Delayed

Our flight from Colombia was delayed. Not the airplane. Just OUR flight. When we went through immigration they wouldn't allow us through with Ana. Yeah. Apparently, the States and Colombia do not share reciprocity of laws--so our adoption in the United States of Ana has effectively never happened in Colombia. D.A.S. (the Department of Security--basically the equivelent of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security) informed us that we would have to get an S4, basically verification by the Supreme Court here that the adoption was actually legal and they said it should take 2 days. So after spending an hour or so waiting for our baggage to be returned, which luckily it was, we were back at Leo's Uncle Omar's house. This was on Sunday so there wasn't much we could do the rest of the day.

The next day Leo called the Supreme Court and they told him and S4 had to be filed by a lawyer and would take 1 year. So then we took the kids to his Aunt Claudia's and following his Uncle Eduardo's advice we went here. The US embassy. Both Leo and I were laughing because we felt it should be like in a movie, running for the gates of the embassy. It wasn't nearly that exciting. However, the lady that helped us was from Mt. Prospect, where we used to live in Illinois. Ironic, eh? She was really nice, and confirmed what DAS had told us. She suggested we get the court adoption order apostille (a way to have legal documents mutually recognized by other countries) and a copy of Ana's foreign born birth certificate (this would be her new birth certificate with our names on it as her parents) and then try to leave with that. We had had her Colombian passport and court adoption order. Or try to get the notary here to change her birth certificate. She even called Vital Records for us in Illinois to see when her birth certificate would be mailed since it was already in process. Amazingly enough it had been mailed to our adoption lawyer, Sheila, last Thursday, and so should have arrived today or by tomorrow. This would all supposedly take 1 week. So then we decided to confirm what she had told us here. At the DAS building in Bogotá. Think of it as the Pentagon in the United States. This is the same building back in 1989 when it was bombed by some revolutionary forces. You can't drive cars down the streets by it anymore--it was a car bomb. Anyway, we sat just inside the entrance and they had some one come down and talk to us. The guy told us that everything the embassy had said was wrong and that none of that would verify the adoption by Colombian law because there isn't reciprocity and that we needed to file an S4. So then we caught a bus to here. Well near there. Actually, two or three blocks down the street that you can see in the picture on the right-hand side. We were lucky again that we caught Ramiro, a lawyer that had helped us with the adoption in Illinios, just before he left for a hearing. He told us to come back in an hour and half. So we went here.The campus of the Universidad de los Andes, where we ate pizza at the place Leo ate at almost every day when he went there for one semester. It wasn't the greatest (which Leo had said before we went) but it certainly was huge pieces and filling and inexpensive, which was what we wanted. Then we hiked back down to the lawyer's office. When we told him what was going on, he looked like he wanted to beat his head against the desk. He said first off that we were in a world of hurt and why did we not call him before we came?!?! (In my defence, I had looked up what we would need to enter and leave Colombia and the US, and the Colombian passport and Ana's permanent resident card and the adoption court order was supposedly enough.) He said that filing an S4 would be the worst thing we could do and it would probably take 2 years. He suggested instead that we get a copy of Ana's foreign born birth certificate and take it to the embassy here and get her US passport. (FYI: By US law, as soon as the adoption of a foreign child is completed that child automatically becomes a US citizen after filing an N-600, and of course, paying a large chunk of money. I had already done that, but we hadn't received a receipt of the filing in time to get her a US passport before we came, nor had we received her new birth certificate.) Then we should have Sheila, our lawyer in Illinois, take another copy of her birth certificate to the Colombian consul in Chicago and have it verified there. Then she could send it to us, and Ramiro would then take that to some ministry here that would translate and apostille it. Then with the passport and apostille we might be able to leave Colombia with Ana. Maybe. This would all probably take 2 weeks. After that if it didn't work, he suggested we file a small claims or something like that against DAS because they should have told us when we entered the country with Ana that we wouldn't be able to leave with her. Sounds a bit iffy to me, but I guess if he thinks it might work. That would take another 2 weeks. Otherwise if that didn't work, he said the best course would be to start from scratch with a new adoption here in Colombia. That would be considerable less time and expense then the S4. But still, upwards 1 year. He also said we need to be really carefully because DAS could charge us with child trafficking. Great. Then he told us we could cross the border into Venezuela or Ecuador and leave no problem but then we really would have a case against us for child trafficking and we would never be able to come back to Colombia. He wasn't suggesting we do that, he was just explaining. Since Ana really IS adopted legally, and we entered legally and we haven't done anything wrong, he suggested we continue that way. Good point. I wasn't really considering anything different.

Well, we decided to try his first suggestion, and Leo flew back to the States to work this morning and I'm here indefinitely with the kids. Leo's uncle and aunt whom we are staying are really nice, but still it's weird to be stuck at someone else's house. They're both gone to work all day, and I can only go so far from the house as Elena can walk, because I don't know the bus system very well, or the money system for that matter. Plus, it's not that safe--a teenager I met today at the park was telling me to be careful, like I didn't know. And cooking is a whole other matter. I hate cooking in other people's kitchens, not to mention all the spices are different (nobody has pepper here), etc. And did I mention I don't really speak Spanish and they definitely don't speak English? But that's enough whining.

The one thing I am worried about is the time factor. I'm not supposed to travel after 7 months pregnant (that's one good thing of not showing--who would guess?) and Leo's quitting his job the end of December to start full time school and there goes our flight benefits. Plus Ana's been out of school for 5 weeks already. So wish us luck that all this goes through quickly, against all Colombian odds.