The Yancey Family

7/8/14

Soraya picked us up at 9 am to go to the doctor's office for the medical paperwork needed for the visa. For some reason one must have the passport to get the medical paperwork for the visa. Then we went to the ICBF office to get some more paperwork for the visa. As usual we walked through the metal detector then had our bags glanced at. It is strange that the metal detectors always go off but nobody cares. At the ICBF office we met the ICBF director. She was enchanted with Diego, then Diego turned on the charm and was rewarded with candy. She was very nice and thanked us just as much I thanked her. I filled out a survey about the ICBF adoption process. Then Soraya took us to meet the ICBF representative that worked on Diego's case. She had never meet Diego before; she was rewarded with his great charm. The U.S. embassy was next but we were early so we went to "Crepes and Waffles" for lunch, yum.  We walked to the embassy from lunch, cut to the front of the line then entered the visa area of the embassy. It was a strange place. A large open outdoor area mostly covered by sorts of pavilions there were lots of people in mazes and lots of chairs. We walked to the far side of the area from the entrance to window 1. There Soraya picked up a phone that no one answered so we waited then waited some more. After 15 min or so a gentleman came and talked to Soraya over the phone. She gave him lots of papers  then we were told to wait. 20 min later the "interview" started. I picked up the phone at window 2. I was asked where I live, if I knew the child had some medical issues and some other stuff. It took 3 min. It was about 1:30 I was told that the visa printout takes about 2 hours so it should be done before the embassy closes at 4. After another 20 minutes they called us back up to ask us what one of the papers looked like. We showed them; they found it and we went back to waiting. All of the waiting was filled with playing and running and chasing. Diego's favorite activity was chasing the pigeons. There were lots of fat pigeons and upon seeing them take off he would say WOOooW stop dead in his tracks and marvel. His eyes were as big as dinner plates. He made friends with the cleaning ladiess and security ladies who began to help him chase the pigeons. They and he had a ton of fun!!! It was very fun to watch!  Another 20 min and we were holding the visa! I called Crystal as soon I as we got to the car. That night I found a flight home on the 10th.

Diego Playing at the US embassy.