Paperchase #4

Ahmed was fortunate enough to get the spring term off from teaching at his University. In its place, he'll be one of the few teachers teaching the summer semester. That's the time of year when Abu Dhabi and Dubai thin out as people escape the intense heat in June, July and August, if they possibly can.

We were certain that we would do the two main official parts of the adoption during these ten weeks:
1. The court hearing, with our two witnesses to testify that we are indeed going to be fit parents to Maya.
2. The psychological and socioeconomic interviews with DIF (Desarollo Integral de la Familia), the government department responsible for child welfare.
All the other families we'd heard of adopting here had got through those stages early on in their stay in Mexico.

The black cloud of Ahmed's return to Abu Dhabi in early June is starting to surface. Not only is it terrifying me that he'll be on the other side of the world, while Maya and I will be waiting it out in Tijuana, but neither of these official dates seems any nearer. We arranged a meeting with our lawyer to find out what to do.

The visa-issuing-woman is still a week away from returning to Tijuana, so Aida is going to see if there might possibly be someone else at the visa office who can issue those FM3 visas.

Every day we live in hope that we'll get a phone call telling us our visas are ready.