Friday

We needed to get both the birth certificate and the passport application done Friday, or we could have had some difficulties making our December 29 deadline.  Everything has to go sequentially, and, so far, there hasn't seemed to be any next step that couldn't begin until the prior step was completed.  The birth certificate has to be created (a new one, with our names on it) so it can be presented at immigration (why it's not called emigration, I don't understand) to get Elyas' Ethiopian passport.  Later, we'll get a US visa to travel.

We got the call to come to the birth certificate office pretty early in the day.  So Yosef picked us up and drove us there...a feat which we could not possibly accomplish without the help of someone who knows what he's doing.  The closest thing I can think of is driver's and car licensing services that are provided (at least in Washington state) out of those businesses that contract to do so.  I remember going to one in a strip mall, between a juice bar and a thrift store.  I only found it because the name, address and phone number were on a list of such places, and Google maps showed me the way (in a small city whose layout I already knew).   None of those bits would be true in this case.  Some Americans we knew before, and visited while here, said addresses don't help, as maps don't really work.  And as another reflection of my technology dependent (and sated) circumstances, I tried Addis Ababa on Google maps and was disappointed (or was it frustrated) that street level view was not available.  But I digress.

With Yosef at the helm we drove right there.  And, for a traffic clotted city, I was surprised to find a parking spot right in front, which we always seem to do.  He then led us straight around the back of the building, up a flight of stairs to a two-room office where these bureaucratic services were being done.  Not in a wing or building that provides the range of government services, or even personal documentation services or whatever way you might try to lump such things together in your mind.  

So we wait while they confirm names, spellings, etc.  Then we wait more.  I ask the local adoption agency person who is there helping us what is happening....He had said it was done, but we continued to wait.  It needed to be printed, and the one person who did the printing had stepped out.  "I'll call her," he said.  So he did, and she came back soon.

We got the birth certificate and the agency staffer said he’d meet us at immigration at 1, since we couldn’t make it there before they closed for the morning at 11:30.  Headed over there, visited one small souvenir shop, took a break at the Starbucks knockoff--Kaldi’s, then headed to immigration--across the street.

Outside the gate there are several large patios--covered, with lots of pleasant plants and trees.  Long lines of passport applicants snake around the several small buildings and booths on the patio.  There's a special line for our situation apparently, but our agency contact is late, so we wait on a set of benches on the patio.  As the lines wind past us, everyone stares.  Then a policeman starts shepherding people here and there.  He looks toward me and I can tell he wants to know what I'm doing.  (I'm at the end of the row of the five of us, a bit uninvolved in what the other four are doing.)  He wears a stern countenance--not because of me, necessarily, but I certainly am not cause for him to soften, and enquires--though it's more a demand, "You?!"  I point to Yosef, who explains in Amharic...and we stay at the bench.

Our contact arrives, heads straight to the open window at one booth--really a small half-wall at the end of the covered patio, to get our application.  Apparently, the staffer needs to make a copy of something for us, so our contact starts doing her job--taking money and handing out applications, while she makes the copy.  Good idea!

He fills out the application, then takes it to another similar booth at the other side of the patio.  After a while he motions us to get in line in front of the gate.  In what seems like a problem to us, Sandy has to go in a much longer women's line than we 4 males have (Yosef can't go with us).  Then we wait.  In my American way, I'm trying to figure why we're waiting, what for, and how long it will be.  Our agency contact says to me, "Just wait."  A real challenge to my cross-cultural capacities.  

The whole time, our contact is talking to the guard, slipping inside a bit when the gate does open, getting pushed back out (not forcefully, but clearly in a pattern of conduct I certainly would be uncomfortable to engage).  Finally, he tells me the staff are in a meeting so we wait.  Shortly, he clarifies that they're in a meeting starting at 3, so we have to get in by then.  It's almost 2 by this point.  

"Will we make it?"

"I don't know," he says.  I wonder if he tires of this.

I am already tired, and I grow more so at Just Wait.

Then I figure out that we--Sandy, Peter and I--don't even have to go in.  I run over to Sandy's line (which I did several times, to inform each time I learned something new) to get her.  A relief, though I sure did want to see inside.

Soon, he gets in, with Elyas.  Yosef takes us to the Cuban-Ethiopian friendship monument across the street. 

That's Peter, straight below the apex of the sign.  The crowd wasn't a crush, though it was disconcerting to me inasmuch as the queueing process is not neat and orderly, like I'm accustomed to.   (I'm acutely aware of this, after Daniel M. gave that example in his very helpful cultural intelligence discussion in Sunday School.)

Also, Sandy saw--but I didn't--police using batons, as helpful prods, not as severe clubs, move people around in the process.  

None of it was even alarming...just overwhelming to me.  Like I say, I was relieved when I finally understood.  And, as Daniel pointed out, even if I find the process confusing and uncomfortable, everybody gets served.  So my discomfort isn't really the point.  

And besides, who wouldn't want to see the Cuban-Ethiopian friendship park?  These are the best shots I could get...it was closed.

A little Socialist Realism sculpture.  Well, not little in the actual sense, though this is more modest than many I've seen.

So, the application got submitted, and now we hope our contact will be able to pick up the passport in time to get to the TB test center by noon.  Otherwise, we have to wait until Tuesday, which means reading Thursday and not Wednesday.  And since the US embassy only accepts adoption materials on Tuesday and Thursday, a Thursday TB check could make it difficult to do the embassy on that day. 

Everything has worked out so far, so I'm going to do like the man said...

Just wait.