Today we went for a visit back to the orphanage. We talked about it all day yesterday to prepare Diego and Yerly. They were actually very excited to go. We packed their little backpacks full of suckers and away we went.
Today and tomorrow are teacher break here too…so the kids were all home today. We went into the office. Yerly was very excited to bring Albanano a present. She handed our dove chocolates to all of the adults. She was very proud!
Soon, children started sneaking into the office one by one. All coming to see Diego and Yerly. The happy faces to see their friends turned sad when they met Mike and I. So hard to see their friends get a family, I am sure!!! We took video and lots of pics. Yerly and Diego starting handing out the suckers. They introduced us to all of their friends. After all of the excitement we went in for our meeting. We went back into the small introduction room again…this is where Diego and Yerly both froze for a second. We went in and sat down with our translator, the doctor, the psychologist and the social worker. They all arranged themselves and put on VERY serious faces. For a second we got really worried. In my mind I thought…they are going to tell us something bad….like this adoption was not going to happen. Mike told me later, he thought the same thing. Actually, this was just the Latin way of making things serious and professional.
They asked how the adjustment was going. They asked how the kids were doing and how things had changed in our family. They asked our expectation for the future and talked much about the importance of the family integration process. They then broke the ice and started saying many many nice things. This was the perfect family for Diego and Yerly and we know God has made that clear. They congratulated us and said they are recommending the adoption to the courts.
After the serious meeting, we took a tour of the home. It is so nicely kept. There were workers everywhere. Some attending children. Some doing laundry. Some mopping floors. Some doing office work and others milling around.
We saw the nursery first. BREAK YOUR HEART. It was a room filled with babies around 1 and 2 years old..probably 12 total. This connected to the infant room where there were babies 1- 5 months old. We saw 8 babies but there were 12 beds.
Some of the toddlers came out into the dining room where we were looking at pictures. Yerly immediately picked up one, sweet little thing. Isabella. The ladies said that Yerly was a little momma to Isabella. She loved to take care of her. This was obvious and she carried Isabella around on our tour. Diego RAN into the kitchen. We were told he was very close to one of the cooks. Rocio. She was a very kind older woman, who just loved on Diego.
Yerly was really excited to show us her room. It was a huge room with 15 foot ceilings and huge windows. Half of the room was painted pink and half green. There were 10 bunks in the room for 20 girls. Across the room from her room were the bathrooms. There was a huge basin sink and mirror…. Toilets on the left, showers on the right.
It was interesting to see how Diego and Yerly morphed into “orphans” when we were there. Much to our dismay…Diego brought some toys in his backpack and took them out to show off to all of the boys. When it was time to leave. Diego and Yerly both teasingly said….we need to go, we need to go. We reminded them…no teasing. The other kids just looked sadly as we drove away.
We were invited back tomorrow afternoon for a fiesta. Looking forward to seeing the children again!!
When we got home we were able to skype OUR KIDS AT HOME!! They made it home and were glad to see faces again!!! They are headed back to Reedsburg this afternoon!
Mike wanted to add...for the guys…Diego also still had upset stomach that lead to an interesting discussion on the various colors of “Po Po.” Yerly was particularly descriptive of the many colors that can be seen. I think at last count we were up to 6. This all concluded with an inspection of both D & Y’s “Po Po” color of the afternoon.
Forgot to add some important info from the past week. Bedtime in the "boys room" developed into quite the routine. After saying goodnight to all the lovely ladies the boys head into their own sanctuary of testosterone and gastro expulsions. The room has two twin beds that Dayne quickly came up with the idea to rearrange into one huge romping ring. The boys would wrestle and pillow fight until "Papi" said time for bed. The boys would then parade in sequence in line for "Chin-Chin" (cheen-cheen) and one last face washing to remove the sweat. Once in bed, the adrenalin would not let us fall asleep so one night Papa made a paper airplane. Over the several nights in the Boys Room we experimented with sever types of aircraft and Dayne became quite the aircraft folder. So good in fact, that while on top of “El Pinol” he crafted an airplane and let it fly from the top watching it drift down the 700+ feet until out of sight… It was truly a delight to see the boys bond during that special time…
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