July 18

We had another good night. Denver fell asleep by 8:30 pm (I let him sleep on his stomach since he apparently prefers that) and he slept really well. He woke up just after 5:00 am, I rubbed his back for a bit and then he slept more until just before 6:00 am. I didn’t sleep as well – had a hard time getting to sleep.

Checking out pictures of his new siblings. He loved looking at that book.

After breakfast we just hung out for a while and then decided to go see the Cloud 9 mall with some other families. It’s quite a classy mall with a lot of kids stores in it – it even has a Children’s Place. We looked around there for a while and then decided to eat lunch at the Cloud 9 Restaurant which we heard was really good. I didn’t get anything except a drink – nothing really appealed to me and I wasn’t hungry enough to just eat for the sake of eating anyway.

This is outside the Cloud 9 mall. The blue and white vans are taxicabs. There's about a million of them and they're always packed.

I found out that Denver will need a transit visa to get home through Frankfurt. I called Mike to let him know and to see if he could look into it a bit more. I was seriously stressed because what if I don’t get his visa until later in the week. I heard that it takes 3 – 4 days to get a transit visa from the German Embassy – and it’s just one more thing I have to do now before I go home. Mike read online that you don’t need a transit visa if you’re going through Frankfurt if you’re coming from Ethiopia. I find it all very confusing and just want to do the right thing to make sure I get home as fast as I can without any more issues.

Later this afternoon, I was talking to a caseworker from the other Canadian agency that's here and I asked her about a visa for Frankfurt. She said they always get them when they go through Frankfurt and she advised me to do it just to be safe. I asked her how long it takes and so she called over one their Ethiopian agency workers and asked him. He said it takes 24 hours – you can go one day to apply and go pick it up the next day. Phew! That definitely gives me more time just in case I don’t get Denver’s visa on Monday.

Tonight there was a meeting for the adoptive families with the lawyer from BDO – the bankruptcy trustee company for our adoption agency. It was very informative and he said that he’s working hard to make things happen on this end. He said that he thinks there are eight visas coming in the pouch and if they aren’t there, then he will go to Nairobi himself to pick them up. He seems to care about our situation although he doesn’t fully understand the process. He’s here to help out with the situation in Ethiopia. He’s here for a week and he will come by the guest house everyday to update us. He also told us some huge news – an anonymous corporation has donated a sum of money that will be used to get the rest of the babies that my friends Mary Catherine and Kelly – this means that they will get Samuel home – no matter how long it takes. Hopefully he will continue to bring us good news daily.

Sportin' a cool new hat:

I also talked to another man from CBC about my situation. He called my room and got me out of bed. He also wanted to talk to other adoptive parents but I told him I was already in my pj’s and wasn’t about to go traipsing all over the Weygoss to look for others. I think he felt bad for getting me out of bed. I talked to him for a while and answered a lot of his questions.