Day 39: Tuesday, 6/28

I was going to have banana pancakes in honor of Stacy and Oliver's trip home but since we'd planned a visit with Emi and the girls for lunch at 11:00, I decided to go light so I'd have room for lunch. Well, they finally had bacon so my plan was abandoned and I ate my fill.

While we were waiting for 11:00 to roll around, we received a call from Maddy. She told us not to get our hopes up (good advice) but she'd spoken to Ken at the DHL office and there was a package for the Embassy that had arrived on the later flight last night (Monday). There was nothing to indicate it had anything to do with us but she was going to wait for Ken to deliver it and then call Daisy at the Embassy to find out for sure. In addition, her car was still not fixed so she didn't think she'd be able to join us for lunch.

Meanwhile, Melody called to say that she, John and Andrew were going to rent a fishing boat for Wednesday morning and they wanted to know if we wanted to join them. Sounded like a great time but since we weren't sure about this mystery package, I told her I'd call her back with an answer.

Again, something was lost in translation as Emi and the girls didn't arrive until 12:00. When she asked about Maddy, I told her she wasn't coming. She then told me that Maddy had called her and was, in fact, going to join us. We went downstairs to wait and grabbed a table for 6 in the corner. On our way down, I received another call from Melody – I couldn't quite here her but thought she said they just gotten off the outrigger and were at the MIR. My confusion centers around the fact that the MIR used to be know as the Outrigger Hotel. I told her we were heading downstairs for lunch and she said she'd meet us there.

Apparently, you can hire an outrigger (of the boat variety) to transport you across the lagoon from MIR to RRE and vice versa. While John and Andrew were going snorkeling, Melody joined us for a chat. Eventually, Maddy arrived with her daughter (the one who just graduated from high school) and we pulled up a couple more chairs. She then told us that she'd called Daisy who said they had not received our package yet. When John and Andrew had finished snorkeling, we added another table and were finally ready to order lunch. All in all, lunch was from about 12:00-4:00... a nice afternoon of conversation and passing Grace around.

On one of my trips back to the room to change Grace, I popped online to see if we'd heard from Gordon yet. Unfortunately we had and it was not good news. Apparently our visa hasn't even left Manilla yet. While it was approved the same day as the Simmons' (6/22) but for some reason was not sent out. This means we'll be here at least until Friday and that's the best case. Worst case, who knows. Epic fail on the part of the U.S. Embassy in Manilla. The Embassy here also owns some of the fault – there should be no reason they can't work with their counterparts in Manilla to follow up on the visa requests. We're not expecting the adoption visa be processed ahead of all others but there should be a flow of information between the two Embassies. The only conclusion I have is that our packet was set down on someone's desk and forgotten – something that could have been discovered and fixed well within a week's time if our consular officer was talking with their visa guy. I'm really disappointed that the best Andrew's office can say is, “Be patient. We haven't lost one yet!” Seriously? Is that supposed to make me chuckle? I think you may be in the wrong line of work my friend.