Group Visualization

Okay, I have sooo much to write about, but first I have a tremendous request. You know the spoon benders? The idea that if enough people sit around and focus all their energy on something happening, anything can? Even bending a spoon? Well. Right now I need ya'll to focus on tomorrow. I am going to the Ministry to find Veronique. (See I want to say hopefully find Veronique, cause what if she still isn't in?) I need Veronique to review the Dossier and write the letter immediately, tomorrow. Then I need the Minister to be available to sign it so that I can go to the orphanage and be assigned a child. So, can everyone send some very very focused energy seeing this happen like clockwork tomorrow, that Veronique is in and that the Dossier is there and complete and that the letter is written immediately for the Minister to sign. Perhaps I have to wait in the office while they complete this, but it is done tomorrow easily and smoothly.

Now. The rest of the update.

Matthew, it is good to hear your voice. (Everyone elses too. I am literally in tears reading all your words, feeling all your hearts.) But Matthew, I have been feeling Amy all around me. Constantly. She is so happy about what I am doing, you know how happy she would have been for us if she were still alive and now well, she is just that happy. I can feel it. And she roots me on, she is completely sure that I can see this process thru. Heck, I wouldn't be surprised if she already knows which child will be ours and has been watching him/her the entire time. Trace and her have been quite the team and I talk to and listen to them at every step.

How surreal it is to awake to sunlight and music that sounds like an entire congregation of Rwandenese singing like Ladysmith Black Mambazo streaming thru the window panes, the windo ajar and onto my bed. I immediately arose and went outside onto the patio to listen, to try to read my Brain Child magazine. But I couldn't read. All I could do was lift my face to the intense equatorial sun and let the voices and tones fill by core. Ahhhh.. Africa. I spent hours upon hours loading my iPod so as not to become bored during my waiting. But I literally cannot do anything. 5 days I have had of waiting for this Veronique and it is impossible to fill the space. Here the space wants to stand alone and asks only that I stand in it, open. I really can't explain it. But I have tried to keep occupied in many varied situations and it is simply futile. I just keep coming back to the breath of my body and the meditation that is Africa.

Now here this: request number two for one day. Please. Please. Please read or watch something about the genocide in Rwanda. Start with Imaculee's book "Left to Tell" and her story of finding God while hiding in a 3 by 5 bathroom with 7 other women for something like 90 days. She was hunted, but they never discovered her. Or watch Hotel Rwanda even if the idea makes you cringe and you think to yourself "I don't need to see that. Why ruin a perfectly good mood with watching such horrible atrocity?" Or get "Ghosts of Rwanda" from netflix (actually we have a copy you can borrow) which is a Frontline documentary on the genocide and explains the UN's position (standing by unarmed and watching one million Tutsi's be hacked to death in the streets and churches) and gives the story of General Dellaire, an honorable man who's life has become a struggle to survive since his hands were tied in Rwanda.

Last night I had the priviledge (there are very very few cultural events here in Rwanda) of attending a film festival at a fancy restaurant. (See, Diane, I am eating!). We watched "Shake Hands With The Devil" a movie based on the book by the same title written by General Dellaire. Now. Unless you have really studied the genocide and the history leading up to it, you may have a hard time comprehending how moving it is to sit in an open air restaurant overlooking the Kigali city lights with Rwandenese sitting at your sides watching an intense film about evil that destroyed an entire country, one million mothers, babies, fetuses, men, children, grandmothers in one hundred days. The people sitting around me are survivors. They either have to carry guilt or they carry grief. Or both. This land survives too. A land that was quite literally in apocolyptic state in July of 1994, bodies everywhere, buildings bombed and hacked and looted and burned. And now it thrives. Looks just like Vermont but with different trees. Beauty grows from absolute impossible despair. New life blossoms from the cracks where hope still somehow survived.

I think I can relate.

Oh, this baby. I feel it is really close now. Perhaps this week I will meet him. Or her. I am dreaming of it, suckling it. I am feeling my mama instincts kick in. Someday soon I will kick into gear from prodromal to contractions that come closer and closer culminating in birth. At least I won't have to get cut apart this time. One definite benefit of adoption. C-section rate is a lot lower.

I have been very blessed here to have been taken in by a family who lives here working for USAID. They live just around the corner from the hotel and have played hosts to me daily, setting me up with clean water, computer use, skype, food, directions, contacts and family time (they have two adorable girls age 4 and 6). They have invited me to stay starting Friday at the end of this week, and will be good company for me when I have the baby. Their home is luxurious, secure and equipped with groundsmen, cooks and nanny's. That is normal here as the dollar goes very far for and American in Rwanda. And it provides work for some locals who may make 150 a month when the average annual income is 250. For sure it is a different experience of Africa than if I were living in a hut, but considering the circumstances, I think it is keeping me sane.

The orpahange... well, the lawyer (called an associate here) advised me to go through all the necessary steps prior to volunteering at the orphanage. So, I iwll look forward to going and helping after the baby has been assigned.

Okay, over and out. I need to walk home before the monsoon hits. Boy can it rain here.

Love to you all, and thanks for your visualizations!
jaya

So much to say

Okay, I have a good connection now in which to write you. Communication here was extremely frustrating for the first three days, and all my attempts to use either the cell phone, the internet, my vonage phone, all failed. It was due to a combination of obstacles, mainly that I had no money on my cel phone (duh!) and also the fact that constantly the networks are busy here.

I have so many stories already to tell if I had the time, I think when I return to Vermont I shall host a story circle in which we can sit and I can show photos and tell of my travels. You who are far away, maybe we can set up a skype session, lol. (I'm an Oprah wannabe truth be told, and she is doing a classroom every Monday thru skype. It is very cool. )

But first, let me say that reading all your words is enormous. Mom, I cried reading the hymn. Thank you for those words. Only thing better would have been hearing you sing them to me like when I was little. Kmom, you are absolutely right, this is prodromal. And part f me wants to jump ship, abandon myself and the process and fly home. Give in feeling I have not the strength to do this for days and days, and yet here I am with no pitocin and being asked to trust the process. Your words of strength and support, your hands across the water will be what carries me thru. For this, while exciting, is not easy.

Ah, Rwanda. Really, if you ever get the urge to travel this place is it. Not that I should know since all I have to compare it to is Montreal and Disney World's Animal Kingdom, lol. But truly this land is amazing. Rolling green hills, just like Vermont. People with big hearts and smiles. But also, with so much history and heaviness that can be sensed also. The thing I was not prepared for was how young everyone is. I am older than most everyone here, and I think I have only seen about 5 people from the generation ahead of me. I guess it makes sense given that everyone who was here either fled in 1969 or in 1994. Either they fled or they were killed. My lawyer was born in Uganda and moved here later on. The waiter was born here, fled to Congo in 1994 somehow (a very fortunate escape from what I gather) and then came back four months later. The two men I dined with yesterday both came here in 1994 after the war. One was a soldier at age 16 and came back in at the tail end of the genocide from Uganda.

Most happy moments: this morning walking here to use the computer in an American residence I saw a mother and I'd say 2 year old waiting for the bus. She was beautiful and the child well... they are all beautiful to me. As I approached I saw the baby was fishing around down her shirt feeling her breasts. She seemed used to it. Next was the crowd of little kids all dressed alike in blue skirts and blue checked tops who crowded around me on the sidewalk, "Muzungu, muzungo" and they wanted to touch me. I touched them all, the soft almost lamb=like hair on their heads.

Scariest turned funniest moment: Okay, so the American I have had the fortune of using as what she calls my "personal assistant" invited me to a book club. I decided to go. Give it a try. "Can I bring my crocheting?" I ask? Sure she says, no problem. I ask her to elaborate a wee bit on what exactly I could expect and if I would be comfortable there. "It is just a time to go around the circle and each person share what they are reading You don't have to speak if you don't want to." Okay, I think I can handle this. So. We set out after a very funny incident of overpaying the hotel by thousands of rwandanese francs. We are late due to this and anyhow we pull over into the dark by the side of a road. This must be the place I am figuring when something raps on the door. I look out into the darkness but I can't see anyone. Still, Julie opens the door to the knock and me, with my PTSD, am definitely thinking "Oh Shit." I can't see anyone. No one is there. Wait. I do see something. The shiny-ness of a machine gun barrel. Hmmmm. My eyes finally focus probably due to my ears hearing the french coming from is mouth. It is so dark and he is so dark that he was really hard to see. So Julie gets out despite the Machine-gun guy and I follow and he is shouting at her as she walks away. I am a wee bit reluctant to follow her as it is just not instinctual for me to turn my back and walk away from a machine gun guy yelling at me. Still, the guard at the gate says it is okay (I guess he didn't want us leaving the car on the street) and he lets us through. The house looks very official suddenly now that I can focus on something other than my complete panic with the armed men. I ask while we are approaching the house "Um. Where exactly are we?" "Oh, this is the Ambassador's home." Just as she says this I see many people mingling inside the glass wall. "No. No. No." I say, shrinking away. turning back toward the armed men from where I had come. "What do you mean, no?" asks Julie of me just as the ambassador's wife comes to let us in. "I don't mingle," I say as the door opens. Julie hands the dish she has brought throug the door to her and tells her that she has forgotten something at home and will be right back. The woman asks me if I would like to come in. "No. NO NO!!!". Yikes. I run away down the street, past the militia men (not really, but they may as well have been to me) and to the security of Julies home and computer while she mingles and discusses books.

Anyway. There are a few little stories. You may be wondering what the heck is going on with the whole reason I am here: the adoption. Well. We filed the Dossier with the Ministry on Tuesday. Wednesday we were able to get an audience with the Minister herself to explain my case and explain to her the urgency of it all. She was very nice and said she would sign right away for us. However, the woman that needs to prepare the document for her to sign, Veronique, is out "in the field" until Monday. So, I have been killing time until then. Today I think I shall go back again and ask for her. I was told by some locals that the thing to do is spend some time sitting in her office. That way they get to know me as the muzungu who keeps waiting for Veronique. They know i need to see her and I have put in my time. Still, if she is not there today, my plan is to go monday and tell her the Minister is waiting to sign and tell her that I will wait until she has reveiwed the document and prepared the letter. Hopefully that will give me what I need to make the assignment of the child with the orphanage.

So. That is that. I will try to update again soon, but until then, please keep leaving messages. I need all of your voices of reassurance.

Blessings,
Jaya

Here in Kigali

well, i made it. to rwanda that is, but not nearly as far as i need to go with this process. the flights were uneventful- easy really but long and well... just long. i went thru 2 sun ups in less than a day, once in dulles and once over africa. both were amazing and looked exactly the same, but the one over africa was ore brilliant and moving of course just by the nature of it welcoming me to africa. flying over the country was moving beyond words... looking down and seeing desert... red earth with river running thru it at times, populated only by a few sparse villages here and there.

i am finding everything friendly and good. i am lonely and weepy, missing my family so much already.

i will try to update soon. hoping to meet with the minister tomorrow.

xoxoxox
jaya

I'm going in!

Here goes... I'll believe it for real when I see it, but as of right now I have purchased a ticket for Sunday arriving Kigali Monday. I have no time to post any details or feelings right now (gotta go scramble to pack) but I will try to update from overseas.

I'm not sure how internet access is. I'm sure to find a 'puter somewhere though...

Wish me godspeed.

Bodyguard

Well, still no word from the lawyer which has me a wee bit concerned. Anyway. The document looks really good and altho I have no idea what that means for our family in actuality, I feel good about the recommendation from the Embassy. Our aim is to have me leave immediately after Easter. I am calling tomorrow for flights, and it is probable that the wonderful woman who has been leading us thru this whole thing will be going with me.

Someone inquired today whether or not I have a body guard, and while I went laughing my head off in response, the deafening silence clued me into the serious nature of the suggestion. Hmmm... a body guard? I hadn't thought of that.

Well, no I'm not gonna have a body guard. Truth be told I am going to risk it all for this venture. There are times I lie awake in bed wondering if I am walking into my sure demise... searching to my death for a child, forever searching and willing to risk everything for the longing left after Trace died and took with him my womb. Maybe I am crazy, I think. What ever am I doing? Putting everything I already have in harms way in order to get the one thing I cannot have on my own. And maybe it is written that I shall not have anymore children, after all a mother could surely come to that conclusion after a miscarriage, a still birth and the catastrophic rupture of her womb. God is trying to tell me something, I can convince myself... and I am not listening. Maybe I barely escaped death last time and this time "they" will finally get me. Really? Is that the view of God/Goddess/Universe that I have? Some all powerful entity waiting to finally "get" me?

I don't know, that could be true, but I prefer to rest easy in feeling like Trace is at the helm with Spirit... that his coming and going brought everything they needed to into this life, that it was a perfect whole experience for him and me, and that while painful, it set the stage for us to open our home, hearts and beings to this baby with its own very real story.

For this is just the beginning, right? Or the continuation. I often wonder what it will be like for this baby... what its own story is... I dream of his brave mother who will have birthed him, and will have left him- either by the force of death, or by the force of something greater than I can understand- a mother who out of love, or grief, or knowing or fear, will have turned her back to this young being and walk away, a mother who will have given our family the very gift of new life. How was he conceived? How was he nurtured? How was his birth? How many hours, days did he lie still before he was found? How is the pain of this in his heart? Does his mother now drop to her knees in grief scream feeling her now flaccid and empty womb beneath her hand? Did she make a mistake? What will she carry for the rest of her life? And this baby... how did his ancestors survive 14 years ago when one million beautiful babies, children, fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers were hacked to bits and left for the dogs in less than eighty days? This baby is only here because his people survived. And if this baby survived because it was his own parents who did the hacking, than they too are survivors of great grief and guilt and evil.

Maybe we will know the story and maybe we won't. Perhaps we will imagine it, or piece it into being like a quilt sewn square by square, sometimes disjunctive and sparse. Or maybe our child will always wonder where he came from and who let him go and he himself will carry the burden of his story, of his people.

And maybe, just maybe, that is why we go now to Rwanda... after our own losses (which I am not comparing to what happened in the genocide)and traversing the great expansive and barren territory of hell-grief, our own lives becoming post apocalyptic in a way, we can understand a little of the grief carried in the hearts and beings of these people who now have built hope on top of their own pile of bones. They are a people that have bloomed life from a truly apocalyptic state. In just a few days/weeks I will be blessed to set foot on those bones and feel the hope and reconciliation that exists today. There are people who killed building houses for the families of the dead. There are victims visiting the jails and verbally forgiving the killers of their families. This is the place we will be united with our child. This is illustration of hope and healing and the great heart of humanity.

No, no bodyguard. I go in vulnerable and humble, open to feel it all, ready to step into the church where piles of bodies still remain and try to imagine the 100 days of genocide, the stench, the cries, the machetes swinging. Ready to love a hundred babies with everything that I have knowing that soon I will have to walk away while they clutch to my legs, knowing that many of them will never have a family, that many will die of disease. Ready to hear the sounds, smell the smells, see the hearts of a different place on this earth. Ready to see the scars, hear the longing, listen for the joy. Ready to look into the faces and stories of a people that look different than but the same as my own white face. I am ready. I am open. I am un guarded.

Let me meet this child.

One Step Forward Eighty-two Steps Back

As promised, the Embassy delivered and I had the Dossier in hand Tuesday at noon. It looks great and there is the needed letter attached stating the specifics of our case. So, of course, I went and reserved a ticket for Saturday the 15th, arriving the 17th in Kigali.

NOPE! Can't do it. I won't be on the plane... now WE CAN'T FIND THE LAWYER! She is MIA. I need her to pick me up from the airport and take me from there to the Ministry to deliver the paperwork, and without her go-ahead I can't do anything worthwhile other than sight-see. So, I am still grounded. I have no idea where she is or when she will return and now I am facing a holiday (Easter) so travel will most likely be delayed due to that.

I am fugly. Dh asked me what I needed last night (I think he is hoping that something would make it easier to live with me at the moment) and honestly the only thing I need is to get on a plane. No bubble bath is gonna fix this. At least I have an iPod to listen to while I pump every two hours....

UH-huh!

Yup. Got the Dossier, no letter on it. Got in touch with the woman at the Embassy, she was completely embarrassed and promised to send the letter out FedEx this weekend so that I would have it Monday a.m. and suggested that I make travel arrangements.

So, I called the agency and we started the details of travel- how much money to bring, who to tip, how to not get scammed, and blah blah. I was gonna plan travel for Wednesday, get in Thursday and have the lawyer take me to the Ministry to deliver the Dossier Thursday or Friday. The woman from the agency will accompany me if I feel I need her...

So I'm on the phone blathering about the arrangements, doing all last minute details, and flipping thru my paperwork.

Wait a minute. Wait. WAIT. These papers don't look right.

The Dossier in my hands just seems off. There are two documents: One is the original. One is a copy. What distinguishes them apart is that the original is fastened together with a very official (and costly to place) rivet, fastened also with an off-white satin bow. The cover page is on heavy cardstock, US seal and Condoleezza Rice's signature. The rest of the document that follows is mostly on similarly important looking papers all with embossed seals of some sort or another. The copy is just that: A uniformly stark white flimsy paper series paper clipped together complete with yellow post-it titled "copy" in plain blue printing.

Only the copy has Embassy seals on every page (at 30 bucks a pop) with painstaking text hand written next to each one authenticating the copy.

HUH?!?!?! I needed the original official copy to be authenticated. The seals need to be on the original!

So. Off to the Rutland airport I went today. Drove there (well kinda, it took me an hour of circling the surrounding towns to actually find the airport and then when I finally arrived there the kind policeman told me that fedex was actually not there, but on the other side of things...) and got there at 12:03 to find they close at noon. But alas, the lady felt bad for me and let me in and rescued the day. Can you believe that I had to repackage up the Dossier, stick it in a self sealing envelope and send it BACK to the Embassy?

I felt so badly for myself that I went directly to Staples and spent half of what a good Rwandan makes annually on an iPod. Came home and proceeded to download podcasts so that I have something to listen to in Rwanda (if I ever ever ever get there). Put a bunch of my favorite mixes on there too which didn't work out so great as they pop up "Untitled Artist" and "Untitled 1" and so on. So now my iPod looks like this:

Untitled 1
Untitled 1
Untitled 1
Untitled 2
Untitled 2
Untitled 3
Untitled 3
Untitled 3

You get the idea. Which also means that I get a totally different mix when I hit play since all the songs line up as tracks under the artist "Untitled". Sucks. Any pointers? Grr.

One step forward 4 steps back.

Oh, and if you are feeling grumpy that you donated and I bought something as frivolous as a made-in-someplace-else hunk of natural resources, I am too. Only I am really really enjoying it already and the distraction from my self-inflicted waiting-for-our-child misery. Plus I didn't use that money, I used back pay Scott finally got for the last two years of working without a contract! Woo-hoo!

Going nutty,
Jaya

Stringing you along...

The title to this post is written to the tune of That Muppet Movie song, "Movin' Right Along." Please go back and read it with the tune in mind.

I purposely haven't written here in attempt to let you all feel like I feel. In the void of not knowing. Did it work? LOL.

So. I found the Dossier. I finally (after being told "anyday" for 3 or 4 weeks) decided to call the Embassy myself and see where the Dossier was, and lo and behold... drum roll please... it was sitting on a desk there. Complete, mind you, but still sitting on a desk there.

Apparently they understood that they were NOT SUPPOSED to mail it out, and rather that whoever dropped it off (a currier service) would return to pick it up. Anyway, when I found this out I immediately had them fedex it overnight to me. Avoid the middle man, I have decided in all of this.

So yesterday was the day it was really once and for all supposed to arrive. We have decided that once it is in our hands, I will go myself and deliver it to the Ministry in Rwanda rather than having it sent there. So, this was my ticket to go. I thought perhaps I'd leave Sunday or Monday at the latest...

I waited all morning, and it finally arrived around noon on my doorstep. I opened it to find the document all stamped by the embassy and signed by Condaleza Rice (no idea how to spell her name and no desire to google it, sorry). HOWEVER... No letter!

I guess typically it has a cover letter stating that everything is deemed in order and that the family is recommended for adoption. In my case, the woman at the Embassy had supposedly heard the details of our case and was going to write a letter stating those details- that I am lactating and therefore should be matched immediately with the youngest infant possible. No letter!

ARGH!

Yes, I am yelling. I'm pumping as I sit here and type. I am tired of wondering, of waiting, of pumping, of longing, of hoping, of worrying. I just want to go! Anyway. I did call the Embassy back and apparently the woman I need to write the letter is gone from the office until Monday.

Still, I spoke at length with her secretary and she is very patient and sweet. She is supposed to be calling the woman I need the letter from on her cell, asking about it and calling me back by the end of the day. She assured me that the letter was something that would only take moments to write and that it could be here promptly. Who knows in reality what exactly promptly means though.

So you are wondering about me taking this dossier to Rwanda myself, eh? Well, the theory at work is that the squeaky wheel gets oiled. Maybe by me being there I can get things going with my presence alone. HA! Do you think this white woman will get noticed there?

Cross your fingers for me and visualize two weeks. I am in and out. Back to Vermont with a new baby.

If doubt crosses your mind screen, let it out. I need everyone's positive thinking. This can happen! Yes it can. (you can tell I am definitely talking to myself here).

Signing off,
Jaya