Feliz Prospero Año!

Hello all. Margarita, Monica and Skz wish you a Happy New Year!

We are celebrating that we are together this year. Well Skz and I are going out to dinner and then a party. Abuela Donna is staying home with Margarita and they will be watching Sleeping Beauty. Skz and I have missed being together the past 2 new years so it will be nice to go out on a date.

Margarita enjoyed Christmas, along with our new adopted cat Amaya. She showed up two months ago with 3 kittens. We fostered the kittens for one month until a permanent foster was found. 

Abuela Donna arrived in December and Skz's sister LeAnn came down from Utah. Margarita got to hike to the top of Piestewa Peak Mountain. She did a great job.

We got invited to a Christmas party at the Ritz Calrton, which was a treat. Margarita got her picture taken with Santa and they served macaroni and cheese, her favorite.

Christmas eve we went to candlelight service and on Christmas day my sister came over and we all went out for Indian food. 

In 2008, we are looking forward to my very good friend and her son visiting. Chris and Gregorio will be here for 10 days in January. Chris is the reason I met Margarita in 2001. Margarita was the third child that came to live at the home where Chris was the director. Gregorio and Margarita have grown up together and they have a very special bond that spans from brother/sister to statements, mostly from Margarita that they will be husband and wife one day. They even have their own language and understand each other completely. It will be fun to have them visit and do activities here in Arizona that we could never do in Honduras. Part of me misses Honduras terribly. It is never far from my mind.

I start on-site freelancing in January at an agency that I worked at previously and also have a few clients to keep me busy.

Skz is still hoping to sell or rent out the loft space. Here is the link of the site

I hope everyone has a fabulous New Year and wishing you all the best for 2008.

Love,

Monica and family

(Picture is Margarita on the path at the Ranch)

Happiness does not depend on outward things, but on the way we see them. 

Leo Tolstoy

October First's

October was a month of many first's.

First photo shoot with our friend who is a professional photographer.















First State Fair with Tia Chanon.















First pumpkin patch.















First birthday celebration together as a family.



















First bike.




















First Halloween.


















First Trick or Treating with Dad, the K9 officer.

Margarita’s Adjustment

I didn’t know what to expect, but as usual, Margarita’s adaptability has been a huge blessing. She has jumped right into living in a very hot city, new school and meeting people.
In airport

The first order of business was to introduce herself as Margaret to her teacher and all the new friends and family she meets. After being in the US one day, she put a post-it note on her bedroom door and bathroom, stating that Skz and I needed to ask permission to enter. Skz jokingly pointed out that she had to share a bedroom and bathroom with me in Honduras and here she is one day after her arrival and she has already claimed her territory.

Swimming in pools was Margaret’s next encounter when the boy across the street invited her to come over and swim. She soon asked every day, repeatedly if she could go swimming. We don’t have a pool but luckily have easy access to one and my sister has one as well.

She acted like the huge public library was old hat. I was a bit disappointed in this because it was one of my childhood favorites and I was so excited to see her reaction to it. Margaret walked right in and started picking out books, making sure that she liked what was on the cover first. She wasn’t phased that the building was five stories high or that it was made out of glass.

Margaret is attending the local public school and is in first grade. She is in the first grade classroom that is called Structure English Immersion, where the teacher is trained in the state education program and the materials and teaching methods are geared towards second language learners. There are handful of children who are at the same level as Margaret and the teacher feels confident that she will do great.

She was also evaluated by a speech therapist that knew two of the therapists from NPH Honduras. Small world. Margaret will continue to have therapy twice a week that will target on certain issues.

Some interesting comments from her;
“Mom, the kids don’t fight in the U.S.” (After a few days of attending school)
“It’s so pretty and clean here.”
“I’m going to be a doctor,” (she replied, when asked by a girl at her bus stop what she was going to be. The girl then told her that SHE was going to be a rock star and Margarita could sign back-up)
“Wow Mom, the food is so good here,” while drinking her first Starbucks Raspberry Frappicuno with whipped cream


Adjusting to a 2-parent household has been rather bumpy at times. The idea of sharing her mom and getting accustom to having a dad around is a learning process for her. Luckily both grandmothers have been around to visit and give her extra, extra attention and spoils. Skz is doing a fantastic job and knows exactly when to step in and take charge. Parenting is so different when you have a partner.







Finally, throughout this whole adoption process, we got to celebrate by having a party hosted at my sister’s house. Over 30 adults and 10 kids arrived to meet Margaret and to share some time with us. I had to stop at times and breath it all in. Especially when my mom was here and we were all eating dinner together in our house, the entire family. I took a deep breath and I thought of all our friends and family still in Honduras and how torn my heart is, being in both places. I would not change this time for anything though and daily, when I have my moments, really can’t believe that we are actually here.

Pros of the Ranch (Honduras) vs the U.S., according to Margarita
Pros in US
Chain cord to light in her closet
Tubular enclosed slides on jungle gyms at school playground

Pros at the Ranch
The Porton (the main gate, this made Margarita feel secure she said and that they watched out for the people coming and going.)
Pancakes
La Venta (where the babysitter Dania and her family lives)

Hope you are all doing well and please drop me a email at
monica.gery@revolutionagency.com
or
mgery@nph.org

Thank you for all your thoughts and prayers during our transition.
Love,
Monica

Just one day in Teguz…

Well the days get crazier and more bizarre. First when we got in the car (renting a car due to running all over Teguz and don’t want to die on public bus), it was infested with ants. I accidentally left a banana peel in there…opps. Then I got stopped at the police checkpoint and legally not supposed to be driving with my AZ license because its only valid for 3 months since the last point of entry, but I cannot bear to get a Honduran license which would entail waiting in 5 different lines at the transit office. The police officer informs me that I look like a Leti, not a Monica. I smile and bat my eyelashes so he doesn’t ask to see my passport. It worked.

Poor Margarita, I drag her into the laboratory at the clinic in Teguz, without any breakfast because she supposedly had to have lab tests for the visa medical examination – but once we got there they said “No, only for children under 12,” but of course they didn’t tell me that when I called.

So then we go upstairs to the physician’s office in anticipation of getting the medical exam over with. Her office hours are listed as 8-12am. Here in Honduras there are no Dr’s appointments. You just show up and wait your turn. Well what I thought was going to be the exam was only the nurse collecting the documentation and checking her vaccination card. The nurse then gave me a deposit slip for a bank and told me to go deposit the $108.00 in the bank downstairs and told us to come back at 4:45pm to see the doctor, but also bring an ID photo of Margarita.

We then walk 5 block to get the ID photos, then wait 20 minutes outside my bank to open to find out that the ATM machines doesn’t work. We go to another bank. I withdrawal the money to pay the medical exam. Next we go wait in a 30 min line to deposit the money in the doctor’s account.

Our next stop is the US Embassy where I am told that my Orphan Application has been approved and that it was been forwarded to the Visa Immigrant Unit. Great news!

We then wait in line for the Visa Immigrant Unit window to speak to the officer to confirm the documentation that we must bring to the interview. The officer tells me that I need a “long” version of one of my Honduran papers. I only have the “short” version.

We then go to the Honduran Person Registry. Here we try and enter 3 doors and the guard tells me each time it is another door around the corner. Finally we find the right door but the person who needs to attend to us is of course at lunch.

We wait ½ hour outside. I confirm with my lawyer that the long version of this paper is going to take some time for the Registry to produce and that I need to speak with the civil register of Tegucigalpa for them to do it faster.

Next we wait in line for window #3, then window #2, then window #1. Margarita looks at me with a look like “Why didn’t we just wait in window #1?”

I then find out that to get my “long” form of the paper will take till August 24^th. I plead to get it sooner. They tell me only with the Civil Registry approval. We then wait for him to show up. I start flagging everyone that passes me down to ask where Marco Tulio is, the man I need to speak with. Out of the corner of my eye I see a man with a mustache and think that must be him. I wave at him and ask an employee near me if that is him and she confirms that it is. I then ask her to go tell him I need to speak to him.

Finally 10 min later he comes over to me and I tell him that we are leaving the country and I need this paper. He then signs and stamps (stamps are every big here) the document that I need and it will be ready on the 7^th instead of the 24^th.

By this time we have an hour before the doctor’s appointment so we stop by Chris’s house because the 2 hours in the hot registry waiting in 4 different window lines has left me with a huge headache. Margarita is happy to play with Gregory for a short time.

We then dive the 30 min downtown to the Dr's office. The physician turns out to be very nice and she very quickly examines Margarita and gives her 2 vaccinations, chicken pox and Hep B. I then ask her why the cost of the appointment was over $100 when the US Embassy handout states that it is $25. She explains that the vaccinations were over $75, but of course the nurse did not explain that to me in the morning and just gave me the total cost.

I then think to myself that she already had a chicken pox vaccine when she lived at Chris’s project, and I could have saved the $50. Later Chris confirmed that yes, she had it and it was listed in her vaccination card.

When we return to the Ranch after this long, hot day I was ready to pass out. Seriously if anyone asks for another document I am going to loose it. I have filled out and produced so many documents during this process its ridiculous.

But here is the GREAT NEWS…this Monday, August 6^th at 7:30 am, Margarita has her Immigrant Visa Interview. Supposedly they will issue it the same day, meaning that we will be able to leave the country after Monday.

Oh geez, I don’t even want to explain what it took to get her Honduran passport. Much like the above.

More after Monday.

Love Monica

Finally...a miracle.

On Friday June 29, 2007, I signed the final adoption decree.

Margarita and I were at the children’s social welfare office present with my lawyer, the director of adoptions and their legal counsel.

This still hasn’t quite hit me yet since we have been through so much over the past few years. Unfortunately, we still have to complete the U.S. immigration paperwork before we can come home. My hope is that it won’t take longer than 2 months.

Thank you to all who have supported us and prayed. Most of all to Skz, (Mono, as Margarita calls him) for his never ending emotional and financial support, including his many, many trips to see us. We would not have gotten to where we are now without him.

Thank you.

Monica

We are fortunate

I ran to his grave, in fact I run past graves almost everyday. The Ranch has a trail to the cemetery, up a steep hill and about 2 miles into the woods. This morning was different though because it had a fresh grave from the day before. The earth was in a rectangle mound with fresh white lily’s placed on top. The slope of the cemetery leads the body to view the pine trees that surround the site. Horses are sometimes lingering around the cemetery. I think they are taking the souls up to heaven.

Sam (name change) was the 17 year old boy that was buried. He was shot by a gang member in the capital, leaving 11 siblings to mourn his death, the 5 youngest living at the Ranch. He was the eighth person in his family to be killed by this gang as a tragic vendetta haunts the family. The parents of these children were also slain along with their uncles.

Sam was on his way to the Ranch for visitor’s day, an event we have 3 times a year. He went in to the city the day before for a visit. He boarded a bus with his girlfriend to buy some take-out food to bring to the Ranch, he was then shot, with his girlfriend witnessing everything.

I went with our social worker to investigate this case back in April. When we arrived at the poor neighborhood on the outskirts of Tegucigalpa, we walked down about 100 steps to a brick house with a metal laminate roof. The house actually has just one room with bed sheets spreading across it to make a divider. Four beds were behind the divider for almost 15 people living in the house. Plastic bags stored all their belongings. There was one wood hutch in the room for kitchen items but no stove, no sink and no refrigerator.

The children were all living with an older sister who had a family of her own and was having difficulty as it was making ends meet. The house had neither running water nor a shower. There was a large plastic bucket outside for water storage and a metal barrel used for a stove.

A latrine, that was barely standing, existed with three pieces of wood around it. The children were ready to come to the Ranch. They had their small belongings packed into a backpack and each one seemed eager to start a new adventure.

Sometimes I can’t even fathom the pain and suffering that these children go through. For their safety, our director is working on taking them to another home, outside the country because the gang stated that they won’t stop killing until the entire family is dead.

In comparison, we don’t have it so bad. Yes, we are STILL WAITING for papers to be signed and for some other legalities, but at least we don’t have a threat on our lives.

I still hope and pray that we will be returning to Phoenix in August but right now I am just taking one day at a time. If the final sentence is signed by the end of this month, we might have a good chance at making the August date.

Miss and love you,

Monica

In anticipation of Mother's Day

How does a mother walk out of the hospital without the child she just birthed?

How long did she wait till she skipped out? Did she hold her?

How long was it before someone else came to the hospital to get Margarita?

How can you give 4 children away or see them but not acknowledge that they exist?

How destroyed are they for the rest of their lives?

These are the questions I ask myself about Margarita’s birth mother. Questions I will never have the answers to because she died.

I have two other friends in Honduras in the same adoption situation as us. The first friend is the reason I have Margarita. She was the director of the home where Margarita first lived. She is adopting a boy who was orphaned because both parents died from AIDS. The second friend is adopting a child who was so severely beaten by his step-father that both legs where broken and she took the child to another country for the operations that he needed. We are all adopting as single women and we are all at different stages of the process. Adoption reform has been talked about for years but it has not happened since I started this process back in 2001.

The judge was supposed to have signed the adoption court sentence this week but it didn’t happen, so we are still waiting as usual.

In February I handed in the initial paperwork to the U.S. Embassy here in Honduras and they took my fingerprints to send to the FBI for clearance. Unfortunately they didn’t send them via DHL like they said they would so they did not reach the FBI till 1.5 months later. Then the FBI said that my fingerprints were “unclassifiable”, meaning too smudged or something. So they re-took them and we are waiting for their response.

Margarita is doing well and spontaneously said three phrases in English last week.
“Tomorrow is Monday.”
“I am ready.”
“Check me out.”

She continues to surprise me at how well she handles situations and how adaptable she is. She is also very compassionate like when I wacked my head on the brick wall the other week, she heard me shout out from the other room and she yelled “I’m coming Mom,” and ran over to me and was rubbing my arm as I cried in pain.

Well please write if you get a sec. I would love to heard from you.

Take care.

Monica

Power Lawyer Marta

About one month ago, my friend Chris (in photo, Margarita took this) and I met with a lawyer named Marta, who Shannon, another friend, quickly dubbed Power Lawyer. After a brief 20 min meeting with her, both Chris and I knew that we had to hire her. She knows the system forwards and backwards and has a good relationship with all the levels of the adoption process. After going to the court and asking to see Margarita’s file, all public information here, she discovered that my previous lawyer had not done anything for almost over a month. The file was just sitting there. Therefore the additional costs in hiring a new lawyer at this stage is well worth it since she knows what the heck she is doing.

We are waiting for the Child Welfare Institution to send the Family Court their communication that I have passed all the requisites and their testing. Once the family court receives this report they then will proceed with the legalization of the adoption sentence, which takes 3 weeks. My lawyer then takes the sentence and it is notarized into a public deed which I and the director of the child welfare institution will sign. Then Power Lawyer takes these various papers to the registry office to the island of Roatan, where Margarita was born, to obtain a new birth certificate with me as the mother. I then take that to immigration to get Margarita a Honduran passport.

Simultaneously, U.S. Immigration is doing their Orphan Child Investigation. I had to pay a fee, have my fingerprints taken and provide a whole slew of additional paperwork on the legal status of Margarita, death certificates of her biological mother and the woman that registered her as her child, and when they asked for more proof, I just called Power Lawyer, and she got the documents from Roatan for me. Really, she is well worth the money she is charging if she completes this in less than 3 months, like she has promised.

I will be in Phoenix April 3-10^th, so hope to see you then.

Hugs,

Reunited with Misael

I have been with NPH Honduras for over five years working as the Home Correspondent. In 2003, I had the opportunity to spend 2 weeks at our home in El Salvador to help them develop their website content. I thought before arriving, that I could never have the same connection with children in another home as much as Honduras. I was wrong. In El Salvador I found a large rented house with over 100 boys ages 8-18. They immediately welcomed me and I soon felt right at home with many curious children asking questions concerning my life and habits. “Tia, why do you paint your hair, do those holes in your ears hurt; pulling in and out my earrings, do you know that caffeine is a drug?”...as I sipped my morning coffee.

These were the cutest boys I had ever seen until I met Misael. Misael was a 6 month old infant who lived in the babies home. His case was referred to NPH by the Secretary of Health. His father was paralyzed from the waste down and has since died. To add to the difficulty, his mother is mentally ill and could not properly care for him and his 3 siblings. They had no electricity, no water, no bathroom and hardly any food.

I was able to see his home, meet his father and document bringing his half-brother, Carlos, to the NPH home.

Almost 4 years later, during the February International Meeting in El Salvador, I got to see Misael again. A shy at first, little 5 year old. He agreed to sit with me during mass where he looked at me inquisitively. The children, like in Honduras, grow up so fast. In a blink of an eye this little infant is now in kindergarten and his older brother Carlos is in the percussion group playing the bongos. When I spoke to Carlos and told him that I remembered his home and his family he told me that his goal is to continue to study to help support his brothers. His eyes shone with such pride as he played with the music group and I thought what a life changing opportunity for this family. There are countless stories like this within our homes but it makes such an impression when you see the results over the years that NPH achieves. It also validates the work that everyone contributes to, everyone that participates in this NPH family is helping a family like Carlos and Misael.