Part 2

Sadly, I can't remember what else I thought was blog-worthy about our visa hopping trip. It seemed like a very big, draining, cultural experience worth trying to share, but now it has faded in my memory. I'll just give you the rest of the story as I remember it:

We drove from J and V's house which is about an hour away and made it to the border. We sat in a waiting room full of people staring at two empty desks. Lovely, shiny, fake wood desks with all sorts of stamps and ledgers on them. No people to use all that stuff, however. I was grateful the air conditioners were on.....

Finally someone did come and the tension just escalated as everyone had somewhere to be. I told Tom I wasn't going to stress until we had 20 mins until our dr appt. Thankfully, at 15 mins until the appointment we had our visas, hopped in the car and then had to drive the 300 yards to the little booth. However, they were now checking cars. This means you are all really slowed down while guys in reflective sunglasses give you long stares and absolutely no indication of whether they want you to stop until the last possible minute. Tom and I always drive up saying "Does he want us to stop? I don't know! Just keep driving..." Needless to say we (read: I) was more stressed than normal about this ambiguous part. Then we get to the little booth and the guy wants to try and find the actual stamp. Someday I'll post a photo of my passport pages. It is page after page after page of the same looking stamps. It takes AGES to get the right stamp. Tom kept saying that we had JUST done the stamps. Finally the little dude realized the futility of looking and just gave up. Attaboy. We sped off and made it to the hospital JUST in time.

Anyway - I think all on that for now. We are really praying and hoping to see what the Lord will provide for visas for us or for housing. The most straight forward thing to do would be to join the mass exodus of people leaving this side of town, but the rental costs would go up about 5 times. We just can't afford that at the moment. Plus, we lose all our friendships here.

The ideal situation are residence visas from the other side of town. Go figure, they'll let you cross the border without any hassle if you have a residence visa from their country, but not a visit visa ....even though you techinically are a visitor - even if it is a daily visitor. Residency is not a quick thing, it involves a lot of paperwork, official things from the US, blood work, TB tests, HIV tests etc etc. They let anyone waltz into the country on a visit visa, but getting residency is a chore and a labor.

So, who knows. We knew this was an issue coming back but being 9 months pregnant with all these hassles has us considering two other places to have the baby (a 3rd if you count just doing it at home with our friend the midwife!). I am surprisingly calm and undisturbed about this. I chalk it up to being in the zone of giving birth. i know that i 2-4 weeks (again, c section still an option.....sigh) we are having another baby and my days are pretty defined regardless of where I have it or where we are living. It is poor Tom who shoulders most of the burden of all of this.

Speaking of which, he is out for the evening in AA to see his friends. It has been almost a week since he's seen them and if he has trouble, he'll just spend the night at their house. Hopefully he'll make it home okay. Though if he doesn't, it'll still be a good time with his buddies so no real loss there.