Saturday, March 13, 2010

Zoe stays with us after a long day in Africa!

So, last night I was so tired after the day that I couldn't write anything. So, I decided to write everything in today. I'm going to show pictures first and then I'll tell you about the long day we had yesterday at the end. Zoe is with us in our hotel and I love it!!! Yesterday I even got her to smile. That was definetly a highlight!! I finally got to dress Zoe today! Here she is in her first little girl outfit from her mama! Doesn't she look beautiful?

Zoe was so good this morning. We spent the morning hanging out in the hotel and just playing. She loves the stacking cups.

Here are some pictures of yesterday. We got her haircut last night. It was really tangled up and very dirty. We thought since she was now with us it would be best to cut her hair and give her a really good bath. They undid her hair and the top part of her hair was about 3 inches of fro. I loved it, however the sides weren't growing so we had to cut the entire thing to very short.

Here she is in her outfit that we brought her home in from the orphanage. Her hair is untangled it is now ready to be cut.

Zoe is almost done with her hair cut. She got so sad. She didn't say anything but at the end I knew it hurt. I saw one little tear come down from her eye. It made my heart break. Her hair was so tangled up and dirty, so it so much better now.

Here is sweet little girl. It was our first night together! She slept the entire night. She is so quiet. She never says a word. However in the middle of the night she did talk in her sleep.

Here is Zoe sucking her thumb last night. Isn't she so cute. I had to get up and take a picture.

Here is where the long day begins. Yesterday we got up early to go to the court house to pick up our approval. We couldn't pick it up yesterday after Court as they had made some mistakes so we had to get it today. We drove to the court house. When we got to the court house we made it just before the judge left. Our lawyer spent about 30 minutes to an hour trying to get him to sign the paper before he left. He signed it. But we couldn't pick it up. We had to drive to another building to pay about $3 for the paperwork. We drove to that building where there was a long line. We somehow got to the front and told them we needed to pay and they told us first we needed to go to the bank and bring the receipt back to that building to get another receipt to take to the court house. So we left the building and went to the bank. Lynn told us that the worst thing to do in Africa is go to the bank. We waited in line over an hour just to pay $3. Then we drove back to the other building. By the time we got there, the line was even bigger. We dropped Lynn off to wait in line for us as we went to go get Zoe from the orphanage. We then met Lynn at the court house. We were gone about an hour before we got to the court house and we still didn't have our paperwork. Finally after waiting a while it was done. Needless to say we didn't get to the Ministy's before lunch.
We decided to have lunch at the Africa Bite. This is such a cute place to eat. I think it is my favorite so far. And the food is really good!!!

After lunch we went to the Ministry's office. We asked them for our travel letter. We need this letter in order to have Zoe spend the night with us and for her to get a passport and be able to leave Rwanda. When we got there she said that the Minister wasn't there. We told her that we would wait. After about 2 hours it was getting close to closing time so I told her we needed this letter so that Zoe could spend the night with us. She said that the minister isn't here to sign that paper. However she said she would see what she could do. She called the nuns at the orphanage and asked them if I brought a letter back signed by the minister stating that we could bring Zoe home this weekend is that ok? They said yes. So she said that the Minister would sign a document for us to have her come home this weekend. In my mind I thought "Didn't you say she wasn't here?" But I wanted Zoe with us this weekend so I didn't do anything. After waiting for another 30 minutes, we actually saw the minister poke her head out of her door. She spoke to her secratary and then went back into her office. We waited an additional 2 hours for her to sign a letter stating that we could take her back with us.
By the way did I mention that every place we waited at didn't have any air conditioning. And it is really warm. We were all drenched in sweat from sitting and waiting all day at different places. Now we have to wait until Monday to get our travel letter.
Finally we took a very tired Zoe back to the orphanage. We gave the letter to the nun as well as went over all of our paperwork. We then received Zoes files. Then we went to the grocery store to get some dinner and of course lots of water after the heat from today!! After that, we cut her hair and gave her a bath and brushed her teeth.
But finally the best part of the day. Zoe got to sleep in between us the entire night. It was splendid. She slept the entire night.
I however, didn't sleep much at night because I couldn't stop staring at her all night long!
Well, I am so tired again today, so I'll tell you more about that tomorrow!!

3 comments:

my4andnomore said...

Sounds like a very trying day. But I am sure when you look into those big beautiful eyes it is all worth the headaches of the day. Good Luck with the rest of the trip. She is so cute in those clothes.

Kim and Steve said...

So can Zoe eat regular food or do you have to feed her special stuff in order for her to get use to eating more often? The other clothes lookes new too so where did Zoe get them if they were not from you (for example the jeans and shoes etc)?

Jennifer Jukanovich said...
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