Update

Well, it's been a while. It feels like ages since I wrote last. I feel ten years older too. But that might be because I spent most of yesterday washing down walls and my back hurts. I know, whine, whine.

Anyway, here's a quick update and then I'll try to post about Colombia.

Ana did not make it out of Colombia with the emergency US passport we bought her. She was all smiles at first because she had wanted to stay with her Aunt Claudia, but by the time Leo left her with our friend on the other side of security, she was in tears. By the time Leo returned back to me, I was in tears too. The whole thing stinks. Basically, because it was a US adoption (Ana had already been a permanent resident) they don't recognize the adoption. Our plan after that was to fly Doris (Ana's birth mother) down to Colombia and Leo and her fly out with Ana. Only we need the birth father, Francisco's, consent for that too....and he's moved and Leo's uncles haven't been able to find him. So we may have to publish in the newspaper a notice to see if he responds. That will take two months. Yeah, two months. I feel sick. I always thought at the very least we'd be able to get Ana home for Christmas. But that's when I thought we had Francisco's address. The US embassy has been extremely helpful, or has at least tried to be. The ambassador has apparently set up (or is trying to) an appointment with ICBF (basically Colombia's CPS) to try to arrange something for us. It's not looking good though because it's Christmas and nobody wants to work, and DAS (Colombia's equivalent to Homeland Security) is under allegations for corruption and is going to be dissolved at any moment and new units made up to replace it. (I guess they're hoping that by separating powers there will be less corruption. I doubt it.) So that's that. At least I really like who Ana is staying with. Leo's Aunt Claudia owns a hair salon on the front of her house so she's home all day with Ana, and her 15 yr. old daughter Alejandra is out of school for summer vacation so she's with Ana all the time too. And Alejandra and Ana get along great.

As for other news, our house we're renting is infested with roaches. It's repulsive. Also, it was disgustedly dirty, even though the property managers sent someone to clean. They painted two rooms and the rest they "spot" painted. Yeah, it was so gross, if we swiped the wall with our rags it would leave a smear of dirt and yuck behind. Two walls are completely rotted away in the bathroom (Leo and I never saw that bathroom before we rented because one of the previous tenants was using it.) One of the walls in the master bedroom is a canvas on a frame stuck up against the frame of the house. The light fixture in the kitchen doesn't work. And Ana's bedroom wall is coming off and her window is broken and is "fixed" with strawberry fabric and duck tape. Etc. Umm, yeah, I have issues with all that. I rather expected them, like most places, to paint, clean, and fix the broken things before we moved in. Basically, we decided to give them this next week to fix a bunch of stuff and fumigate and if they don't have it done or won't, we're going to start looking for a different place. Over Christmas. With all this other stuff with Ana going on. I am tired, that pretty much sums it up. (Oh, and in our defense, it was in the evening and dimly lit when Leo and I walked through it , so a lot we didn't see. I didn't even remember there was a fireplace in the living room, that's how little I remembered. Plus, we were in a rush to find a place, and like I said, we expected them to fix it up some.)

However, Leo, my sister Andrea, and her husband Tim are out there right now, painting the rest of the rooms. And the highlight of the week (besides getting back to the USA and eating my mom's homemade chocolates) was that I picked out three colors for our house. "Toast" in the living room. "Bamboo" in the dining room. And a light blue for the nursery that I forgot the name of. So exciting.

So now consider yourself updated.