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Originally Posted March 28, 2019
Seriously, hand washing laundry is not much fun. It’s just one of those things we miss about being home…. Other things we miss about being home: Being able to be outside for more than 20 minutes without your throat and lungs burning, being able to drink water out of the tap, being able to just hop in the car and get exactly where you need to get to, and being able to walk down the street and just be anonymous. Oh also, having a cold beer (or a glass of wine for Leah). I could probably go on and on, but that would not be very interesting to you or helpful to me. We’ve been homesick for a while now, some days we’re tolerating it better than others. Unfortunately, we still don’t have firm travel plans home yet. It looks like it could be a few weeks yet, despite our best efforts to speed things up.
How to dry laundry in a hotel room. Don't worry not my underwear, it's just Gaurav's clothes.
Even though it’s been a good trip in many ways, we have had some very hard days. We have had a lot of quality time with Gaurav. Also, we’re sure that the long trip home will be just a bit easier since we’ve had enough time to get to know him, and him to know us. However, it’s been difficult waiting here without much clarity on when we will make it home. It’s been stressful sometimes and boring at other times, overall, it’s a lot of time spent feeling helpless. And we’ve barely begun getting all the things we need before we can travel home. At times we’ve regretted our decision to wait in India while the court process sorts itself out. But there isn’t much we can do at this point, like all good mistakes you just double down and bet things are going to come around.
We were really hoping to have the final signed court order issued by now, unfortunately, that did not happen. After our initial hearing back on March 8 we were told to expect the final order at our next court hearing (3/25). That court hearing came, and went, and now we’re being told the judge will sign on Friday (3/29). We're trying not to hold our breath.
We pushed as hard as we could to get the court process to move faster. Leading up to the hearing we reached out to representative that oversees the orphanages and process in our state hoping to expedite things as much as possible. We feel like we have a pretty good argument to push the process since our adoption agency is closing their India program at the end of this month. We’re not totally helpless at that point, but it would be so, so much better if we can have as much of the paperwork wrapped up before April as possible. We also, offered to appear at the hearing and asked to speak with the judge again, just to see if there was any way to move things along.
Appearing in court went about as well this time for us as last time. We had not had much contact with the orphanage about the details of appearing again. They told us it was not necessary, and for some reason they believed it would annoy the judge. We stopped by the orphanage to discuss with the director and tried to email but didn’t really get any direction from them. Therefore, we elected just to show up at the courthouse and try our luck. We should have not been surprised we would get disappointing news based on how the morning went for us.
We headed off trying to get to court around 11:00 again. We tried to get an auto ride down to the court, but after trying two or three drivers and not having any luck communicating where we were trying to go, we gave up and decided to walk. It’s not a terrible walk, just about 20 minutes, but it was so hot, we were running later than we wanted, and we were already stressed out about the hearing. It wasn’t exactly a nice relaxing stroll.
This is not related to anything, I just really want to buy a truck like this...
We arrived at the courthouse and made our way to the same area where we were back at the beginning of this month for our first hearing. Again, we didn’t really know how the process works, there just seems to be tons of people standing around and they get called into the court room from time to time. The plan was just to wait around at the courthouse and hope we saw someone we recognized from the orphanage (and hope it was one of the ones who spoke English). Maybe it wasn’t a stellar plan, but we aren’t feeling particularly savvy any more so we’re just hoping we can show up at the right place at the right time. Gaurav was a trooper, but you could tell he was hot and hungry, and since he’s a toddler, it’s hard to sit still anyway. We did our best taking turns entertaining him and mixing in some snacks.
Waiting at the courthouse
After waiting about 45 minutes, we gave up and decided to walk over to the orphanage, about 15 minutes away. We made a regrettable decision and followed the directions I picked off Google Maps. It wasn’t that we got lost. I just managed to pick the most sun-baked route, on the busiest road between the court complex and the orphanage. We did get to meet a very interesting character on this walk though. As we’re walking along this super busy road, this guy pulls over on his moped right next to us. He’s wearing a white leisure suit, dark sunglasses, and has a Bluetooth ear piece in. He also had a long black beard and dark hair down to his shoulders. He asked where we were from and he told us he had great friends in Boston and Florida. He looked like he would be the life of the party if it were some time in the late 70’s. People pulling off the street and talking to us or talking to us from a moving motorcycle or moped is not a rare occurrence, so we’ve sort of gotten used to just politely brushing them off. This guy seemed the most eccentric though. Thinking back now, I wish we would run into “Disco Jesus” when we weren’t in such a hurry. I think he could have been very entertaining.
After that brief diversion, in our walk and my story here, we made it to the orphanage. We asked where the director, Dinesh, was so that we could talk about the court appearance. Turns out he had left a little while prior to head over to the courthouse, somehow, we missed him. So back to the streets and into the heat. Fortunately, about halfway we were able to grab a taxi and we saved ourselves at least a few minutes of our latest sweaty and dusty walk.
Once we arrived, we spotted Dinesh right away. He walked with us back to the courtroom and told us to wait back right where we were waiting before our walk over to the orphanage. There were at least a couple of other families adopting from the orphanage that were appearing in court that day as well. So we waited our turn to be called in. It must have been about 45 minutes and they called us in. Our lawyer (I think he’s our lawyer, honestly, I have no idea what this guy does. He’s just been at both of our hearings now) gave me a pen and motioned for me to sign a sheet of paper. Then he had Leah sign. Everything was in Hindi, so I really don’t know what the heck I was signing. We signed another sheet and he told us we could go, the judge would sign the court order on March 29. We protested a bit, since we need it prior to WACAP closing, but after asking about 5 different ways if we could get it any sooner, we gave up.
We went outside and pressed Dinesh and the lawyer some more, but they just kept saying there was nothing they could do. “It’s all up to the judge…” We appreciate all the work that everyone has done for us in this process, but in India, it’s extremely hard to get anyone to move any faster than they want to.
We emailed a few different folks at CARA to see if we could get the order signed sooner. The bad news is that the courts here really are independent, and there isn’t much leverage anyone has. We had a surprise visit today at our hotel from a few folks on the orphanage board. They said we could file for an adjunct court hearing (not sure what that really means), supposedly we’d get a new judge and they’d have to approve or deny our petition in one hearing. The problem is that we must refile in court, and then we’d hear about a new hearing date a few days after. And there is no telling when that hearing might be. So basically, our best bet is to just sit tight and hope the judge signs the court order soon.
It’s extra complicated since WACAP will close in a couple of days. At which point we will have no more access to anyone there. We were really hoping the court case would be resolved in time, but that’s not the case. Therefore, we started the process to transfer to a new agency, Children of the World (COTW). Hopefully, they can facilitate a very quick transfer. We were probably too optimistic about the court process going smoothly and we should have started the transfer process a bit sooner. Thankfully, we had some idea we could end up in this position, so we did a lot of the initial paperwork prior to leaving home. We took care of the last few items today, and we’re crossing our fingers things run smoothly the rest of the way. We barely need agency help at this point anymore, but it’s very nice to have the safety net and to use them as a resource as we are waiting out our time in India.
Entertain ourselves around the hotel, with trips up and down the stairs.
The thing about this trip is that it is way harder than I think either of us expected. We’ve never been this far from home for this long. Living in a hotel is hard. The language barrier is hard. Getting transportation can be hard. Eating decent, getting exercise, accomplishing anything that you would describe as productive, it’s all so much harder than we expected.
Leah and I have realized that Gaurav is adjusting to us way better than we expected. There weren’t the horrible crying fits we were worried about. He goes to bed and naps very well by toddler standards. However, on the flip side, we are having a much harder time than we expected adjusting and coping. The lack of personal space and time (especially in a hotel room in a foreign country) has worn us down. The days are difficult to fill, since there isn’t much of a tourist scene here. I’ve tried to work a few hours here and there, but then I feel guilty leaving Leah and Gaurav alone for long stretches. Also, we’re both just totally mentally fried from spending over three weeks here and trying not to dwell on how much longer we’re stranded.
To make matters especially difficult, we’ve lost most of the things we use to help us cope with the difficult moments. Time with friends, a glass of wine or cold beer, spending time with the pets, various projects at home, trips to the gym, etc. We’re dealing with an endlessly stressful situation without any of our go-to coping devices. It just adds so much difficulty to the waiting when you're so far out of your comfort zone. Most of the time one of us can maintain our sanity and give the other person a pep talk. Sometimes we both break down. Those are the real fun moments… but they are relatively short-lived.
Thankfully, we’ve been able to stay connected with family and friends on WhatsApp, Facebook, and texting. I think we’ve got a date to video chat with my family at the farm and see what Gaurav thinks of the cows in Wisconsin. Having that communication with everyone back home has helped us get through it all.
Doing the updates has been a nice distraction too. It gives us a chance to put the whole thing in perspective, and it serves as a journal that we’ll be able to share with Gaurav someday. As you can tell, I also use it to try and find humor in our current situation... Like today Leah stepped in poop on our morning walk and didn’t realize it, she tracked it around and didn’t notice until she was putting her shoes on to leave the hotel later in the day. She avoided poop for three weeks while walking crowded streets carrying a toddler, which I must tell you is very impressive, there’s poop everywhere. My personal best was 3 days in India before I stepped in a cow pie.
Watch out for Cow Pies...
Dosa!
Cow, shopping at the market
View from the Balcony
Open Sewer, unfortunately, pretty common.
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