Life has gotten very busy here with preparations for Thanksgiving, so I’m sorry I got behind in this story.
Tuesday morning we were up and about very early again. We just weren’t sleeping well. When we went to Vietnam, we didn’t suffer much jet lag going west. Within a day or two we were on their time, but that wasn’t happening on this trip.
After another good breakfast in the dining room and more wonderful conversation with some of the missionaries staying there, Ramon came to take us to the Inter-Country Adoption Board (ICAB). The ride was much shorter than to Jonalyn’s orphanage and this time we stayed on the city streets. The building was on a corner in a residential area. We were shown inside and sat on an elaborate bench. John, our social worker who handled our case for ICAB, met with us. He asked us about how things were going with Jonalyn so far. He spoke with the other kids some. It wasn’t a long meeting. He did take us for a tour of the facility and we got to see the piles of dossiers that were waiting to be processed. He gave Brian a toy Jeepney and the girls each got a small, square jewlery box. We left a letter for Jonalyn’s birth family there, in case they ever wondered where she was and what happened to her. Michelle was there again, but we didn’t get to see her much. She had a meeting with the board to decide if a Spanish or an Italian couple would be matched with a little boy from Concordia.
While we waited for Ramon to take us home, Jonalyn spotted some chickens in cages next door, so we walked over there. She was quite taken with them and I had to stop her from sticking her finger into the cage. On the way home, Ramon stopped at a roadside stand and bought us some puto. It is a small, sticky steamed rice cake that you dip into sweetened coconut. As we hadn’t signed up for lunch at the guest house, thinking that we would still be at ICAB, we ate them with great relish when we got back to our room. Yummy. We were so thankful to have such a wonderful driver who took pity on us and our financial situation. We had little money and no way of getting more. I went to the office (I think I went on Monday, actually) to put what money we did have away for safe keeping, as well as our passports. The head of the accounting department took care of me and put all of our stuff into their safe. She also told me that we could pay our bill once we got home if we didn’t have enough of money. Doug doesn’t like to be beholden to anyone, so we determined we would try to save our money and pay as much as we could.
We took another family nap that afternoon. We also took Jonalyn for her first swim in the pool. She really liked it. The water was too cold for me, so I didn’t go into the water, but she had a grand time splashing. Brian made a friend there, too, a boy his age. His family had arrived not too long before us as the new managers of the guest house. He was a triplet, but the only boy. His mother was homeschooling them, so he had the afternoon free to play with Brian. I was happy for that. We also spent some time in the lobby. They had a game cabinet and we got some games. The kids and Doug played checkers and dominoes and Jonalyn played with the blocks. Again, we were troubled when all she knew how to do with them was take them out of the box and put them back again. She didn’t know how to build a tower or anything. We began working with her on that right away. I spent some of the time on the computer checking email and updating everyone on how we were doing. I had brought my laptop and they have free wireless internet.
Brian did spend some time in the evening playing outside with his new friend. They had a wonderful time and even though it was dark, I didn’t have a problem with him being out there because the compound was walled and guarded. I felt very safe.
We ate another great dinner and after giving Jonalyn another bath to get the goop out of her hair, we were off to bed again. We couldn’t sleep late but we couldn’t stay up late, either!