Trip #1, Part 4

My 4th day in country started out with a glimpse of Mt. Ararat from my apartment window. Even the small glimpse that I was able to see was breathtaking. The majesty of that mountain... I was in awe.

That morning I met with our lawyer for the first time. He is a super nice man and full of compassion for the children. He will be working to expedite our case along with the cases of 2 other families whose children really need to be home asap.  Let's hope it works and that all of our children get to come home early!

After the meeting I went to the orphanage. Callie was already with Chance in his play room. When I came into the room she went over and told him that Mama was here and tried to pick him up to bring him to me. Such a sweet girl and helper!  I love her heart. I fed Chance breakfast and then played with the children (Chance, Callie and the babies) for a while. Callie is seriously so much like a typical pre-teen at times. I let her play with my phone (I don't get internet there and it won't send messages/make calls) and she takes pictures, videos and looks at the pictures and videos without needing help. She remembers what is on the phone and will pull up the videos she wants to watch.

Callie had a musical toy that morning and she was pretending it was a cell phone. She was speaking her native tongue and the translator was telling me what she was saying. Basically Callie was pretending to talk to her Papa and told him that Chance, Mama and her were going to go home soon. She said we would take a car home. Oh how I wish it were that easy!

I  was able to eat lunch with Callie at the orphanage that day. She seemed to enjoy eating with me, and watches me very closely. Callie and Chance can both eat a lot! After lunch Callie helped clear the table. She likes to help! During lunch Chance went down for his nap as he became cranky smile emoticon

After our lunch, Callie and I played some more. Then the head Sister came in to talk to me. We had fantastic discussions about adoption and about some of the other children. Then she asked me if I would like to take Callie out of the orphanage for the afternoon. So Callie got to come out with me! I wanted to get some pictures developed and give them to her, so my translator took us first to get that done. Poor Callie thought she was going back to the doctors. She was hesitant to go in the building but she was a trooper! (All day today she kept showing me her arm where they drew blood the day before). After dropping off the photo order we decided to go to Crumbs, a cute little non-smoking restaurant that has free WiFi to see if we could Skype with Jason if he was up. Sure enough Jason answered and Callie was able to talk to her Papa. It was so cute getting to watch the two of them interact. It was not easy to hear but we got the hang of it. Callie kept asking Jason how he was and then wanted to see the dog. They chatted for a while and then when our drinks came she said "finished" and we said good bye to Jason. It was a blessing to get to Sype with him and to see the two of them interact!

After we left Crumbs, we picked up the photos and went back to the orphanage. Any time we go out or come back into the orphanage now, Callie has to show me the dog that lives down the street. She REALLLY likes dogs. That was all she talked about most of the day, dogs! I also found out that when she comes out of her shell that she is quite the chatter box. Her native language skills are still better than her English so the translator had her work cut out for her. smile emoticon

Back at the orphanage we had a birthday party for one of the children. We had cake and soda. Callie knows what Coca Cola is! After the party, we played upstairs with the older children until I had to go. We brought Chance up with us. He was full of smiles and giggles. His laugh is seriously infectious and I adore his smile. I think Callie has already taken on her role as a big sister, she is so sweet to him and tries to be helpful. I can't wait until these two are home!

After the visits, the other adoptive mom and I decided to walk around the city to find a place to have dinner. We had a really nice walk, and it was beautiful outside. On the walk we saw some street performers doing what looked like interpretive Native American dancing (apparently it was Native Ecuadorian), I thought it was odd to see in Europe but was beautiful. The city at street level is beautiful, however when you look at it from above (from the apartment balcony) you see how many crumbling buildings there are. It is such a unique place full of new and old construction. According to one of our translators, many natives do not like the new construction because they are used to buildings being only 5-6 stories tall and most of the new ones are taller.

The other mom and I did a big loop and ended up eating at a KFC tongue emoticon It was actually pretty good.  

That was such a good day, the highlight of course was getting to Skype with Jason.  The next day I would have to take Callie back to her orphanage which was a 2 hour drive.  More on that later...

View of the city from my window

Early morning view of Mt. Ararat from my window.

Closer view of Mt. Ararat (in the background)