Unfortunately my journey to my country was not quite as I'd had hoped and wished for. There were no young, single children available, a few sibling groups with 4/5 year olds, and then only a few older children. I knew going down there were no children under three but had opened my heart to a 4 or 5 year old. I did meet an absolutely delightful and very sweet older girl who I am trying to get more information on. I spent quite a bit of time with her over my last days there and there is a real connection. Any information from the country is very slow to come given the experiences of other families who have been waiting for five months for rather simple documents! Thus there are a number of "p" words that continue to be required or followed or held on to. Patience, perseverance, persisitance, perspective, passion, process (belief in it) and progress (I'd hoped to make some). One thing abunduntly clear to me and I think many others in the process of international adoption is the lack of "P"redicatability and the need for the process not to "P"reoccupy one and one's life.
From my experience, it seems many children are temporarily and voluntarily put into care by their families and thus obviously not available for adoption. The system is wonderful for families in the country as there doesn't seem to be any negative views around this but makes it very difficult for those of us trying to adopt. Imagine somebody in the developed, western world walking into an office and saying, "I'm out of work, I don't have a place to live, I want to find a job and get back on my feet. Please can you look after my kids for a while?"
I have a few videos of some spectacular rainstorms and will try to post these soon when I have time to figure it out.
