Day Twelve - Thursday, October 4

It's been so long since I last posted that I hardly remember where I left off. It's been a busy week or so.

The morning of October 4 would prove to be our last morning in Ghana. We were up early and checked departing flights hoping that we could make a change and head home tonight. We found a flight leaving at 9 p.m. but didn't make any changes since we needed to wait and see what would happen at the embassy. We took a walk down to Shiashie Road to try and find some fried plantains. We were unsuccessful but visited a little bakery just to have a look around and generally checked out the neighborhood one last time.

Accra is such a place of contrast. On each side of the street were the equivalent of what we would call rain gutters. The difference was that these gutters were 18 inches deep and smelled REALLY bad. Merchants had shops constructed very near to the street and many had laid boards down over the gutters to make it easier for customers to cross. We kept stepping over the boards anyway for fear that one might break under our weight and we'd end up standing ankle deep in something gross. Stores sold basic provisions and it appeared that people lived just behind the shops in small houses made of a variety of materials. Then, in the middle of all that, you'd see a high rise office building with an interesting architectural design and lots of reflecting glass. It seemed completely out of place. It was like that all over the city. Earlier in the week I had seen a man in a business suit walking along a dirt path toward his home in a neighborhood of mud-walled houses.

We went to a grocery store this morning! We passed it in various taxis and knew what it was but we didn't expect it to be as modern as it was. It was like shopping at Giant Eagle. We stocked up on a few things to take home to the kids and some provisions for the plane.

Anyone reading this who is in the midst of adopting from Ghana may find it interesting that we took three versions of the i-600 to the embassy meeting. When we had visited the embassy the previous day, the DHS officer had said that there was an inaccuracy on the I-600 with regard to Hugo's current name. When we got back to the hotel, we realized that we didn't know whether she meant his name before or after we adopted him. So we printed two more copies with adjustments made to a few spots on the document and tried to cover every possible scenario. We had to find a computer at the hotel to do the printing, which was an adventure in itself.

Boat arrived at 11:30 and we looked over the paperwork. For the first time, we saw the adoption decree stating that we had adopted him in Cape Coast the previous week. It was a great moment and made everything seem very official. It was humbling to think of all the work Boat had done to get this one piece of important paperwork. We checked out of the hotel and arrived at the embassy at 1:15 for a 2:00 appointment. We went through all the security checkpoints from the day before and most of the people recognized us. We were pretty easy to spot. We met the same lady as the day before and this time had all the paperwork she needed (we let her pick which I-600 she wanted to keep). We begged her to have the process completed by Christmas but she made no promises.

With the embassy stuff completed, I made the phone call to the airlines and secured the tickets for a flight out that night. We'd be flying from Accra to Frankfort, Germany to Newrak, NJ to Pittsburgh. I explained our situation to the attendant and they waived the change fees.

There was one last thing we did before we left Ghana and it resulted in some serious regret. At the time, it seemed like we were making the right decisions but now we wish we had done things differently. You may remember that not only is Hugo in Ghana, but we have also sponsored a child through Compassion International who lives somewhere in southern Ghana. We contacted Compassion before out trip and they were trying to work out a way for us to meet him while we were in the country. The plan was to contact the field office when we arrived and they would fill us in on the plan. We spent the first several days meetin Hugo and dealing with the logistics of the adoption. Then, when we were at the orphanage, we had no internet and couldn't get their contact info. In Accra, we were unsure of our embassy date and then had to reschedule it. All told, our schedule was anything but predictable so we didn't get in touch with the field office and instead just decided to swing by and drop off a gift for him.

When we arrived at the office (which was really hard to find), we met a nice young man named Daniel who informed us that the family had been notified and they were hoping to meet us the next day. We had already made changes to our flight itinerary so we declined and left the present. We assured them that when we came back, we would try again. It was a missed opportunity and I really hope that we are blessed with a do over. That would be an amazing meeting.

We had dinner with Boat, picked up our luggage from the hotel (they held it for us while we went to the embassy) and headed for the airport. Boat managed to get past security by pretending to carry our luggage for us. It was hilarious. Someone tried to stop him but he just kept moving and made his way in. We checked in and said our goodbyes to Boat. He did a great job for us and we were thankful to have him. I'll be looking forward to seeing him again.

We settled into the seats at our gate and waited to board. What a trip this had been ! Even now, as I think about it, I feel like I'm seeing scenes from a movie rather than remembering something that we actually did. It was such a mix of difficulty and blessing (and sometimes the difficulty was the blessing) that we weren't sure how to feel. But now, several weeks removed, I'm looking forward to going back.