Yesterday

I slept so hard last night but I woke up feeling exhausted from sleeping! It was a long day yesterday and I needed that rest!!!

So, we got an e-mail from Rome (where they are handling part of this visa process) and they wanted some additional documents. Now, when we ask any questions the answer is ALWAYS "check the website." The website said NOTHING about these docuents. We have met a new friend here at our embassy who used to do visas at his previous embassy and he said he thought it was odd for them to be requesting these documents too because they should be able to process the visas with the documents we have already sent them. At this point, I don't want to argue about it with them because I feel we can get these forms quicker than we can convince them that they don't need them.
So we talked with the orphanage and they said we could have the forms we were requesting but they needed our translated homestudy (which we had sent to the translator's weeks ago because we knew that they needed it).
Our translated homestudy was supposed to be ready to pick up on July 31st. However they called us that day and said that they needed more time (they had it for about 2 weeks already). Josh explained that we coud not progress with leaving the country without it and that we HAD to have it on Monday morning. By the way, the homestudy is 8 pages in English.
So yesterday we decided to get to the translator's office when it opened at 8:30am. Our window is still missing from our car (repair guy makes appointments to meet us but doesn't show up) so we have to have one adult stay with the car and one adult go inside to pick up the translation. This means all kids have to go. We get to the office and had to park about 1/2 block away from the office. We decided JOsh would go in because we needed them to do us a favor and translate the documents we were getting later that day in a day's time. Josh was sweet and went into a store and brought us drinks to stay cool while he went in to the office.
The only way to describe how to get to this office is that you look for this dark, crumbly, marble staircase in between this store and the coffee shop. The stairs pretty much empty into the translator's office. Josh called me a few minutes later because he wasn't sure he was in the right place, etc. More on that in a second.
Meanwhile we are sitting in the car and Andrew asks "Mom, is my mouth bleeding?" I turn around and realize that top, front tooth that has been lose forever is wanting to come out. Now, those who know me well, know that I absolutely can NOT stand loose teeth. I would rather have a child vomit all over me than flick a loose tooth with their tongue in front of me. When I was teaching my students knew not to bother me with their loose teeth. I'd send them to another teacher for help on that! It makes me so nauseous.
Next, Andrew says his tooth is out so I handed him a bottle of water and tell him to put his tooth in the cap. I can't really watch any of this. So, Josh calls and Andrew hands me his bottle of water, it was red from all of the blood. I got sick and told Josh to come back and help me deal with this.
Josh came back and disposed of the red water and I volunteered to go check out the translator's office. I discovered that the office wasn't open yet but on my way back to the car I ran into one of the translators and said hello, etc. Since it was about 8:40am I figured that they must open at 9am. I said "You open at 9am?" His response? "OK!" In his defense, it IS easier to do written translations than to have a conversation in another language.
I went back to the car and explained to Josh that he was in the right place but they weren't open yet. He decided to wait with us and after about 5 minutes I didn't see the translator anymore and suggested that Josh go see if they were open yet. Josh goes in and comes back about 15 minutes later with the translations and said that they would do our other translations in a day since we had to wait for the homestudy. GREAT! :)
So then we head over to the embassy to pick up our rental car so that we could go to Meknes (2 hours away) to get the other documents from the judge there. We get to the embassy and didn't see a rental. Turns out that they couldn't get us one. So we ended up borrowing a car. The only problem with this car was the A/C didn't work once you got to about 40mph. Since we were traveling on the autoroute for the most part, it was a hot trip. The kids were cooperative but by the time we got there at 12:30 they had been in a car/carseat for 4 hours total. We give the orphanage the translation and they tell us that it should be in Arabic and not French. Here, either language is used for official documents so it was a little frustrating to hear this when it was never specified before.
We take the lawyer over to the courthouse and he suggests the kids and I wait in the car. Great, no problem! The courthouse is concrete with no A/C or fans. At one point the girls are hungry and I'm out of water to mix the formula. I text Josh and through my trusty "?" (which is the only thing I can successfully text on this phone) let him know something is up. He returns to the car with drinks and the girls stop screaming their heads off and enjoy their bottle. Andrew and I spent the time singing songs, watching the iPod, playing games on the iPod, switching seats, etc. We were basically locked in an idling car with the A/C on. Josh would text me every once in a while to tell me what was up. At first the judge said no about getting the documents that day. Then he changed his mind. He wanted to homestudy in Arabic but said he'd take the French for now but we still had to get to Arabic to him (It's about $300 for the translation). Then Josh said that the court closed at 3pm but opens at 7:30am so we may have to return the next morning. At this point I'm thinking that I would lose my mind if I had to sit in this car again with these kids. Later Josh texted saying it was all going to happen that day. YAY! So, knowing the courts closed at 3pm I got excited as the clock approached 3pm. 3pm came and went. FInally around 4pm Josh and the lawyer emerged.
We dropped Hamid off, got the last document we needed from his office and arrived at McDonald's at 4:30pm. This was the first time the girls had been out of their carseats! We grabbed a quick bite and headed back to Rabat.
We got home around 8pm and put all of the kids in the bath. We were all quite stinky from sweating all day in the car. It was a long day, but it was nice to get all of the things done that we had hoped to get done.
Today's plan is to get the documents dropped off to the translator, pick them up at 5:30pm, rush over to FedEx and then go out to dinner.
Tomorrow we'll e-mail copies of the documents we sent via FedEx to Rome and hopefully they'll process them ASAP. We'll see.
We are hoping to get out of here this weekend but realistically it will probably be Tuesday, the 12th.
--Rachel