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