Visa Appointment Day (Oct 6)

Packing to return home (I guess you know how the story ends)

Tomorrow night we will be sleeping on our own beds.

Sleeping in Honduras for the last time

We waited a week for our I-600 approval and then 1 more week for our visa appointment. We all woke up early at 5:45 a.m. to eat breakfast and take a taxi to the embassy for our 7 a.m. appointment time. The embassy is about 15 min drive from our hotel so we wanted to make sure we were early enough to make our appointment. Visa application, passports, money, and kids books in hand we arrived to see 2 long lines outside. It is confusing because no one is speaking English so I tried to find an English speaker while my husband and kids held our place in the residential line. I wanted to make sure we were in the right line. One is for residents and the other line was for visitors. Turns out the security guard was right. He had our name and appointment time on his clipboard and we waited outside approximately 15 minutes. Our line was escorted inside where we went through the metal detectors and then given a number to sit and wait for fingerprinting. They never called our number and it was not displayed on the marquis so we found a friend who asked another security guard why our number was skipped and never called. He told us that our child was under the age limit and that he did not need fingerprinting. The second time to listen for our number was to present our papers for the visa. It was flawless and we had everything we needed and then she asked my husband to go to the cashier's window to pay the $404.00 for the visa. My husband was aware of the "US only dollars or lempiras only' policy. You cannot make a payment of both dollars and lempiras. The US dollars have to be in perfect condition, crisp, clean, no tears dollar bills. The lemps do not have to be perfect. My husband was also aware of the "exact change policy".  I had told him the day before, but he decided it wasn't a big deal. He would hand the cashier 5 $100.00 crisp, clean bills and that would be ok, turns out it wasn't. The cashier would not make change. So my husband told her to keep the $500.00, no change needed. She could not take that either. So the scramble for lemps began. He was 46 lempiras shy ($2.30) so he asked my daughter to give him her lemps. She had wanted to buy a snack from the vending machine all morning, but I told her to wait because we might need her money. Luckily she did. Very proudly she handed over her money to her dad. For a moment we smiled, but then it was back to being nervous with the hopes of having enough. We needed 2 more lempiras (10 cents) to have the exact payment . So my husband walked out the main waiting area to another cashier and he was told that she could not make change. He pleaded, but she would not budge so he said, "Please, all I need is 2 lempiras. The lady then handed him the lempiras and with that we had our exact payment of $404.00.  The visa cashier did not reject any of our lempiras. She didn't care if they were not perfect and we didn't either. For the 3rd time we waited for our number to be called for the interview. We were told right away that we were approved for our visa (whew!) and that they were specifically looking for the updated immunization records from the doctor appointment. She asked Justin all of our names and when he looked at me, he just stared and smiled then it was onto his new sister and brother. We all nervously giggled, but we passed. She apologized for such a long wait for our appointment day, but said the line we heard several times this whole trip, "Adoptions are a high priority" and we are sorry. We just had a lot of visas to process". She almost guaranteed to have the visa ready by 3:45, but we held our breath.  Anybody who has the slip of paper with the number on it can pick up the visa. At 3:20 our driver called to tell us she was held up in traffic and that she would not make it on time to pick up my husband. He called a taxi and within 15 minutes was on his way. Our driver arrived at the embassy first and told the guard my husband was on his way. Showing no mercy, the guard said that there would be no one let in after 4 pm sharp. Our driver worked her magic (he saw the desperation on her face) and let her in to hold Bob's spot. When Bob arrived at 4:05pm our driver peered out the window pointed to Bob and the guard took our number from Bob's hand and went inside to give it to our driver. They then show you a short information video about immigration in Spanish. As long as you have the slip of paper with the number anyone can pick up the visa.  After the video was over she walked out and handed over the gold! WE CAN GO HOME!!!!!!!!!!!! HALLELUJAH!!!!!!! Yes, I am shouting!