December, Part I

December was jam packed with stuff from end to end! I tend to be quite a prolific writer, if you haven’t figured that out, so I will try to just hit the highlights so as not to put you all to sleep.

• I am going to cheat and start at the end of November, actually. We celebrated the one year anniversary of Sophie’s release from the TB hospital on November 21. The following Saturday, I took Sophie, Winnie and Ying to the Yee Pang lantern festival in Mae Jo, about a 30 minute drive from Chiang Mai. Last year, this festival happened earlier, so Sophie was in the hospital and couldn’t come. When I found out she had never been, I thought it was the perfect way to celebrate her one year TB free anniversary. Well, we met up with some of my other friends and all caravanned up to the Mae Jo University campus for the lighting. I was hoping to go early and have time to get a seat and lanterns, etc, but Ying had dance practice til 5pm, so we got there just in time for the lantern send off. By the time we got there, all of us were starving, so I sent the girls off to get some food for themselves and hoped that we would reconnect in time to see all the lanterns sent off. For those of you who have seen the movie Tangled, this festival is EXACTLY like that lantern festival, only insert a lot of monotone Buddhist chanting in Sanskrit. We didn’t buy any lanterns, but my friend Rae and I made our way into the mass of people setting them off, so we got some cool pictures. Sophie and her friends had come back from getting food in time to see the big sendoff, but it was not as exciting as last year. Last year, they did a great job of reminding people not to send their lanterns off til they told you to, so we saw about 3000 lanterns float away at once. This year, it was more like a few at a time for a longer period of time. It was still pretty though. After I found Sophie and her friends, we were pushing our way out through the crowd, and Sophie was like “P’Heather, this was cool, but can we NOT come next year? There are too many people and I can’t breathe.” Parenting fail. L On our way home, this crazy strong wind came up, and torrential rains started, which is highly unusual for this time of year, so we almost got knocked off our bikes and just as we entered the city, all the lights went out everywhere. It was really eerie driving home through knee deep water with all the lights out and very few cars. Thankfully, we all got home safely, but it was not how I planned for things to go.

 

• December 8, I got all dressed up and went with Ahna and Sacha to see Handel’s Messiah performed by the Payap University choirs and orchestra. We took Faith and her older sister with us and they had a good time, but were super tired, so I think they may have napped a bit. It was a good opportunity to dress fancy and get some culture in. :)

 

• Dec 12 was our court date. We had been waiting for this for over a year, and it finally arrived. We picked up Ning from her house and then went to the court to meet Sophie’s teacher. Our hearing was scheduled for 9am, but our lawyer didn’t show up until almost 10:30. If you took a drink for every time you read about our lawyer being late, everyone would have gone through a bottle of liquor by now. I am so over this guy. Thank goodness this is the last thing we need to do with him. He tried to “prep” me, but since he had written this history that had all kinds of inconsistencies, that I had tried several times to get him to correct, I was getting really frustrated. He was just telling me to say yes to everything, but I wasn’t understanding his questions because he was using high language, which I don’t know, and was refusing to translate into English, even though he speaks English perfectly. I had not been stressed out, but at this point, I was practically crying because he was like “Just say yes to everything or else you will lose the case.” Finally, the clerk was like “OK, the judges are literally going to leave if you do not go in there,” so we went in. Interesting fact, they have different oaths depending on your religion, so I read the one for Christians. As I was copying the clerk, I was thinking “will I be held legally responsible if I lie on the stand, since I don’t actually understand a word I am saying right now?” Anyway, I think I did ok, but I did correct the inconsistencies in the story as they arose, because there was documentation that things were wrong. I.E., “did you meet Sophie’s dad?” This is after they just read that he died in May 2010, and they had asked me when I arrived in Thailand, and I said November 2010. Had I just said “yes” they would have known I was lying and why do I need to lie about that? So, I corrected the record. Finally, after a nerve-wracking half hour, they were done and the judges all signed the final record, and then so did I. Then they brought in Sophie and asked her a bunch of questions, including whether I met her dad, and, good girl, she backed up my story, instead of listening to the lawyer. Then they talked to her teacher, but never actually called Ning to testify, don’t know why. Finally, they said, OK we are granting your a court order to be able to adopt her, but you are not eligible for guardianship, so we are not giving you that. (Yeah, makes no sense to me either). So, according to the judge, this court order will list me as her mother and allow me to get her a passport, a visa to the US, and citizenship. We shall see how true that turns out to be.