from HOMe to HOME: part Two [of Five]

Visa Day & exploring Accra!

We were up early on Monday to head to the US Embassy for our 730am "appointment". This appointment really just gets you in the door, you still have to wait to be called. We had to arrive early to get passport sized photos taken of Christabel for her visa application. [and we discovered that we needed copies of all the documents we were submitting and only had copies of some]. Amazingly enough, right across from the US Embassy is an Internet Cafe :] I wish we could have taken a photo of it but you are not allowed to take photos of or around the US Embassy so we refrained. The aforementioned Internet Cafe was no more than a small structure covered in tarps with one computer,  a printer/copier & two men. They took Christbel's picture & made the copies we needed. We made sure we had all our documents in order and we headed into the Embassy.

[US Embassy Accra photo found online]

We sat for about an hour before we were called to the window. They asked us for all our documentation, and then sent us to the payment window. We then sat for about a half hour before being called back up to show proof of payment. Then our file was given to the officer working on adoptions. After another half hour we were called to the window, asked a few simple questions, and then we heard the sweetest words of the day..."I will be able to approve her visa today"!

 "I will go before you and will level the mountains; I will break down gates of bronze and cut through bars of iron." Isaiah 45:2

This was the final mountain, the very last iron bar that we had to cut through to bring Christabel HOME! We had watched God move so many mountains during the 16 month adoption process. We had no doubt that God would move this final mountain! We were told that the visa would be printed and ready for pick up on Wednesday. Our flights home were scheduled for Friday, so as long as there were no errors with the visa we were all set!!

We left the Embassy to go celebrate with Kofi & Esther [only our POA was allowed into the Embassy with us]. We called Naa ~ the Director of Bethany Ghana to let her know we passed & we headed back to our hotel to change and then go out for something to eat. We ventured out to another restaurant on the suggestion of some friends we had made at our hotel. Again we were not disappointed. After lunch we headed to the Art Market. There were some items that we wanted to pick up that we had seen during our first trip & the girls had each made a request for some items. The Art Market is a bit overwhelming. Every vendor wants to show you their stall & there are a LOT of them. We had Christabel with us, so that limited the amount of time we had to shop. But we made a few purchased and took photos of a few things to send home for people to make a choice. We planned to return to the Art Market one more time before we headed home on Friday.

We found ourselves with several days to fill with exploring Accra. With the help of our social worker and driver we made a plan for the week. 

Tuesdays adventure was a trip to the ocean. They took us to a beautiful "resort" called Tawala. We invited Esther & Kofi to join us. This was one of my favorite days. We sat for a few hours and asked them lots of questions about Ghana, about their families & where they are from, about different foods and the culture of Ghana. I took Christabel down to the water. She was unimpressed. She did enjoy watching the chickens & food is the way to her heart, so lunch was a highlight as well. We all ate together. Cam tried some traditional Ghanaian dish [I stuck with my usual chicken]. Christabel's plate of food was larger than her...and she ate almost every last bit of it. She had chicken as well. And after she cleaned to bones she would throw them under the table into the sand...no one else seemed concerned with this behavior...so we rolled with it :]

font-family: inherit;">Wednesday was visa pick up day. We had an appointment for pick up at 330pm. Our outing for this day was a trip to Jamestown, which is one of the fishing villages. They wanted to take us at night so we could see the fishing boats headed out to fish for the night. This meant a relaxing day in our neighborhood. After breakfast we headed out for a walk around. We headed up the road to check out the stand where a lady was selling baskets. They were beautiful! I, of course, found one that I had to purchase for Christabel. We walked and explored, said hello to some of the vendors that we had been seeing on our daily outings. We walked past the Embassy & thought we should just head in and see if the visa is ready :] *but there is no "just head into the Embassy"...they get there knickers in a wad if you don't follow their rules, and it was our hope to avoid being detained by any authority be it Ghanaian or American.

We were picked up in time to grab lunch [we enjoyed KFC today], and then we headed back to the Embassy to pick up the visa. We had thought that this would be a quick in & out. That we would be escorted to the "fast lane", grab the visa, make sure it was correct and be on our way. But, again we found ourselves sitting and waiting. People were called up to the window in groups. We knew the Embassy closed at 5pm...and we were starting to think that we might not get called. What we found out was that they call everyone up in alphabetical order. When you last name starts with a V you sometimes wish it was reverse alphabetical...but nonetheless just before 5 we walked out with a perfect visa, and we were on our way to Jamestown.

Jamestown was a real eye opener into how day to day life is for the people in Ghana. We were taken right down into the village and right to the waters edge where we watched the men loading into the boats to head out for a night of fishing. I will let the pictures tell the story...

After we visited the village we stopped at an outdoor restaurant that was literally on the ocean.

We enjoyed our meal while watching the boats & hearing the waves crash into the shore! It was dark by the time we finished eating. We headed back to the Pentagon. Thursday was going to be another big day. We were headed back out to the Bethany office for paperwork & to settle our transportation bill. Then to the FOCOS hospital to see where Christabel had her surgery & get her medical records & finally to HOMe for the final goodbye.

Thursday morning we were brought back out to the Bethany office, then a quick stop at the new mall, [which we were told is the largest mall in West Africa]. We ate lunch & looked around...they have a Payless, which aside from KFC is the only American establishment we saw in Africa. Cam found a little coffee shop [not big coffee drinkers the Ghanaian's]. We then headed toward the FOCOS Hospital. Kofi & Esther surprised us with a stop at another little village on the way. [we were detained by the police...because we are white & white people have money] this was the only time we had to make a little monetary contribution to the CooCoo Police [as Christabel calls them] in order to continue on our way!

Our social worker needed to visit a friend in the this village, so we got to come along :]

We walked back into the village to the home of Esther's friend only to find she had gone into town. So we were unable to visit with her. But it was interesting to see another village.
Coming tomorrow part Three: visiting FOCOS & and Christabel's FOCOS story :]