Friday, December 01, 2006
The Embassy Visit
We went to the embassy today. It's in a high rise in another part of Almaty, right next to the elusive Ramstore that we've heard so much about but have not been privileged to visit. For the most part, the appointment went well. I was told that I had done everything right with the paperwork. However, I was not given a visa for Rosa to enter the U.S. because of a combined screw-up on their part, and a broken Internet line at the embassy.
In a nut shell, they were given a hard-to-read copy of Rosa's passport and guessed on her birthdate. It turns out that they guessed wrong, and when they went back to correct it with Washington D.C. via the Internet, they found out that a construction crew had severed the Internet line. They were unsure when it would be back up, but they could not issue the visa until the correct information was in the database in Washington D.C.
This setback is OK with us right now. I'm sure they'll have things fixed by Monday. But there was one guy in the embassy that had a flight early tomorrow morning and his new son didn't have a visa yet. I wonder what he will be doing.
I met a few parents in the embassy whose spouses had already gone home. Amazingly, all of the husbands were completing the adoptions and the wives had gone home. There was one guy with three older children who had been here since September 23rd! And I thought our ordeal was long! He was in limbo because he couldn't pay for the embassy fees for his three children because he planned to use his credit card and, of course, the Internet was down. The last I heard he was trying to find an ATM.
Rosa is doing well. We found a nice cafe where she actually ate her entire dinner. I think we may be coming back to it again.
We went to the embassy today. It's in a high rise in another part of Almaty, right next to the elusive Ramstore that we've heard so much about but have not been privileged to visit. For the most part, the appointment went well. I was told that I had done everything right with the paperwork. However, I was not given a visa for Rosa to enter the U.S. because of a combined screw-up on their part, and a broken Internet line at the embassy.
In a nut shell, they were given a hard-to-read copy of Rosa's passport and guessed on her birthdate. It turns out that they guessed wrong, and when they went back to correct it with Washington D.C. via the Internet, they found out that a construction crew had severed the Internet line. They were unsure when it would be back up, but they could not issue the visa until the correct information was in the database in Washington D.C.
This setback is OK with us right now. I'm sure they'll have things fixed by Monday. But there was one guy in the embassy that had a flight early tomorrow morning and his new son didn't have a visa yet. I wonder what he will be doing.
I met a few parents in the embassy whose spouses had already gone home. Amazingly, all of the husbands were completing the adoptions and the wives had gone home. There was one guy with three older children who had been here since September 23rd! And I thought our ordeal was long! He was in limbo because he couldn't pay for the embassy fees for his three children because he planned to use his credit card and, of course, the Internet was down. The last I heard he was trying to find an ATM.
Rosa is doing well. We found a nice cafe where she actually ate her entire dinner. I think we may be coming back to it again.
# posted by Buck and Jo Ann @ 3:53 AM 
