Things are going GREAT so far...

WELL....as I said in our first post....we were successful at the DHS office. I will try to describe the 3 hour experience we will remember as our DHS experience in Haiti. First, the DHS office is staffed with Haitians - we didn't meet a single American in the DHS (U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security) office. Monsour said they contract the work out to the Haitian gov't. Of course, there are Americans overseeing the office but we didn't meet them. In fact, I didn't interview with anyone at all. Mark answered a few questions and they interviewed Katiana and her birth father. SO....we sat most of the time in the waiting room which is similar to the USCIS office in the U.S. with a T.V. blarring the movie Lamumba. Ok, go and do your research and you will see - the movie alone made us feel uncomfortable. AND...we had Katiana's birth father and older sister sitting behind us in the waiting room. I wanted to ask them so many questions but the movie was so obnoxious and basically it was just overwhelming and awkward. We did ask a few questions with Monsour translating but we hoped to have a nicer place to visit.

After the interview was finished we had some gifts to give her father and sister....but I told Monsour I just couldn't do it with the "now playing" Haitian soap opera (totally cheesy) in the stinky little waiting room. Monsour didn't want us to look through our luggage on the street so we drove to his wife's work at the U.S.Aid office. We all had to get out of the car so they could search the car. We drove in thinking Francois would follow us - but they waited outside. We gathered our gifts and drove back out and presented them through the car window. Pictures for her father and earings and lotion for her sister. The experience didn't match the vision I had of this moment.... Oh well - when does that ever happen anyway? One surprise was when we walked out of the DHS office and we took these photos......Katiana's father came and gathered all of us together for a group hug. It was very sweet. It is beyond my ability to understand the world he lives in that makes him happy at this moment.

I will post more later....look forward to a picture of Steven with his hair braided....our first picture on the Kaliko beach ...and some more cute pics of all of us but for NOW.....we need to eat some FINE Haitian Cuisine at the world famous Kaliko Beach Club!

Love you all...
Tash, Mark, Steven, Marisa AND Katiana

oh...actually, Francois just told us they had some food for us here at the Fontana Village....of course we had to look up in the dictionary what he said we were eating....something like Taro root soup bouillion....hmmmmm soup in HAITI??? Maybe they think it is COLD today???