Part 3...

Seeing Wil again after 6 months was exactly the way I had thought it would be. He had no idea who I was, was not very interested in finding out, and was more intrigued with a bag of crackers than with me. Go figure. I knelt down to say hello and then backed off to give him his space. To him I was just another crazy white lady coming to visit the creche. It wasn't more than a few minutes before Marie, the director came out from her office to welcome me. Hugs and kisses. I sat and visited with C and R and their girls while we waited to leave for our appointment at the US embassy. C handed me an envelope. Inside was all of the adoption documents, the passport, and the Canadian Visa. Wow. After all these months of waiting this little envelope held all that I needed to get my son home. Well, almost everything. The US embassy was our final stop and essentially the last barrier to going home.

I found Marie in her office to let her know that we were going to be heading back to the guesthouse to catch our ride to the embassy. She was busy shuffling papers, yelling out instructions to various staff members, and waiting to see the small gathering of parents sitting outside the office, waiting and hoping to be able to leave their children at the O. There was one family sitting there with their 15 month old twin girls. Beautiful little babies. One was in Marie's office crying. Crying for her Mom. She and her sister were malnourished and Marie thought it best to take them right away without having a family already chosen. They needed food and medical care. It doesn't matter how many time you see it, watching a mother leave her child behind because she cannot feed them is heart breaking and reaffirms my opinion that adoption is not the answer to the problem....

It is getting close to 11, which is our appointment time so we head back to Walls and find our ride. Being Canadian we are anxious to be on time but being that we are in Haiti, being on time is not important. The embassy is about 10 minutes from the airport, and Walls is about 10 minutes from the airport so we figure it should take about 20 minutes to get there. I am not sure how long it actually took but it felt way longer than 20 minutes. Maybe it was the million degree heat or the 100% humidity, or the fact that we rode with three sweaty and scared kids in the back of a truck, or maybe because I was on hour 30 of no sleep, but for whatever reason it felt like a very long drive. We arrived at the embassy and after unsticking our thighs from the plastic seat we jumped out of the back of the truck. I should probably be more accurate in my description as that that one makes it seem like we jumped gracefully and athletically from the truck, when in actual fact we all kind of fell out while trying to not moon the ensuing crowd or drop our children.

The first thing you notice when you pull up the US embassy is the people. Throngs of people are just standing there. Some are offering to take pictures for you for what I am assuming are passports or visa applications. Others are selling water or pop, but for the most part they are just hanging out. They have no real reason to be there but heck, they have no real reason to be anywhere. When you approach the embassy you first need to go through a security area which is outside and covered with a tent. There are a couple uniformed guards that are actually working and again more people just sitting there. The guards didn't even question us as to why we were there, simply ushered us through. I am assuming the white skin played a pivotal role in that. You then walk down a paved path to the next office. We showed the guard our children's passports and Canadian Visas and explained why we were there. We were ushered through a metal detector and were asked to turn in any cameras, cell phones, video cameras, pagers, etc...You exit that office and find yourself in another courtyard, nicely landscaped and maintained. The first thing I noticed other than the water fountains (seriously, who is going to drink from those?)was the dozens of people sitting outside under a tented area, envelopes in hand, waiting for what I can assume are visa appointments. Waiting to get out....one more metal detector and we are brought to the front of the line and asked for all of our documents. The entire time we were there and for every different window we had to go to we were brought to the front of the line. It felt strange, to be bumped ahead of all of these people who had been waiting forever simply for the obvious reason, we were white and presumably American. The last window we were instructed to go to was manned by a young white kid, maybe in his early 20's. Not sure what he did to get this job! He asked us a few questions and after a few minutes told us that our Visas would be ready for pick up tomorrow after 10 am. Perfect. We picked up our cameras and phones and headed back out to the front of the embassy.

We borrowed the cell phone of one of the guards and called for our ride, which we were told was coming right away. They should have said "we will be there in Haitian time, so whenever we get around to it..." We parked ourselves under the tent at the front of the embassy. We were hot, sweaty, thirsty, and tired. The kids were either falling asleep, crying, or stunned. C and I sat on the ground with the kids, which seemed ok at first but then some other guard came out and told us in a pretty stern way, to get off the floor. I thought he was joking at first but evidently we needed to get up, not sure why. After another phone call, another vat of sweat, and some more baby tears, our ride arrived. This time we rode in the lap of luxury in the back of the blue caged truck. I felt like a prisoner, but at least there was less risk of flying out when we hit one of the one million potholes on the road.

To say what happened next would be pure speculation because I have no idea what we did. I know we sat, because that is the universal thing to do in Haiti. I know we talked and I know we didn't eat the dinner that was served....Olivia got her hair done and after dinner we went back to the orphanage to see Marie. It was Thursday night and we weren't leaving until Saturday morning but she was leaving the next morning to find a new house for the O and was leaving at 5 am. It was time to say our goodbyes. I didn't think it would be hard. I thought that the sheer relief of the adoption being over would outweigh the emotions of leaving. It was at that moment that I realized how much she really does love these kids. Marie hugged each of them and said something in creole and was trying hard to keep from crying, so was I at that point. I went into Marie's office and she was all teary and I felt awful. She assured me that the best part of her job was seeing these kids go home, to good families, with a new chance at life. But it was still hard.

Then it was over. In a matter of minutes we were walking back over to the guesthouse, taking these kids from everything they have ever known. Regardless of what kind of care they got, it was their normal. The nannies were their family and here we were taking them away.I can remember walking outside those metal clad gates of the orphanage and on to the street and looking at C, we both just kind of sighed. It was done. Over. They were ours.

to be continued....