Sentencia Week

 

March 8, 2010

Here we go. I have been told that this is a very busy week with a lot of running here and there with paperwork. Well, I will try to sum up the week's events in a couple of paragraphs. Monday morning Carmen and Jonny picked me up at 9:30 to head downtown to the court. We made good time getting downtown. We parked several blocks from the courthouse and the three of us proceeded to walk to our destination. Once we arrived at the court we waited in line to get on the elevator to take us to the sixth floor. It is interesting to see how people don't really file into an elevator. They all try to get on at the same time. It is as if this is the last opportunity that they would ever have to get on the elevator. When we got to the sixth floor where our court was located, the "line" was no different than the elevator experience. We waited for our lawyer and when she arrived we made our way to the front of the mass of people standing by the service window. We were handed my Sentencia paperwork and Carmen reminded me to look at everything. The first thing that caught her attention was the date at the top. It read February 22, 2010. She looked at me and said that she had already found an error. She turned to our lawyer to show her the date and our lawyer reported that the date was correct. What does that mean I asked? Carmen told me that we received Sentencia on February 22. Alright. Interesting. How is it that no one told us until March 5? One explanation was that the lawyer couldn't make it down to the court until March 5 due to the transportation strike. Alright. What was she doing the week before the strike when we got Sentencia?

By now it was 11:50 am. We needed to go to the Notory and get Luciana's new Colombian birth certificate. Carmen called the notory and it closes for lunch from 12 to 1. Jonny, Carmen, and I decided to grab some lunch for ourselves at El Correl in a mall close to the Notory.

We made it to the Notory and because I don't speak Spanish the secretary needed Carmen to sign Luciana's birth certificate. Carmen felt very bad that she had to sign it and that I didn't have the opportunity. It makes no difference to me as long as Luciana is our little girl!

When we were finished at the Notory it was too late to go get a passport so this concluded day one of Sentencia errands.

March 9, 2010

Jonny, Carmen, Luciana, and I had two things on our agenda today. First thing was to get Luciana's passport and the second was a visit to the Embassy doctor in the afternoon. Day two of Sentencia outings went very smoothly.

March 10, 2010

Today we headed to the Defender of Minor and the U.S. Embassy. The goal was to get to the Embassy before 11 am or we would not be processed. It takes one day to process Luciana's visa. We made it to the Embassy at 10:50 am and they accepted her paperwork and we were told to return Thursday at 3:30 to pick up her visa.

March 11, 2010

Luciana has her visa. We are now free to go home!