Well Thursday was "Embassy day." The day we go to the US embassy in Ethiopia and fill out more forms to make the adoption of our children official and approved, in the eyes of our US government. Unlike the embassies of any other country in Addis, the US embassy is an intimidating structure. It is a multi-acre compound on the edge of a hill. The entire complex has been reinforced since 911 and security is tight. No cameras allowed.We arrive in our van and are directed to get out across the street and a fair distance from the main gate. Apparently the high concrete walls surrounding the compound were not secure enough for bomb blasts, so the entire street side perimeter is reinforced by a surrounding of giant shipping containers locked end to end. In one of these is the first security checkpoint.
We submit to a bag search here and are herded into a waiting area between the shipping containers and the outside walls. After a brief wait we are then ushered into a second screening area much like those at the airport where we strip down to minimal clothing and remove of all metallic objects. Clearing this, we enter the insides of the compound only to wait again in a lower staging area. After an hour or more, we are ushered upstairs to 4th waiting area. This is your standard government-issue waiting area. Take a number and wait to be called to the window. Behind plexi-glass will be a civil servant ready to barrage you with questions on the adopting child in question.
Luckily we had a rep from CHSFS (the adoption agency) to help guide us on the questions. When Christy and I are called to the window, we find the civil servant surprisingly ....well....civil. Nicely asking questions like "Where is your child from?" and "When did we receive referral?" Then, things seemed to sour a bit as we got a stumper asked to us of "Was the court approval issued prior to or after we first saw the child?" Stumbling to understand if "seeing" the child meant the referral picture, or was it the actual seeing the child before our eyes at the orphanage, our CHSFS rep stepped in and said "before." The civil servant lady who had cocked her head askew with a stern look, then nodded and wrote obscure text into her ledger. In a few moments she slid a document packet towards us and said "congratulations."
So that was it. We were now official in the eyes of the US gov. We have our boy! Happy, we went down stairs to join the other families in the third staging area.
We waited. and waited. Two diapers later, one of the families comes down rather frantic. The rep is looking a little frazzled as she works to calm the adoptive parents. Apparently, there has been a glitch. Thanks to new law, passed last year by our ever thoughtful government, children from other countries with two living parents cannot be adopted if they are beyond the age of 3. This new rule effected 4 of our adopting families. Everyone's heart lept at the thought that these families had come so far, with so much effort, only to be spurned at the last moment.
Thankfully, another diaper later, a work-around was found. Simply by refilling out the form and checking the box that the children were abandoned, there was a solution. This gray area of interpretation is rather true. These children have been given up to the orphanage. They are no longer the responsibility of their parent, they are wards of the state. By Ethiopian law, they are abandoned.
It was with wary nerves that we left the high security compound of US embassy in Ethiopia.
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