We’ve made it halfway home! The three of us are now sitting in our hotel in Amsterdam for the next 20 hours or so. We had a slight scare getting checked in because they had to try a few times to add Eden onto Meghan’s ticket. Eventually I think they just brought somebody over that was more competent and she got things done. We also had a scare trying to get into Holland. Apparently Kenyans need a visa to get in…so they wouldn’t let us out of the airport. Luckily theres a few hotels attached to AMS and one had vacancy. (Unfortunately the other room I booked via Priceline.com is non-refundable.)

Eden did very well on the plane. She was cranky for about 10 minutes before her nap, but then settled down and slept for 3 hours! The rest of the time she played with her toys, practiced her standing skills, or showed off for other passengers.

The flight was operated by Kenya Airways. I’ve never flown out of NBO in the morning and so never flown this leg on a KQ plane. The other times I’ve flown on KQ they’ve had amazing service…and this trip was no exception. The food was 100 times better than KLM’s, the attendants were nicer, and the plane was not as crowded. In fact, because the plane was so empty we were able to switch up to the bulkhead seats so Eden had some space to play and a bassinet to sleep in.

I took a quick video of Eden sitting nicely and eating her breakfast on the plane: http://blip.tv/file/2917189.

We had a few hiccups getting the birth certificate and passport, but its all done now! The only step we have left is to get the visitor’s visa for her and then we can fly home!

First, the thorn in our side named Philip was in Ethiopia this week, so our lawyer (Were) was able to “convince” the registrar to let us have Eden’s birth certificate. We took this to the Eldoret passport office but they said that everyone mustmust have two names (her cert only said “Eden”). So we went back to the registrar the next day and had him change it to “Baby Eden”! (all the paperwork so far has said Baby Eden for whatever reason). The Eldoret passport office was happy now and authorized/filled out the rest of the passport papers. However, Kenya is so advanced that they are now printing the pictures right onto the passports and digitizing them for some sort of archiving purposes. This means that there are only 3 places in Kenya that do this: Nairobi, Mombasa, and Kisumu.

Kisumu is about the same size as Eldoret and is a 3 hour ($80) cab ride away. I would have borrowed Sam’s car and driven us there, but not having an international driver’s license made me nervous going longer distances. The chances of hitting a police roadblock out of town is about 1000 times higher than just around Eldoret where I have been driving.

I made one Hail Mary call to the director of the AMPATH drivers to see if anyone was going down near Kisumu on Thursday. Luckily, there was a doctor going there for his weekly visit to an AMPATH clinic thats only 20 mins outside of Kisumu! The benefit (and terrible thing) about going with them was that they were leaving at 5:30 AM! We were lucky because this meant Eden slept for 95% of the trip and that we got there even before they opened. We weren’t lucky because, well, its 5:30 in the morning!!

We sat in the lobby for 45 minutes before they let anyone in. We were the first ones in line and apparently had the magic word: “Mbakaya”. Our Eldoret passport office friend had just txted us to ask for her and she would make our lives easier. Sure enough, she was extremely helpful! She did what seemed like only a cursory look over the papers once she knew that Timothy in Eldoret had done them. She then said, “ok, everything is in order, come back at 3 to pick it up.” That was it, no staying overnight, no begging for faster processing, nothing!

So we toured Kisumu a little bit: rode to the Nakumat Mega (aka Walmart + mall) in a tuktuk, went to the Sunset Hotel to relax for a bit, had lunch with an OpenMRS implementer that I know, then went back to the passport office right at 3 o’clock. Unfortunately it wasn’t ready yet, so we had to wait around for another hour and a half. Unfortunately this squashed the time that we were going to use to go to see the lakeside and the impala park, but we were so happy to have the passport that we didn’t really care!

We are now trying to contact the US embassy to get an expedited visa appointment. However, everyone says that in the past they have just flown to NBO and waited in line (for most of the day) and had success.

YEA!!  Yesterday morning we went to see the magistrate (for the 3rd time this week) and it was a success!  We were granted our travel order and the magistrate decided she needed to sleep on the birth certificate order.  The lawyer went back today and the magistrate said said that we didn’t need a birth certificate to bring Eden home.  She says we just need the travel order and the custody order.  We will go on Monday morning to apply for the passport and then as soon as we get her passport number we will head on to Nairobi for the embassy.  We are very excited that things have gone so well (even though there have been delays it has been nothing compared to what other families have gone through trying to adopt) and we’re also very anxious about our time constraints.  We are scheduled to leave December 1 and it would be best if we could all go at that time.  We appreciate your continued prayers for speedy processing of the paperwork!

Random things that Kenya got right:

• The ATM forces you to take your card back before giving you the cash
• Full service gas stations with zero expectation of tipping
• Grocery store baggers carry bags to your car with zero expectation of a tip
• Relaxed domestic airport security

Annoying things that Kenya needs to work on:

• Well Paved Roads that last more than a few years
• Any kind of traffic laws
• Corrupt police force
• Well documented international adoption procedure with zero expectation of tipping bribing

There was a time not so long ago where I was the popular Wolfe. Every one wanted to talk about me and see pictures of my growing tummy. It seems that was quickly and easily replaced with Eden who is clearly now the most popular Wolfe. I understand and I’m not complaining (too much) but I just thought everyone should know that I am aware that I am not as exciting as I once was. So, for an update on Miss Eden…

It’s hard to believe that she has only been with us a little over two weeks. I think we have all adjusted pretty well. Ben has had a harder time adjusting to the lack of sleep but I had the advantage of getting up every few hours during the night before Eden came because of little Andy anyway. Our daytime routine is pretty settled, but the nights are still a work in progress.

She is changing and growing so fast. She loves to walk behind the little car at the Sally Test Center and she can do that all by herself now. She has learned how to drink out of her sippy cup and pulls herself up on everything. A few days ago she started letting go and standing alone and she is able to do it for a pretty long time now. She gets a big smile on her face and holds her hands up in the air. She is going to be walking in no time. She is very good at waving and waves at everyone (and sometimes no one) and also talks all the time. She likes to end her “sentences” very loudly for emphasis.

The lawyer is filing for an emergency adoption order again hopefully sometime next week. Apparently there is a different judge that he is going to file with and he is feeling optimistic. We have also started the process of getting a birth certificate for her and will hopefully complete that on Monday. Then we can get her passport and then the visa. Keep praying that everything goes well and quickly!

Meghan and I decided to try out a local church here on Sunday. We forgot to arrange going with anyone, so we went to the big church near the hospital that had posted their times out front. They had three services: 8am English, ?? English (Main), and 11:00 Swahili. Since we couldn’t remember the main english service time, we were forced to go to the early service (early service!?! ). I can’t remember the last time I went to an early service in the States, but its probably a lot like this was! This was a big pretty big church (see picture of it on our photos page), but there were maybe only 10 people in there when we sat down!

We had been hoping that the English service would have at least a few white folks: we were right, Meghan and me! So that was a little odd, but we got a program, sat down and waited. The service started on time (not on Kenyan time, ON time!) with about 20 people.

After a few hymns there were about 30 people and it happened. Its what every new church goer dreads: we were called out. The pastor said, “We would like to welcome all of our visitors (bam! 60 eyes on us) to Assembly and we invite them all to stand up (bam! 62 eyes on us as the pastor looks at us). Meghan and I debated for about 2 seconds faking like we were regular attendees, but for some reason I don’t think that would have fooled anyone. So we had to stand, people clapped, the assistant pastor shook our hands, blah blah blah, we’re going to the 9:00 AM service next week!

After church we walked back by the Sally Test center and spent some time with Eden and the other equally cute babies (you wouldn’t know it from how Meghan talks about the STC though!). Meghan had packed a sandwich for herself, but I just bought some corn on the side of the road for 14 cents (picture on photos page). It tasted like a 14 cent piece of corn too! The corn here is more like field corn, not as tender as in the US…and just grilling the corn doesn’t help it any!

That afternoon I went with some of the AMPATH guys to play soccer. Its the first time I can remember playing an outdoor pickup game, on a mostly uncut field, with a bunch of Kenyans, and just some posts for goals! It was quite fun. The altitude (7000 feet) was killing me, but I managed to score. Even though we ended up losing 5-3, I went home satisfied!

For dinner we finally cooked the frozen whole chicken we bought last week. Our Kenyan roommate (Pamela) helped us cut it and then saute/boil it. It turned out to be pretty good, but Meghan was thoroughly grossed out by the whole cleaning, gutting, carving procedure. I’m pretty sure we’ll just be buying the chicken breasts from now on!

I’m up and watching the Colts beat up on the Cardinals at 3:30 AM. Our neighbor has a 42 inch TV and a satellite: this is a very nice taste of home!

Good news! I found a meal that I consider a success! I made Mac and Cheese last night with a slightly varied recipe because we could only find Parmesan cheese in the store, but it was really good. Ben says he liked the soup better, but I know that I am right.

I have been very busy at the Sally Test Center. We go in the morning around 9 and I stay until Ben is done with work at 5. We dance with the kids from 10-11 and 2-3 each day. The rest of the time is spent playing, holding babies and planning lessons and dances. It’s really nice to be busy during the day and to be able to use my skills in a helpful way.

I have already completely fallen in love with one of the abandoned babies (I know, you’re all shocked). Her name is Eden and she is SO cute. They are guessing she’s about 10 months. She was found alone and brought to the hospital at the end of August because she was so malnourished. She is doing really well and is crawling some and will pull herself up on my legs to get me to pick her up. She likes to stick her tongue out at me so that I will stick mine out at her, then she tries to grab my tongue. The Sally Test Center closes at 4 but since Ben doesn’t finish work until 5, I sit in the waiting area in the peds wing and hold her. When the babies leave the STC at 4, they are put two to a “crib” in the wings. I will have to take a picture of the wings. They are shocking. No private rooms just rows of beds. And the cribs are like cages. One of the peds docs told me that during the night (from 4pm-8am) no one holds the babies and they rarely have diaper changes because the nurses are so busy. It’s really sad and when Ben comes and I have to put Eden back in her crib she cries and cries and I want to join her (but I’ve only done it once).

Anyway, I’m trying to come up with a great plan for a way to adopt her before we come home in December. Any great ideas? All suggestions are welcome! Hope you enjoy the new pictures!

Well, we made it to Eldoret! We flew Friday morning (left our hotel at 4:30am) from Cape Town to Johannesburg and then spent about six hours sitting in the NWA lounge in Jo’burg which was really nice. We then flew from Jo’burg to Nairobi and got in on Friday night. We had a bit of a rough night in Nairobi between the phone call at 1am and the strange old man that thought his friends were staying in our room. He rang the doorbell four times between 5 and 6am. Saturday morning was spent in a meeting with some people from CHAK (Christian Hospital Association of Kenya) explaining the benefits of using OpenMRS in their hospitals (I played a vital role in the conversations as you can imagine).

We flew to Eldoret Saturday afternoon and made it to our new “home” in time for dinner. We lucked out and were invited to dinner at the Chinese restaurant in town by Joe Mamlin (the man who runs the program here). Sunday we tried to sleep in but between the rooster crowing from 4am-11am, the dogs barking all night and day and the gates opening and closing that didn’t really happen. We went grocery shopping (an interesting experience) and then I set up our room while Ben worked. The plan was that I would do a lot of cooking here which is why we needed a kitchen but the cooking has not been a huge success. This is mostly because we have no way of measuring anything and we don’t have any basic ingredients that you might find in the US. So far I’ve attempted spaghetti and tomato soup and both were edible but far from delicious.

Ben worked today. He really had it rough, sitting outside on a covered porch enjoying the sunshine and light breeze while “working”. I got up at 7:45 and headed with two other women to the Sally Test Center. We danced ourselves into puddles of sweat with the kids there then walked the 15 minutes back to the IU House where we had lunch then walked the 15 minutes back and spent the afternoon dancing some more. Ben met me at the hospital and we walked another 10 minutes into town to do some more grocery shopping.

My poor little pregnant body is exhausted. My feet and ankles are swollen, I had to hold my hand in the freezer to get my wedding rings off because they were cutting my skin, and my toes look like stuffed sausages. However, I want it noted that at 4 1/2 months pregnant I was leaping and twirling and doing arabesques which impressed everyone that were there. The good news is that we won’t be dancing as much everyday starting next week.

We have been so busy that we haven’t even had time to take any pictures of our house. We will post pictures soon so that you can see where and how we’re living!