursday was basically the same schedule as Wednesday. We stopped by the passport office to check on things. Then, we headed to Nakaseke, Viola's village. We were on a pretty tight schedule as we were planning on driving two hours to the village, then coming back and picking up Viola's passport. Then we had to scoot on over to the Embassy and get everything submitted, all before 4:30. I got even more nervous as we hit road construction on the way out of town and it took us another half an hour to get around it.

This would also be Viola's first visit back to the village since she's been with us. When we ask her about her jaja [grandma] she always shakes her head 'no' as if she doesn't want to go back. When we got there, she demanded to be held by Kristen and I the entire time. At first, she wouldn't look at her grandma and she never did say anything to her or anyone else in the village. We were worried that this would upset them, but they were happy to see that she had already attached to us so much. We were only there about 25 minutes before we took off, back to Kampala... like we were in the Indy 500.

To save time when we got back to Kampala, we split up. Kristen, Gideon, and our caseworker headed to our attorney's office to pick up all the affidavits from court. Viola and I hopped on a boda boda [motorcycle taxi] and headed to the passport office to pick up Viola's passport.

I was quite nervous walking into the passport office as it was already 3:00. We didn't have much time to make it to the Embassy to keep our appointment. After being [only slightly] pushy with the man standing in front of the passport office, I got in to see the lady who had Viola's passport. She ordered me to wait and within 5 minutes, I was signing the release for Viola's passport! All in all, I don't think I was there longer than 20 minutes, which is pretty much unheard of for us!

We went to the Embassy and everything looked good! We got out right as they were closing and headed home in high spirits :)

So, we've managed to maintain our appointment at the Embassy on Monday. The last detail we're ironing out is the transportation for the grandparents for the Visa interviews. It isn't a requirement to have them at the interview, but at this point, we're taking no chances.

Its been another whirlwind of a week, but theoretically, the tough stuff is over. Our flight leaves on Thursday night at 11:59 p.m. So, hopefully, we'll be in familiar territory on Friday!

Derek, Kristen, Viola, and Gideon