Kinshasa Kindness

Kinshasa is very hot. We had a long day of eating way too much food, as we visited relatives and were treated to hospitality like none I’ve ever experienced. We were toured all over the city by a family friend, and I enjoyed watching every minute of the scenery that's so different than what I usually see. It was a busy day, so we were very tired when we were returned back to "home." It was actually refreshing to take a cold shower tonight. I hope the gecko didn’t mind that I invaded its space.

Even on Saturday we've made progress with immigration. We need a Congolese passport in order to have an appointment with the embassy, which was supposed to be “in the works,” but has yet to produce a passport. Today we made headway through another source, and we should have the passport by Monday. We aren’t supposed to get an appointment until Tuesday or Wednesday (the days they work on adoption cases), but we’re going to the embassy on Monday anyway. We’re hoping to at least get a referral to a doctor that the embassy has endorsed. The required medical exam is said to be very thorough, but takes a long time (we heard it’s about 3 days) to get results for HIV testing. We already know she’s negative, but the embassy has to do their own exam, because people aren’t allowed to immigrate if they are HIV+. With all this in mind, please pray that the immigration procedure falls into place, and for the sake of my kids at home (and my sister), that it goes more quickly than usual.

A little about Miriam: Kinshasa is a good "soft landing" for her. It's not exactly like Goma, but it's also not a stark contrast like it will be when we get back to Minnesota.

She’s seems to be very in tune to social cues, watching and following what we and others do in a variety of settings. She loves to write her name, the alphabet and the vowels, combining consonants together with vowels to form words. I’m not sure if she’s reading them yet, but she mimics the sound that letters make as if she’s already been learning the concept. She’s already memorized the names of all of our extended family, and enjoys looking at the photos that we brought. She’s small, but she won’t be for long if she keeps eating as much as she has. She’s eaten more than me at every meal.

Even thought I’m not her mama, she has been very attached to me (and us) today, probably since we’re the only thing that’s familiar. She has been run back and forth all over Kinshasa, meeting scores of people she’s never met, so she stays close to me, often touching me or holding my hand. We had an exhausting day, eating way more than we needed to. She fell asleep on the way back to the place we're staying, and now she’s sound asleep in bed. She didn’t cry for her mama today, but she continues to talk about Goma as home. That will take time.

That’s all for now. Hopefully I can write again tomorrow. By the way, that was my sister who wrote the last two blogs. Our access to the site wasn’t working yesterday, but it seems to be now.