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Monday, November 14, 2011

Kingston again.....

Ok, I really just need to tell you all the in's and out's since arriving in Kingston yesterday afternoon.  Because I couldn't even begin to make this stuff up. LOL
We arrive here yesterday late afternoon, as checking in I make sure and ask just to make sure that we have a fridge in our room.  She informs me that we do not. I told her that the reason why we chose this hotel was because it had a fridge for our son. She said that I was going to have to rent it. She had our reservation in her hand, and I asked to look at it. Right there in black and white it gave a list of all the amenities that came with our room, and right there it said fridge.  So I pointed it out to her and she said well yes but it really doesn't and you will have to pay $5.00 a day. (yea I know its not much but its the principle) I told her I was not going to pay to rent a fridge and that they were going to put one in my room for no charge. So she went and talked to the supervisor who gave her the ok to give us a fridge. Like, why do we have to go through all this, nothing seems to be easy here in Jamaica.  Our room on the other hand was worth it, and they did bring the fridge right up. Ok, our interview is in the morning at 9:00AM, and I am actually nervous so nervous that I wake up 5 different times during the night.  We are up quite early and I had to have the girls scan some paperwork for me last night and email it to me, so just in case they ask for it I will have it right?  I am working on that and before you know it, its 7:45 . Oh my goodness we have to be downstairs by 8:15 to run off the email the girls sent me. We make it and I go into the business office to run off the email and I can't get on. So I go up to the desk and the same lady tells me that I have to pay for every 15 mins. OK!!!!!! I proceed to tell her that I need to print off a email of some stuff my girls sent me, and she said that its .55 cents a copy. OK!!!!!!  I said WoW, but I have no choice I need this paperwork.  I get on and try to print it off and NOPE its blocked.  So I go talk to the lady and she comes over and tells me that, well this is a public computer that is why its blocking downloads. And I just paid for this????????  So I just got up to leave and she said you can go up to your room and email it to me at the front desk and then I can print it for you. WHAT?????? I tell her, no we do not have any time for that and I walked out.
We get to the Embassy and we have a 9:00 interview right? Which means we don't have to stand in the mile long line of people. The lady says to me, do you have the appointment letter?  I say no, the lady could not seem to get it to work to send to us.  So she said that then she was going to have to go in and check.  But did she???? Nope, she continued to help the mile long line of people. A security guard was nice enough to pull us out of the sun for Dontae's sake. It  may of been only 9:00 but I bet it was over 85 degrees. The lady keeps helping the people in the line and now I am really nervous, because I am thinking that because we are obviously going to be late because of there mistake that they won't take us or something. So we tell the security guard and she goes and re leaves the lady so she can go call.  They let us right in and we have to put everything through the scanner. You are not allowed to have cell phones any electronics or lighters or food. But we have to bring stuff for Dontae so she makes me drink is juice to prove there isn't an explosive or whatever in it.  And then what does she find in the diaper bag? Dontae's cell phone, there is no battery in it things are broke on it, it is obvious that its a phone that is broken and is Cody's toy,(omgosh I just wrote Cody, I mean Dontae's phone) but she says one of us needs to get rid of it.  OMGOSH our car is a ways away, so I told her to just throw it away, and she says she can't I have to remove it. So I open the door and ask the security guard if he will throw the play phone away, and he tells me he can't touch it. I look around for a garbage and see a bucket and ask him if this is a garbage, he tells me nope.  OMGOSH now what am I going to do. There is no nothing around.  All of a sudden I see a man with a broom and dustpan sweeping the street, so I run over and put the phone in his dust pan.  I turned around and walked off so fast, not to give this man a chance to tell me I couldn't do that. So it has to be 9:45 by now and I am sick sick sick. We do get to go to the front of the line though since we have an interview.  He asks me for the appointment letter. WHAT!!!!!!!!LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL I tell him the same thing I told the lady.  He tells us to go have a seat and when he can get a hold of them, he will let us know. Well 15 mins. went by and I went back into where this man was and ask him if he knows anything yet.  He tells me no, so I tell him how nervous I am because the time is so late and all this run around I was scare they wouldn't take us.  He told me not to worry, as long as we are in this building they will take us.  So we sat in those chairs for over a hour. He finally comes and tells us that we need to go around the corner into this other room and wait for Dontae's name to be called.  :-) ok we are off.  We get there and about a half hour later they call his name. When you think interview, you think sit down with at least one other person and go over a file right?  Not in Jamaica nope, you go up to a window. She asks us if we have filled out a certain form that they emailed to us with the appointment letter.  I tell her no, that the lady couldn't get it to work.  She said thats ok, I will give you one.  Then she asked me if I was prepared to pay for the service charge and the visa.  (DUH LADY!!!!! Do they even know why I we are here?) So while Markie fills out the paperwork, I go over to another window to pay.  We were told a thousand times that the service charge was 74.00 and the visa was 300.00.  Nope, it could never be that easy.  It was a total of $404.00. When I go back to give the lady the receipt, she informs me that she had the form Markie was frantically filling out.  Ok then!!!!! Now she tells us to have a seat until they call Dontae's name.  We sit there and sit there , Dontae is starting to act up because he is soo tired.  Mark gets him to sleep and my head keeps dropping because I didn't get any sleep the night before,not to mention Mark had his head in his hands sleeping as well I find out later. At noon, they call us up to a window.  A WINDOW????? The man asks us how we came to adopt Donae.   I tell him and then he calls another man over and talks to him about our case, we couldn't hear anything but we knew it was about us. Now my stomach is really not doing well. He tells us that he needs a certain paper. (yea the paper I was trying to print) and because he doesn't have that paper then we were going to have to get a sponsor in Bellingham. That means a whole bunch of paperwork needs to be filled out by this person and then it needs to be FED X here.  I said WHAT????? Mark says our flight is on Thursday. I told the guy I have it, I just couldn't get it from the hotel computer. I asked him if they had a computer I could use and he could have it right that second.  Well no, stupid question, but I was reaching for anything at that moment.  He said can you come back at 1:30,  YES of course, we will do anything it takes. I continued to tell him that what I was bringing was in the homestudy paperwork and doesn't he have it?  He told me no.  WHAT AGAIN I AM THINKING!!!!!!! I sometimes wonder if ALL these departments even pass anything on to each other.  I asked the man why we were not told to bring this paperwork. And this is what he said to me......"Everything is very well spelled out to you" I wanted to scream bloody murder.... I wanted to yell "THERE HASN'T BEEN ONE THING IN THIS ENTIRE PROCESS THAT HAS BEEN SPELLED OUT"  but you know he has the power to deny us.  So my lips were sealed. We leave and run back to the hotel, check out time was noon and now is after twelve. We get to the desk and they inform me, that we might not be able to stay another night, they need to run it by a supervisor. LOLOLOL and could we come back by 2:30?  WHAT?????? I tell him that we will be at the Embassy and we can't just leave there. As he is trying to locate a supervisor right then and there, I start looking through all my paperwork to see if there was any chance I had it.  OMGOSHHHHHHHHH I had it the entire time in my folder. (what a idiot I am) but at least we had time to run up to the room eat a peanut butter sandwich and feed Dontae. Back in the car, we get in and walk right up to the window.  YEHAW!!!! I hand him the paper, and he tells me this won't work. WHATTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT!!!!!! He had told me earlier that it would. He knew exactly what I was getting. But  I am in no posistion to argue with him. He tells me if I can get an original we could come back the next day. So Mark says, then will we be able to leave with the Visa? The guy says probably not till Wednesday.  Oh man, that is cutting it close. We leave go back to the hotel, I ask the lady if we can now stay two more nights. She says the supervisor won't be in until after 3:00. WHAT? I tell her the man told us to be here before 2:30. Let me just tell you I stood there for 20 mins while they helped every other Tom, Dick and Harry.  I was so so close to going postal and yell "DO YOU PEOPLE THINK I AM HERE ON VACATION?"  Any hoo, finally we got to the room, and frantically trying to get the paper I need emailed to me before tomorrow.  Of which I am waiting for it right now while I am typing this very very long blog.  The only thing that has been good about this day is this video that Markie took of Dontae while I was working.  And this video is why we are  going through all this garbage.  I hope you enjoy it as much as we did.

Blessings

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Oh Nooooo!Praying, Praying, Praying!
Love, Me

Anonymous said...

Adorable!!!!

Pat said...

the dysfunction of Jamaica is unbelievable.

Lynn said...

I can't wait to meet him!

Louann said...

I feel so sorry for you guys! I would have lost it by now. It seems like the Jamaican Gov. would be happy to have someone who cares and would be good to a child. Doesn't make me want to deal with them about an orphanage. I got the paperwork today. Pray for me and I'm praying for all of you.