Heaving a sigh of relief
1 Comments Published by Oh Wayward One on 24 September 2009 at 9/24/2009 03:50:00 pm.
What's that? Could it be?
The sound of JUSTICE?
~sigh~
huge weight off of our shoulders this week.
Harbouring the passportless alien is not just a pain because we are being held hostage in BW, but we also can't get her health insurance, register her for residency here, all sorts of stuff you wouldn't think of. Being identity-less sucks.
But even worse than that was the actual paperwork that hangs in the balance because of the CRAP going on over there in NAM, at one of these government departments that's job is to register adoptions and push the paperwork through so that new birth certificates can be issued (knock on effect: passports can be applied for). Apparently (and this is going to sound too ridiculous to be true, but it is) SOMEONE in one of these departments has a beef with our social worker, so was LITERALLY holding all paperwork associated with adoptions done by her, HOSTAGE. No kidding. Hostage. Going on strike. With OUR paperwork in her hand. Unreal. Kids in the same situation as The Joo, just being punished because some catty woman has a beef with another woman. The worst part? There were a few days during this run where we were literally fearing for our lives. Things got so psycho with this nutjob that she was threatening to take the babies away. I am not kidding. She decided she was PERSONALLY going to overturn all the adoptions. Take all the babies away. Drag people through court. Etc etc etc. Anyone who can imagine what that feels like, I would like to personally buy a good stiff double Bombay gimlet because they're probably shaking like a leaf right now at the thought of that.
Well, let me just say, never mess with a North American, because "Almost Joo"'s new mom (whom I've written about before - The Joo's first babysitter when we were still over there) dragged her ass to court over this whole hostage-taking affair (it was obviously completely illegal and against Magistrate-ordered instructions)... and fair enough, she didn't just live next door and could go home to wait for the red-tape-mobile to run out, like us. Anyway, she won with flying colours. And NOW this cow has been ordered by the (very angry) judge to push every single piece of paper through the wringer within 24 hours. That includes us! YIPPEE!
Just because I'm paranoid like that, I'll just say "more info available if you google" the following
The Namibian, Judge slams o-fishal (but spell that word right).
All I know now though is that tonight we will breathe freely, drink champagne, and start planning our first trip over the border. And not just because it's the Mr.'s birthday. Wow. This has been the hardest couple weeks of my life. Wow.
The sound of JUSTICE?
~sigh~
huge weight off of our shoulders this week.
Harbouring the passportless alien is not just a pain because we are being held hostage in BW, but we also can't get her health insurance, register her for residency here, all sorts of stuff you wouldn't think of. Being identity-less sucks.
But even worse than that was the actual paperwork that hangs in the balance because of the CRAP going on over there in NAM, at one of these government departments that's job is to register adoptions and push the paperwork through so that new birth certificates can be issued (knock on effect: passports can be applied for). Apparently (and this is going to sound too ridiculous to be true, but it is) SOMEONE in one of these departments has a beef with our social worker, so was LITERALLY holding all paperwork associated with adoptions done by her, HOSTAGE. No kidding. Hostage. Going on strike. With OUR paperwork in her hand. Unreal. Kids in the same situation as The Joo, just being punished because some catty woman has a beef with another woman. The worst part? There were a few days during this run where we were literally fearing for our lives. Things got so psycho with this nutjob that she was threatening to take the babies away. I am not kidding. She decided she was PERSONALLY going to overturn all the adoptions. Take all the babies away. Drag people through court. Etc etc etc. Anyone who can imagine what that feels like, I would like to personally buy a good stiff double Bombay gimlet because they're probably shaking like a leaf right now at the thought of that.
Well, let me just say, never mess with a North American, because "Almost Joo"'s new mom (whom I've written about before - The Joo's first babysitter when we were still over there) dragged her ass to court over this whole hostage-taking affair (it was obviously completely illegal and against Magistrate-ordered instructions)... and fair enough, she didn't just live next door and could go home to wait for the red-tape-mobile to run out, like us. Anyway, she won with flying colours. And NOW this cow has been ordered by the (very angry) judge to push every single piece of paper through the wringer within 24 hours. That includes us! YIPPEE!
Just because I'm paranoid like that, I'll just say "more info available if you google" the following
The Namibian, Judge slams o-fishal (but spell that word right).
All I know now though is that tonight we will breathe freely, drink champagne, and start planning our first trip over the border. And not just because it's the Mr.'s birthday. Wow. This has been the hardest couple weeks of my life. Wow.
Labels: Namibia
It's the first "normal" weekend since we've been home, so now I'm experiencing the weekend through a whole new pair of eyes - the kind that has to wake up and make bottles at 7:30 am on a saturday now! Well ok we were doing it in Windhoek too but you come home and something in your subconscious tells you it's all going to be "back to normal", even though you know otherwise.
ANYWAY, now that I'm UP at this ridiculous weekend hour, I realize how much time I have to do stuff.
One thing I just finally got around to was deleting Jeremy's number out of my phone. That was the most horrible, surreal, awful feeling I've had in a long time. While we were away, we got the news that he died from complications with pneumonia and H1N1. It was so tragic. Just before we had left town, we were at a wine tasting and talking to a girl who also knew him who told us that she heard he'd just been admitted to the hospital with pneumonia. That night on the way home then, I called him and left a crazy voicemail message on his phone telling him to get better and joking around about "how dare you get pneumonia and not tell me?!" etc etc. I had been working on some songs that we were going to get together and play soon... (Jeremy is the guitar playing friend of ours who I have played banjo with + his Irish music-playin' buddies). Anyway we got the email while we were away that he died. We missed the memorial service and it's really sad because he was actually supposed to do some ecology work for us on one of our jobs, and now we have to get another ecologist and everything... meaning it won't be me and him and The Mr. going up into the bush to do that site visit we had all been talking about for months... bringing the guitar and banjo and a giant bottle of brandy.... -sigh-
So what do you do when someone dies who you have in your email addresses, cell phone phonebook, etc.? I mean it does no good to just leave them there - nobody is going to answer the phone if you call that number.... so finally this weekend I got around to deleting it and it was just very, very bizarre.
On another macabre note, just before we left Namibia I tracked down the riverbed where The Joo was found... we went and took some photos and figured it was the least we could do, what with her ever having any interest in her past... it's not like we can tell her who her biological parents are or anything, but hey she can at least see where she was born. It was surprisingly NOT in a poor township or anything. It was actually in a somewhat middle-class suburb with a mix of good & bad houses and a large mix of people from working-class whities to black yuppies and a bit of industrial estates. We'll never know exactly what stretch of the river bed the policeman found her in, but we took a bunch of photos of all the different parts of it. I got the biggest "vibe" from this place right here:
(this is the name of the neighbourhood on the "welcome to" sign)Keeping with the macabre... is it wrong to be slightly happy when one of your best friends finds herself single again, because it means she might actually be able to come and visit you?!!??!?! I'm sure the answer is "yes it's wrong" but dammit I just can't help it. I see that God has closed a door and by golly the window that it has opened up is the fact that the Ex is no longer around to put the kibosh on her international galavanting!!! I see all sorts of potential here. Namely the part where I get personal gain from it!!! Oh I can just feel the flames of hell licking my ass for even having this thought but hey. Smoke em if you got em, kids.
OK how did this happen... I made a giant pot of delicious posh coffee and here I sit, typing, and have forgotten all about it. Just goes to show you what happens when you take a sleeper-inner and make 'em wake up at some bloody ridiculous hour of a saturday morning.
Labels: mis amigos, Namibia
It's so bizarre - one part of The Story of The Baby, is that the reason she popped on the scene so fast was because we were "supposed" to have been placed with a pregnant girl who was due to give birth in August. Well, what ended up happening is that the hospital was going to give The Joo the boot, so she needed a family like *yesterday* so that's why we got called in. Well, we always wondered about the "other baby", and what would go down there... I mean we had already gotten mentally kind of attached to the idea of that baby, but obviously we go along with destiny when it pokes you in the face.
Well anyway, in a funky twist of fate, we hear from Social Worker that that baby was born yesterday, (early) and was also a girl (so we would've gotten a girl anyway, much to my bamboozlement)... and... has just been placed with a family from none other than... my own home country!! Holy cow! Talk about a child being destined to be an American!
But the even stranger twist, is that Social Worker phones yesterday to ask about the holiday apartments we're staying in, because Other Baby's new family is coming over this weekend from the States, and will need a place to stay.
SO HOW WEIRD IS THAT!? They're going to be staying like right next door to us... we're going to be right next to our Would-Be daughter!? We even bought a couple clothes & necessities for Other Baby (which S.W. has for her now), because we felt bad that us taking The Joo was kinda leaving the pregnant girl in the lurch when she was totally aware that her baby had been placed with us (obviously only for a couple days, as S.W. was able to find this family for her within a day or two of the baby coming) and we're probably going to be seeing those little onesies walking around (well, being carried around) the hallway, within the next week! Wow. I dunno - maybe it's bizarre for me to even be thinking about it, but it is just kinda freaky. And because it's big life-changing-event stuff, me and The Mr. even kinda get the eebie jeebies when we're tempted to make the obligatory "us-kinda" jokes about baby-swapping, etc. Oh well, it's still just another example of how fate works in big ways and makes funny things happen.
OK we're ready to go home now - here are the movies we've seen since last time I wrote:
How to Go on a Date in Queens (bad)
The Upside of Anger (ok)
Away from Her (eh)
I can't wait to go back to G-city, but will miss all the stuff they have here in Whk, like the awesome coffee bar around the corner, the great restaurants up the street, and the very much more "with it" kinda people here. I am also NOT looking forward to having to go back to the office and what not, but ultimately being reunited with the other puppies & having our own bed back will trump all that stuff. Also, having an oven will be nice... I stupidly bought a frozen pizza for us, without realizing we don't have an oven. Which meant I had to cook it in the microwave which ended up in a floppy wet pizza, which I then tried to dry out by putting *directly on* the electric burner of the stovetop, which didn't necessarily do what I wanted but rather ended up giving me a kitchen full of smoke. Awesome.
Well anyway, in a funky twist of fate, we hear from Social Worker that that baby was born yesterday, (early) and was also a girl (so we would've gotten a girl anyway, much to my bamboozlement)... and... has just been placed with a family from none other than... my own home country!! Holy cow! Talk about a child being destined to be an American!
But the even stranger twist, is that Social Worker phones yesterday to ask about the holiday apartments we're staying in, because Other Baby's new family is coming over this weekend from the States, and will need a place to stay.
SO HOW WEIRD IS THAT!? They're going to be staying like right next door to us... we're going to be right next to our Would-Be daughter!? We even bought a couple clothes & necessities for Other Baby (which S.W. has for her now), because we felt bad that us taking The Joo was kinda leaving the pregnant girl in the lurch when she was totally aware that her baby had been placed with us (obviously only for a couple days, as S.W. was able to find this family for her within a day or two of the baby coming) and we're probably going to be seeing those little onesies walking around (well, being carried around) the hallway, within the next week! Wow. I dunno - maybe it's bizarre for me to even be thinking about it, but it is just kinda freaky. And because it's big life-changing-event stuff, me and The Mr. even kinda get the eebie jeebies when we're tempted to make the obligatory "us-kinda" jokes about baby-swapping, etc. Oh well, it's still just another example of how fate works in big ways and makes funny things happen.
OK we're ready to go home now - here are the movies we've seen since last time I wrote:
How to Go on a Date in Queens (bad)
The Upside of Anger (ok)
Away from Her (eh)
I can't wait to go back to G-city, but will miss all the stuff they have here in Whk, like the awesome coffee bar around the corner, the great restaurants up the street, and the very much more "with it" kinda people here. I am also NOT looking forward to having to go back to the office and what not, but ultimately being reunited with the other puppies & having our own bed back will trump all that stuff. Also, having an oven will be nice... I stupidly bought a frozen pizza for us, without realizing we don't have an oven. Which meant I had to cook it in the microwave which ended up in a floppy wet pizza, which I then tried to dry out by putting *directly on* the electric burner of the stovetop, which didn't necessarily do what I wanted but rather ended up giving me a kitchen full of smoke. Awesome.
Labels: Namibia
Why must internet be such a precious commodity?
1 Comments Published by Oh Wayward One on 22 July 2009 at 7/22/2009 02:52:00 pm.
It is so frustrating -
at first we were working off a pay-as-you-go internet scratch card kind of thingy, and that was slow as molasses going up a hill in January (er, July, here). So we scrapped that idea and went and got this 3G internet dongle, which is speedy gonzales but we are limited to 1G of net time, and then you have to buy a new one. Ugh. And it's 'spensive. of course. AND it keeps breaking up and putting the ixnay on my gtalk and gchat conversations. grrrrrrrrrrr...
We got a 24 hour flu yesterday/day before. It was torture. The kind where you get nausia and it takes every ounce of your human power to even lift your head up. But now we're ok and I'm thinking of going to the gym. I really. love. that. gym.
Our american friends who live here in Windy, D&L, are too funny - they're in the states right now on holiday (naturally! we're in their hometown and they're overseas!) and we were complaining to them over email that it sucks not to know anyone here and have no human contact, and within 24 hours we get emails now from some guy named Steve saying "HEY! It's me, Steve! D&L wrote me and told me to get in touch with you so we can go out! When should we get together for dinner!?" So here we are again, getting "set up" by friends our parents' ages. But apparently D says that Steve is "fascinating"! (I'm laughing at that - I can't wait to see what D's interpretation of someone who is "fascinating" is!) So I guess the 3 of us have a date on Friday!
In the meantime there's an american couple from the DC area staying downstairs from us in these apartments who just moved here & are looking for a house at the moment, so kind of in the same predicament we are. And they have a dog & a baby. Except the baby is not a baby, but rather about 3 yrs old, but ACTS like a baby. So the jury is still out on that social outlet - I watched that child dump a fistfull of sand in her doggy's eyes and the mommy just sighed.
Oh yes, the permanent adoption order was signed in court by the Magistrate yesterday (21/7) so we are now officially, irreversably, and permanently how-you-say, "parentals". Woo hoo! Now we're just waiting on her new birth certificate with our names on it, and then we can apply for her passport and export that baby back to BW! Hot diggity!
at first we were working off a pay-as-you-go internet scratch card kind of thingy, and that was slow as molasses going up a hill in January (er, July, here). So we scrapped that idea and went and got this 3G internet dongle, which is speedy gonzales but we are limited to 1G of net time, and then you have to buy a new one. Ugh. And it's 'spensive. of course. AND it keeps breaking up and putting the ixnay on my gtalk and gchat conversations. grrrrrrrrrrr...
We got a 24 hour flu yesterday/day before. It was torture. The kind where you get nausia and it takes every ounce of your human power to even lift your head up. But now we're ok and I'm thinking of going to the gym. I really. love. that. gym.
Our american friends who live here in Windy, D&L, are too funny - they're in the states right now on holiday (naturally! we're in their hometown and they're overseas!) and we were complaining to them over email that it sucks not to know anyone here and have no human contact, and within 24 hours we get emails now from some guy named Steve saying "HEY! It's me, Steve! D&L wrote me and told me to get in touch with you so we can go out! When should we get together for dinner!?" So here we are again, getting "set up" by friends our parents' ages. But apparently D says that Steve is "fascinating"! (I'm laughing at that - I can't wait to see what D's interpretation of someone who is "fascinating" is!) So I guess the 3 of us have a date on Friday!
In the meantime there's an american couple from the DC area staying downstairs from us in these apartments who just moved here & are looking for a house at the moment, so kind of in the same predicament we are. And they have a dog & a baby. Except the baby is not a baby, but rather about 3 yrs old, but ACTS like a baby. So the jury is still out on that social outlet - I watched that child dump a fistfull of sand in her doggy's eyes and the mommy just sighed.
Oh yes, the permanent adoption order was signed in court by the Magistrate yesterday (21/7) so we are now officially, irreversably, and permanently how-you-say, "parentals". Woo hoo! Now we're just waiting on her new birth certificate with our names on it, and then we can apply for her passport and export that baby back to BW! Hot diggity!
Labels: Namibia
