Beauracracy in Bogota

Monday, 
Sept 19


We left Anapoima (yay!) in a super cool “willy.” 

Seatbelts?  Nope! 

Window glass?  Nope! 

Tailgate?  Yes, but it doesn’t latch.

·      

Best ride in Colombia so far.

Tuesday, Sept 20

•      Officially adopted James.  Four weeks to the day from when we got custody, it was a bit anti-climactic, but a relief all the same. 
• ·     Walked three blocks and got him a new birth certificate. He has gone from being Breyner Rafael Molinares de la Cruz to James Breyner Rafael Kozaczuk.

Adoption Day with the Judge in the back

Father and Son Asleep 
on the Way to Bogota


• ·    Raced up to Bogota (3 hours) and ordered a Colombian passport for James.
• ·     Overnighted Adoption Decree to Barranquilla official for signatures.

These two pictures show the patio and yard
outside our apartment hotel

Wednesday, Sept 21

• ·    Carina spent one hour in non-moving traffic to pick up a passport that was not yet ready.  First time in the history of Colombian passport making, the printing company lost all the files….
• ·     TB test at US embassy approved clinic.

Thursday, Sept 21

Sam Sam’s 10^th Birthday!  To celebrate, we spent the morning at a place called Divercity (Fun-city) which is sort of amazing. There are over 100 tiny businesses as well as a supermarket, police station, hospital, fire station, etc.  

Kids go into business in groups of up to eight, put on uniforms and are led in a make-believe experience for about ten to 25 minutes.  

They might be the cashier while their friends shop at the supermarket, or they might be riding on a tiny firetruck to put out a fire with real water. 

Sam Sam, Lidia, and James helped remove a tumor from a lung, put out a fire, kicked goals, built walls, and made sure a construction site was safe.

Sam Sam celebrated with his siblings and two other siblings heading France on Tuesday.

• Back to passport office.  Wait 45 minutes for passports to arrive on armored vehicle.  Picked up passport.
• Embassy doctor visit. Wait 1 hour to see doctor. James is healthy!  Just needs chicken pox and flu vaccines.
• ICBF Office (Colombian Family Welfare) in hopes of getting the signed off adoption decree.  Waited there for over an hour.  (See below for hairy details.)

Friday, Sept 22

·       

Victor returns to ICBF office in hopes of obtaining illusive adoption decree (again, hairy details below)

·       

Back to clinic for immunizations.  Only 30 minute wait.  Done with clinic.

=====================

Obtaining the final adoption decree, without which we could not get a visa for James, was epic, involving two separate officials in two separate cities being completely unavailable to do their job, which apparently they and only they could do.

The all-important document had to return to Barranquilla, be signed by Barranquilla ICBF Official, and then returned to Bogota and signed by the Colombian National Director of Adoptions. 

Well…..Barranquilla ICBF Official had left her post as of Sept 5, and no one had replaced her as of yet.  The document threatened to sit in some inbox indefinitely whilst our family hung in limbo.  

Fortunately our fighter lawyer took care of that.  She paraded our entire family through the Bogota ICBF office to gain sympathy for our cause.  We met the very women who accepted our dossier and eventually assigned James to our family.  The parade seemed successful. We met the big cheeses of the agency, all who were teary eyed at meeting us, and all of them promised to help us get our needed document.

Waiting at the ICBF office

Finally, Bogota Super-Big-Cheese called Barranquilla lesser-big-cheese, and got him/her to agree to sign the document.  We left happy, knowing it would all get done, and we would receive our document the following day. 

Thursday the illusive document was still not back from Barranquilla. 

Friday, Victor was taken by our lawyer’s assistant, Fernando, back to that same office to pick up the document and sign it.  But it was not ready.  Yes, it had been received back from Barranquilla, but the Bogota-based Colombian-National-Director-of-Adoptions was out sick and had not approved it with his signature.

Inside ICBF Office

Colombia's National Director of Adoptions
 lives in this complex.

Fernando was determined to get this document. Not taking no for an answer, he drove Victor to the Colombian-National-Director-of-Adoptions’ house (fifty minutes away) and handed the document to the housekeeper, waited twenty minutes, and got the paperwork back with the needed signature.  

Praise the Lord for the fighters who are on our side.

=====================

This weekend will be Bogota site-seeing, and Monday is the US embassy visa appointment.

Best news? We purchased our flights home.  A big shout-out to Mary Mele and Kristie Hutchins for providing frequent flyer miles.  

We arrive to Seattle on Thursday at 10am!!

James!

Crazy Boy

Kiddie Pool

James and Sam have Colombia Football shirts

on game day...Colombia vs Venezuela

First Flight...watching another plane unload and refuel

Watch out!

Waiting for Dinner

Beautiful Boy

Swimming at the beach in Santa Marta,

with a little friend we met there

Brothers

Enjoying the Surf

Lidia shows James her new pedicure

More Pool Time

Muscles!

Adoption Day with the Judge in the background

Anapoima "Vacation Home"

Colombia, Day 26

We were told that the wait for court in nearby La Mesa would be quick…perhaps 5 days, perhaps a week.  We are starting our second week here in Anapoima, and we’ve just learned that adoption court will happen next Monday -- which will make our stay a full two weeks. 

Anapoima is at least two hours from Bogota. Right now they are repairing various sections of the road making the hilly, winding trip closer to four hours.  That’s long enough not to return to Bogota for a day trip.  It’s long enough not to go back and get the contact lenses, and the reading and schoolbooks you would have brought with you had you known you’d be staying as long. But, warm weather and too much free time make complaining so easy to do….

We return to Bogota on Monday the 19^th, and we will spend our final week there in pursuit of a Colombian passport with an US adoption visa stamped inside of it.  Then, homeward bound!!

Anapoima has the required statue of some guy, a Catholic church on its corresponding plaza, surrounded by a general store and a few restaurants and banks.

There are nice wide, unobstructed sidewalks (much appreciated by us stroller pushers) used by restaurants for outdoor dining with folks seated at the tables watching the restaurant TV…. Passing by, we’ve gathered that afternoon TV is usually Spanish soap operas, followed by news and then the sports shows start in the evenings. Earlier in the month the sport was soccer. Later everyone watched Colombian's star cyclist, Nairo Quintana, win a huge race in Spain.

Avocados!

Ain’t much to do here.  Fortunately, school has begun (The Kozyshack Academy), so we are able to distract ourselves by looking up causes of the Civil War (Eli Whitney and the cotton gin!), conjugating Spanish verbs (nosotros nadamos), doing art projects (Matisse and colored paper cut-out collages) and solving math problems (subtracting mixed fractions). Even James is learning to write his numbers.

Another big “fortunately” for us is the home we are staying in. After over a week crammed into single hotel rooms, we are now in a full-fledge house, and at significantly less cost. Praise our good God!  

front porch and front door

looking through the front
door to the back patio

Some gecko friends
who live here too.

Yes!  A washing machine!!!!

We spent almost two days looking for a reasonably priced hotel that wasn’t too scary looking (steep stairs, air conditioning, room size…) before we found this place.  Carina noticed a sign at a realtor’s office advertising vacation rentals (rich Bogota families like to vacation in warm Anapoima).  We will spend ten days at this 6 bedroom/7 bath (not kidding) home with a caretaker family who lives on the premises as well.  

The little house behind the pool
is for the caretakers.

All of the upper windows are bedrooms.
Lower left is kitchen and dining room.
Lower right is Living Room.
The hallway connecting rooms is open air.

Lidia observes her kingdom from on high.

It’s cheaper than the only hotel in town that has an elevator for James! The home is three blocks from “Main Street” making walking to the grocery store super easy.  It does not have A/C, but fans are abundant, and there is the pool…

 Living with two young boys is like living with a working ranch dog, -- without plenty of exercise the furniture starts getting torn up…. That’s why a pool is so important.

A fun benefit of our rental house is that the caregivers have an eight-year-old daughter who plays a lot with Lidia, Sam Sam and James.  We love hearing the four of them playing Hide-and-seek, Go Fish, or Old Maid, all in Spanish.  Sam and Lidia are using their Spanish all the time, and learning more and more each day. … Who knew that Old Maid could be such a suspenseful, uproarious game?

James is fitting in so well.  There are certainly some of the expected challenges that come along with trying to add someone new into your family, but overall, he is doing fantastic.  He has begun to use just a few English words. Yesterday we heard him repeat, “Jump in” to Sam Sam at the pool.  Today he asked us what the color green was in English, and later what the English word for “cookie” is.  

We are still amazed at how physically strong this little boy is.  He can’t walk on his thin little legs, but he can do incredible hand stands, and he can hold his own in a race even though he is hand-walking, dragging his legs behind him.  He sometimes chooses to use his legs and his hands to move about.  When he does this, his legs remain unbent, his bottom is in the air, and he supports his weight on his palms and on the calloused-sides of his twisted feet.  At home, we have a wheelchair ready for him, and we can already picture him zooming around the house.

Home….sigh….two weeks to go….

Victor’s best memory from the past week is of our first afternoon in this house. James had slept badly the night before because he’d had frightening nightmares. Tired, that afternoon he had put himself to bed for the first nap he’d taken while living with us. A half hour later we heard him coming down the stairs crying. He’d had another nightmare. Victor picked him up, carried him to the couch and let James curl up in his lap. James slept in Victor’s lap for 30 minutes. That was some good bonding time.  And no recurrences of nightmares either. 

James is getting sweeter daily. Initially, his default response was to be somewhat contrary. Maybe he was mad, more likely he was afraid. He still considers his responses, but they are increasingly ones that are agreeable and trusting. We are daily feeling more and more as an integral family. It is a good feeling.