030808
It’s Saturday…Gen and I along with the other families are not allowed at the orphanage because of International Woman’s Day. That means we are left to our own devices. Fortunately for us, Ben and Karla, our new friends from Missouri, invited all of the families to their place for breakfast.
Ben and Karla prepared a totally kick ass, All American breakfast!! Ben made a very cool baked egg concoction, consisting of hard boiled eggs, cream and butter. Karla whipped up some pancakes and home made blueberry syrup. Yummy!! Unfortunately, Gen burned her hand when she was boring some hot water out of a kettle and the lid fell off. Steam hit the top of her right hand and got her good. Now she’s got a nice blister forming and it should burst any day now…
We went back to the apartment to take a break for a couple of hours. For dinner, we headed to the bowling alley for some beer and pizza. Ben, Karla and Eric bowled while we hung out and watched them. All of us were still pretty bummed out about not being able to see the kids, but were glad that tomorrow we would be with them.
Paka!
030908
Sunday, and finally we get to see the kids. Gen and I hurry downstairs of our apartment and meet our ride. Eric and Kami are just as excited as we are as we head over to the orphanage. I can’t help but have one of those bad feelings about today’s visit, like it isn’t going to happen. I quickly dismiss it as we get out of the car and walk into the orphanage.
We walk down the corridor to each of the baby rooms. Bayanna pokes her head into each one and tells the caretakers that we are here and to bring up the children. We try to enter the playroom and the door is locked. One of the nannies goes up to Bayanna and says something. A heated exchange takes place and I already know what is happening. Apparently, the nanny says that all visits are canceled for the day per the head doctor. Funny, no one mentioned it to us before we got there. Bayanna goes downstairs to look for the head doctor, who of course isn’t there because of the holiday. In the meantime, the nannies bring up the children, while we are still in the corridor outside of the playroom. If this is going to be a short visit, at least Gen and I get to see and hold Gabriel.
Bayanna comes back with the key to the room and explains the situation. It seems that one of the nannies took it upon herself to cancel the visits. Bayanna reminded the nanny that by law, we were allowed to miss two consecutive visits during the appeal period. She also said that she would verify the nanny’s story with the head doctor. Next thing you know, the nanny magically pulled out the key to the room and “allowed” the visit to happen. Par for the course, as things go here. We also found out that the reason we were not to see the children on Friday. The nannies were celebrating the holiday by drinking. Nice…
All of us are relieved that we can stay and be with our children. Gabriel looked a bit peeved when he saw us. Kind of a where have you been look…it was priceless. That lasted only a minute or two. After he got over it, he was back to his normal self. He was bouncing up and down in the walker, dancing up a storm, and was trying to crawl even more then usual.
Someone then mentioned to me that there were vodka bottles in the trash. I found that hard to believe, so I got up to take a look. Sure enough there in the basket were three very empty bottles. I know drinking and driving do not mix, so I assume that this postulate also applies with child care and children? I am very disgusted at this flagrant disregard for our children’s safety. There is a time and place for drinking this vodka and I’m all for that. But it absolutely has no place in the orphanage. I would love to chew someone out, but it would just fall on deaf ears and it may impact the timeframe that we can get Gabriel out of there. For now, I’ll just bite my tongue, and wait till he’s out of there. Ok, I’ll get off of my soap box now…
Paka!
This entry was posted on Sunday, March 9th, 2008 at 11:43 am and is filed under In Country. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
