My own heritage tour, sentencia and travel plans

I had the best intentions to update this blog since returning from Barranquilla, but had a crazy week getting all documents ready to travel (more of that later).

Before traveling back home, I wanted to share a little bit regarding my trip to the coast. The idea to go to Barranquilla and El Guamo came to me as I was getting ready to come to Colombia. My dad was born in El Guamo (Bolivar) and later on, at the age of 12, his family moved to Barranquilla. He has only been back to El Guamo twice since he left, the last one more than a decade ago. My dad's entire family lives in Barranquilla.

Papi was very excited.....

Mom, Dad, Santi, Sebastian and I left last monday; my sister Margarita joined us three days later. We all stayed at my cousin Malvin's place in Barranquilla.

Here's Malvin and my mom:

My kids had a great time with Tia Malvin and among other things had a ball taking baths outside in her backyard to cool down.

We stayed there for about three days and did nothing but eat and visit with relatives. My dad also had a chance to visit old friends, including Baudilia who was best friends with Tia Elsa.

We left for El Guamo on Friday. The ride was great and it only took us three hours by car from Barranquilla. Mom, my sister and I had a great deal of anticipation. We were excited to see the little town and to meet some other relatives.

Arriving there was very exciting for me. I had heard stories about El Guamo since I was a little girl. I remember my dad telling us about his home, his father's finca "el Centenario", about the fiestas, etc.

The first sight of El Guamo was therefore emotional for me, I couldn't believe I was there. The town is very small, but I thought it was very cute, very clean and in general very cozy. I stayed at cousin Gabriel's home who turned out to be the nicest men I have ever met.

Dad and Gabriel Serje,

The first afternoon after arriving there we went out for a walk. My dad showed us where his school used to be

and where his house used to be (the original ouse is no longer there)

Probably the most amazing thing that happened is that relatives and friends that heard my dad was in town, started to show up or stop us in the street. Some of of these people had not seen dad in decades and had never met the rest of us, but it did not matter, they all came with smiles and sometimes even with tears of joy. I have never received so many kisses and hugs from complete strangers.....

Some of the places we visited during the weekend were the cemetery where my aunt and grandfather are buried, and went to a relative's finca for a typical meal (Sancocho).

Santi made a great friend: his cousin Jorge Serje who took him horseback riding

My cousin Jorge's wife - Ingid- turned out to be a very nice woman. Both my sister and I enjoyed great conversations with her.

We finished the trip with a fabulous breakfast at Gabriel's house, and enjoyed a nice day in Barranquilla at my cousin Camilo's place by the beach.

Overall, this was an amazing trip. I loved meeting new relatives and loved getting to see El Guamo. I will be coming back..........

I returned to Bogota last tuesday and immediately after getting home from the airport, I met Isabel who took me to Courthouse #18 to sign the adoption decree (Sentencia). It had a typo so we had to wait to get corrected (two hours).

On wednesday I was picked up early in the morning to get a new birth certificate. Sebastian was originally registered at Notaria (notary's office) number 31, which happens to be not too far from home. We arrived there to find the laziest, most rude person ever working at an office like this. She took a good two hours to produce a new birth certificate and had the nerve to tell me I had to wait another two hours to get 10 certified copies. Ohhhhh no! I was NOT going to wait for another two hours. For those of you who have seen me mad, well, let me just say, this lady incurred in some significant wrath.... it worked, I had my copies in less than five minutes. Once my "boiling latin blood" (this is how my husband calls it) settled, I actually sat in silence for a moment and thanked God for this piece of paper I had in my hand: Sebastian's NEW birth certificate stating I AM his mom, and Jeff is his father. Many, many , many tears of joy were shed that very instant. He is OURS now. Forever.

After we received the new birth certificate, we stopped by Los Pisingos to drop a copy of it and I had a chance to take one last look at this wonderful place. After this, we went to get Sebastian a passport. Except for him crying while his photo was being taken, this errand was uneventful.

The embassy doctor saw us later that day, no problems there.

Jeff arrived wednesday night. It was so good to see him! Santi was very excited and woke up in the middle of the night :"papi!!!!!".

On thursday, we went to the US embassy for our appointment to get Sebastian's visa. We had stopped by ICBF earlier for a letter to the embassy, so we had all our documents ready. Our interview went well and I picked up his visa on friday.

So, we are ready to come back home. We are leaving tomorrow (monday) to Atlanta, will spend the night there, and will fly into Grand Rapids on Tuesday. If everything goes well, we will be eating lunch at home on tuesday.

Our last weekend at home was fun, we went out for pizza with our friends the Schrotenboers, spent time with my sister on saturday, and had a fun morning today with Schrotenboers again together with mom and dad.

So this is it for now. I will ign out now, and post once we get to Michigan.

Happiness will never come to those who fail to appreciate what they already have~ Unknown

Sentencia!

Greetings! I´m blogging from lovely Barranquilla, Colombia (heat index: 110 f). Just a quick update to let you know that we heard great news about our case: we received Sentencia!!!! YEAH!!!!

I will be flying back to Bogota tomorrow to start all the paperwork associated with the adoption decree, new birth certificate, passport, etc. We don´t have a date yet to fly back home, but it will probably be within a week or two.

I will post more tomorrow regarding sentencia but also regarding this most incredible trip my kids and I went together with my parents. It was AMAZING.....

Lots of love from el caribe.....

Four Weeks

I wanted to post briefly before we left for our trip to Barranquilla tomorrow.

It's been four weeks since we arrived here, and time has certainly flown by. This last week in particular went by really really fast. We had a very quiet thursday, and spent some time with our friends at Hotel Paris on Friday. I had the chance to go out for dinner with one of my best friends from medical school on Friday night (Miguel Diago) and his wife. It was a strange night to go out in Bogota because it was "dry" night secondary to the congressional elections today. The city was therefore kinda empty and subdued. Nonetheless we had a great time talking about everything under the sun and laughing very very hard, just like we used to when we were medical students. Thank you Migue and Carmen for a wonderful evening.

My cousin Sergio and his wife invited all of us for an asado (bbq) on saturday. They live in La Calera and the view from their house was just amazing. We had great food and Santi had a good time with cousins Sofia and Juliana.

Congressional elections were held today in Colombia. Because of this my parents and I decided to stay in and not venture out for anything other than voting. I am still registered to vote here so I went ahead and voted by Unicentro. I had a 45 minute wait in line before I entered the polling place which was huge with 185 voting stations. For those of you curious about whom I voted for, I will divulge that I voted for the green party candidates for both Senate and Congress.

Our kids are doing great. Sebastian is really thriving every single day: he is sitting without support with more and more stability, he is rolling some, is more social, smiles a lot and is eating real well. I started to introduce some baby food and plain vegetable soup and he loves both. He continues to sleep well through the night, goes to bed between 6:30 and 7:00 pm and wakes up at 6:00 am. I give him a bottle at 10:00 pm or so for which he barely wakes up.

He is just such a sweet little baby..... and he loves his brother, laughs very hard whenever Santi talks to him.

Santi is doing better in terms of meltdowns and acting out. The last week was good and he has "grown" a bit with more mature behavior, almost like catching himself before he is about to do something "bad". I am very proud of him.

On thing I've discovered about Santi during this trip is that he loves to dress up. This week he had a whole thing about dressing up as a waiter

as a naval officer with Abuelito's old navy hat

and as God knows what in here......

He told me he wants to dress up as a whale for Halloween this year. I have my work cut out with that costume.......(suggestions are welcome)

I'll have no internet access during my trip. I will return to Bogota on the 23rd of Mach and update again then.

Happiness is a perfume you cannot pour on others without getting a few drops on yourself~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

Birthday, haircuts and tour of Los Pisingos

It's only been a few days since we returned from our vacation and we have packed quite a bit of activity.

We celebrated Santi's third birthday last saturday. We had our friends from West Michigan join us (Thompsons, Kameraads and Housemans) as well as my cousin Sergio and his family. The kids had a wonderful time playing around and watching movies while the the rest of us had a good time catching up. It was a very nice afternoon. Jeff and I were grateful for our friends as their presence meant the world to us.

Here are some photos of his party:

Blowing up his candles (Photo courtesy of Tammy Houseman)

Jeff returned to Grand Rapids on Sunday morning. It was a sad and subdued morning for all of us here. He will only return once we receive sentencia.

I took the kids for haircuts on monday. Santi needed one badly and I wanted Sebastian to get a trim because his hair was all uneven. Santi's haircut was very nice, but Sebastian ended up "tuzado" (Colombian for completely bald!)

I had my tour of Los Pisingos today. LP is the adoption house that cared for both Santi and Sebastian. We owe them a big deal of gratitude and we will forever be indebted to them for taking such good care of our children and all children that have gone through their doors. This meeting was therefore very important, not only because of what LP means to us, but also because often times this is when you get some additional information about your recently adopted child.

Up until this morning I had no appointment whatsoever, and them at around 9:00 am I received a phone call from Carmen Cruz (Bethany's representative) indicating to me that my appointment was at 2:30 pm. I had made plans to meet with the Thompsons for a trip to the pool, but because of the appointment, we decided to stay close to home and hang around at a closeby park. The plan was to come home and eat lunch together, and then go ahead and go to LP. Well, it did not quite worked like that; when Rachel and I got back from the park at around 11:45 am, I had a message waiting at home that my appointment had been moved to 12:30 pm and that Isabel was going to pick me up at 12:00 noon!! That was 15 minutes away. Needles to say I had to rush to get Santi, Baby and myself ready in a heartbeat. Rachel was here with me and she had to take a cab to return to the hotel without lunch..... I felt sooo bad..... (Rachel I will make that date up to you and your kids!)

Somehow I managed to get everyone ready for pick up. Once we arrived at LP, I met with Andres and then with Carlos. The meeting with Carlos was great; we spend almost 1 1/2 hours together and had the opportunity the go over Sebastian story and to talk about ways to support "Friends of Los Pisingos" which is the charitable arm of the adoption house. There is a lot of work to be done!

I received good news during my meeting regarding our court process: the judge gave his initial approval of the case earlier this week! this does not mean we have sentencia, but is a necessary initial step. After the judge gives this initial approval, the case goes to a "defender of minors", who has also to sign off. Once this happens, the case goes back to the judge, who can then sign the decree (sentencia).

After that we had our tour. Being a weekday, the majority of the older kids were at school and because it was right after lunch time, most of the little kids were taking naps; because of this, the place did not look too crowded, but in reality -as of today- they are housing 143 children ranging in age from 0-12 years old. There are no words of course to describe what it feels to walk through those doors and know what all these children are going through. Some of them are awaiting for forever families, some are there for protection and will return to their birth families, some have been in the foster system for long periods of time...... I have to tell you I made a huge effort to fight tears back the whole time.

For me it was also very emotional to see that two of the workers recognized Santi. One of the ladies came to me and asked me "is he from here?", and I said yes. She asked what his birth name was and recognized the name immediately. Again, my eyes just welled up with tears.

These are some of photos I took today:

This is Andres, the person who runs "Friends of Los Pisingos" and coordinates presentation of the kids (an adoptee himself):

This is where they make the bottles for the babies (300-400 bottles per day)

This is where the babies sleep

Dormitories for little kids:

Library

Dinning room

Well, this is it for now. I will be traveling to Barranquilla with the kids and my parents on Monday. I will try and update once more before we depart.

Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see. ~Mark Twain

Melgar

We are back from Melgar!

We had a wonderful time resting and enjoying 90-100 f degree weather. We arrived monday to a hot and sticky day. The resort has both a hotel with regular rooms and bungalows that come with two bedrooms, kitchen and a living area. We chose to stay at a bungalow and we were assigned one very close to one of the pools. This was the view from our porch:

The resort area was simply beautiful. These are some of the photos Jeff took of the main hotel area:

While most of the time the weather was wonderful we also had one day with torrential rains:

Santi had the most fun during this trip. Nothing tops a pool for a toddler; he played non stop in the water and enjoyed many other activities including a nice playground area near our bungalow. He went to bed exhausted every night after hours at the pool.

Santi continues to struggle with his new role as a brother and had significant acting out during this trip. Sebastian in the other hand did great. He is such a patient little boy. At times he looked like he didn't like the heat and humidity, but he just hung out and kept going. During this trip he reached a major milestone: he is sitting without support! He looks so cute... still a little wobbly but definitively sitting. He loves the praise that we give him when he sits and laughs very hard when I say: "super bien!" He is rolling in bed very well too. He liked the pool, but not as much as Santi.

Jeff and I enjoyed the pool and the kids a lot. Jeff did lots of reading by the pool and I went for a run every morning ( I'll give you all a moment to pick your chins up the floor: yes I am running and I am loving it). My parents also had a great time; my mom took extra time and "effort" to spoil my kids more and more every day.

He had some unusual "visitors" including wondering cattle

a peacock that Santi got to feed

and a duck that came to our bungalow every morning for food

This weekend we will be celebrating Santi's birthday. His actual birthday is not until next sunday, but because Jeff returns to Grand Rapids this weekend we are having a small celebration tomorrow. He is VERY excited about it.

Good luck is another name for tenacity of purpose~ Ralph Waldo Emerson