Day 24 - Blood and frustration

This morning we took Jakob to the hospital to deliver a feces sample and to take a blood sample, to check him for any locally known diseases and/or parasites, even though he seems perfectly healthy now.

He loved riding the elevator at the hospital (which, by the way, has a big sign next to it, informing elevator passengers that no guns are allowed there).

Either he is not used to people sticking needles in him, or he has some bad previous experience with that, because Jakob was extremely reluctant to let the nurse pull blood from his arm. It took four grown-up people to hold him still on the doctor's bench long enough to get the job done.

Afterwards we bought him a blue ice cream cone with hundreds of little pieces of spearmint bubblegum in it, and he was happy again! He ate it so slowly that it melted before he was half done, because he meticulously picked out all the pieces of bubble gum from every lick he took, and placed them on his napkin on the table.

Then he walked around the shopping mall and proudly showed the little piece of band-aid on his arm to the ubiquitous armed guards.

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We watched the news broadcast on RCN at lunchtime, about the Australian family who is adopting four children. We couldn't understand much of what was said, but we think it was a news report with a positive angle.

Later, when walking around downtown with their adopted children in the afternoon, the French couple was approached by people who commented on the story, and we've had some paparazzis trying to sneak into the hotel today, but the armed guards have been told to keep them away.

Nat and David themselves told us that when they visited the airport today, a cute, little, old lady inched closer and closer to Nat and finally asked her "Will you take me too?" with a wide grin.

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Our so-called "contact person" from the adoption agency has made herself invisible again. She has not replied to any of the messages we have left her, and she has not given us any progress reports on our case. She is supposed to help us with everything and look after us here in Cali. But in fact we have heard from her only once (last Wednesday) since our case went to court on February 9. Now it is Tuesday evening, February 24th. We are not too happy with that.

She had not even given us her phone number so we could get in touch with her, we had to get the hotel to call our lawyer (whom we are not allowed to contact directly) to get it, and that's the number where we have been leaving messages. But when we called that number today, a strange lady answered the phone. Apparently, we still don't have the right phone number of our contact person!

We tried calling the adoption agency's main office in Bogotá for help, but it was after 3 PM and we only got an automatic message in Spanish. We will try again tomorrow.