Friday, July 1

Happy Fisherman's Day!

I'm not sure what the traditional greeting is, but that one seems to work. At least it gets a smile and a returned greeting. I only used it on the few people I know, and some of them don't seem to know what the right greeting is. It's a big deal around here, but I'm not sure there's actually a traditional greeting. The holiday is to honor the long tradition of fishing that used to sustain the population here. Now everything is shipped in, so perhaps there's going to be a Shipping Day in the future.

Today we heard back from our senator, Amy Klobuchar. She's trying to work on adoption reform, and offers whatever aid a senator might offer to smooth the adoption process, if there's a problem. We'd sent a simple “we want to know why our approved visa request is still waiting in Manila” request to her office. They sent back a form we need to sign so they can break the privacy barrier with the embassy. Part of the form includes some detailed description and request, and some other information. So I typed up a short (we edited it down to two pages) discussion about our timeline and our desire.

I tried to make it clear that we thought the embassy in Majuro, while not acting aggressively on our behalf, was at least working as expected. The problem seems to be in Manila, an embassy with which the embassy here seems to have no swing. It's unbelievable that approved paperwork would sit around for more than a week, and that no one would be able to find out why, and that no inquiry would spur any action to get the package sent. If there's an explanation, I'll accept that. If someone forgot, I'll grudgingly accept that, too. If there's something else going on, that'll have to be explained.

We needed to print and sign a PDF, so I put my write-up and a couple other documents on a thumb drive. The other documents included our e-mailed inquiry and response from DHS in Manila, that simply said our request was approved, and when, including a scan of the apparent approval form (a checked-box on a form letter).  There were also PDF prints of the DHL tracking information of our package to Manila, and the other family's package from Manila. We went to the RRE to print them out, as they have a little Internet cafe there, that Claire thought had print and FAX capabilities.

Their little cafe has three desktops, but no printers or FAX. The nice lady at the front desk escorted me to the RRE office across the parking lot, where another nice lady printed the 12 pages for me. We returned to the hotel, and they charged me $3 for the printing. Whatever. We had a nice breakfast, talked a little more about potential repercussions of getting the senator's office involved.

We decided that at best, something stalled will get prompted to get back into action. Perhaps the situation is just one of papers misplaced. The embassy dude here did joke that they hadn't lost one yet, and while this would be one eventually found, I would say it'd be a situation of one lost; that'll kill their apparently perfect record.

Also, we thought that at worst, some kind of malicious mishandling of our visa request will be noticed by someone who might be in a position to properly correct the malice, and see to it that it doesn't happen again. A line was crossed when Claire gave the embassy dude's wife's number to another adopting family when he was so hard to get in touch with on the last day of the week when their package would be arriving after hours. We've been hoping that no one is petty enough to try to “show us who's boss” by putting some delay in our processing. We decided, that if that's what's going in, then it's good to get a bigger boss involved, because that's an unacceptable and inappropriate way to handle such a slight affront on an attempted friendship.

I completed the form, and assembled the pages into what I thought was an order that made sense. I went back to the front office and asked them to FAX the papers. They gave me a blank sheet of paper, and I faked a cover sheet, mostly so I could indicate how many pages there would be. They then set to FAXing the documents, saying they'd find me in the restaurant when it was done.

An hour later we decided we'd had enough coffee. I had re-read the newspaper twice, and Grace was getting a little fussy, too. I returned to the front desk and learned that they had understood the end of our interaction to mean I'd just return when we were done with breakfast. I'm not sure how, but whatever. They charged $3 per page, and a couple extra for good measure, so FAXing my 13 pages (with cover sheet) ran $41. Small fee if something gets done.

On the way out, Claire wanted to stop at the little handicraft shop across the parking lot from the RRE hotel. There are some little turtle handicraft, well, ornaments that she wants to try to find. She's found some bigger ones, but she'd like a few of the smaller ones. The handicraft shop knew what we meant, but was out of them, and had no expectation of when they'd get more, or any idea of where else we might try. Another woman was there, interacting with Grace for a  while. We ended up chatting with her a little bit.

She's a yachtie, living on a sailboat just off-shore, but has been here for four years. She also works at the embassy. When she learned that we had angered the embassy, she emoted “you're the one.” We explained that while Claire had shared dude's wife's phone number, the other mother had made the call. We chatted a little bit about the kerfuffle that had caused at the embassy, and the myriad rules that got changed. Evidently it's now forbidden for embassy family members to get to know adopting families, which explained a little the brush-off we got after the event. The dude's wife had immediately changed her cell phone number, and the embassy enacted a now strict “no more off hours help” rule.

That last one is unreasonable, but the rest I kind of get. The timing of things around here make it so that they need to expect the occasional off-hour interaction. Yeah, dude works hard all day, and deserves his time off, too. I work hard, too, but I put in the extra time when it's necessary, so I have no sympathy for someone who might have to drive less than thirty minutes to a DHL office or the airport to collect a package and hand it to someone else. If there were more involved, I'd feel a little differently.

It isn't like it's a surprise. They know when the package is arriving by the same shipping information we had. That tracking number is something they also want to no longer make available to families. That's also wrong, especially since we're the consumer, having paid directly for the shipping between the embassies. If they want to keep us out of the loop, don't take that $50 for shipping from us on adoption day!

It was interesting to listen to the story of a poor embassy personnel's plight.. They have a job and someone wants them to do it. It's heartbreaking. I make a little light of it. I don't know what else the dude does, but I do know that it isn't something so demanding that putting in a few extra minutes will break his spirit. Well, maybe it will, but then it seems to me they're in the wrong jobs.

I kept all of that to myself, not wanting to stir any waters.

We also talked about the upcoming July 4th celebration on Monday. Evidently, the embassy throws a proper American cook-out and party, but oddly Americans aren't invited. Well, some are, but only ones with strong ties to Marshallese business, so mostly expatriates. It seems there's some rules about not using taxpayer money to entertain taxpayers that keeps the party private. As such, this woman has worked with the RRE to throw a party with a little bit more of an American feel, and anyone can come. We said we'll be there, gave other farewells, and went our way.

We drove home thinking that it was probably too late in the day for anyone to do anything with our FAX. It was mid-morning here, but the end of the workday in the U.S., so it might be that our FAX landed in an empty office, or at least on a daytime desk. We caught ourselves forgetting that the U.S. was not only on a different time and day (and it is only Thursday there), but also that they're on a different holiday schedule, and no one cares that it's Fisherman's Day; the next work day is just Friday, and there should be people in the office in Minnesota. It might make a difference if they try to reach someone at the embassy here, but I suspect that they'll either find a way to get to everyone they need to reach, or that will irk them and add to their empathy of our situation.

We got back to the hotel, and I sent the PDFs we had attached to their form with a follow-up note saying the FAX had been sent. I also re-iterated that our issue was currently with the embassy in Manila, as they seem to have our package. This was a little bit to cover ourselves and make sure we had some deniability in case the embassy here gets all ruffled.

Claire took over on Mac, making blog entries and e-mailing and so on. I fed Grace. She and I asleep on sofa for a while. We slept for a long while. It started approaching 4PM before we stirred and thought to do something next.

Claire wanted to go back to the RRE to watch the fishermen come in and weigh their catch of the day. I thought I recalled that some of that was happening at the MIR, so we stopped first at the lobby here to ask. There wasn't any kind of crowd outside, or any other kind of indication there was anything going on for Fisherman's Day. The gal at the desk confirmed that the events were taking place at the dock near the RRE, so we left for there.

We arrived at the RRE and Grace was finishing a snack. As Claire did a quick diaper change in the back seat, the new family we've met called to invite us to join them. They were eating at the Tide Table and would be going over to the dock when they were finished. When Claire finished with the diaper we went up and joined them. It turned out they could see us arrive and walk about in the parking lot from their table in the restaurant. We got some food and then some dessert, and then set out for the docks.

The docks were a down the street a little more clockwise and then down an alley roughly across from the courthouse, and on the lagoon. Of course the docks are on the lagoon. I hadn't thought they would be over the ocean, since the lagoon is much more calm, protected from the wind as it is, and has fewer homes to move.

There was quite a crowd at the dock. Most of the crowd was across a bit of a berth from where we entered the area. We watched as they weighed a fish and then we made our way around to be closer to the action. We watched as they pulled the remains of a marlin out of a boat not much bigger than the fish. It weighed in at an amazing 620-some pounds, taking a giant lead over the number two fish, which weighed in around 150 pounds.

We ran into Larry, one of the guys from the island, and got a bit of the low-down from him. I noted how the boat from which they hoisted the marlin wasn't much bigger than the fish. He shared that sometimes to get the fish in they'll pull the bottom plugs, swamping their boats so they can pull the fish in, and then they'll hightail it to shore while they bail out their boat to avoid sinking. He shared also that tomorrow was when the bigger boats went out, but he said that this 600 pounder was going to be hard to top, even from the bigger boats.

He said that there would be a big gathering at the Enamonet on Sunday, and encouraged us and our new friends to all go. We agreed to celebrate with them. We took a couple of photos with the giant fish, and made our way back to the RRE. On the way out of the alley we were hit with a sudden downpour. We ducked under an awning and waited the few minutes it took for it to blow over. We stood outside the RRE for a while with the other family, until the kids started getting cranky.

We'll meet them for breakfast at the Tide Table on Sunday, unless we hear otherwise in the meantime. We made our way back to the hotel. Along the way we stopped for some beer and rum. For some reason I had it in my head that it was Saturday, and I wanted to be sure to get some before they stopped selling it. Of course, tomorrow is Saturday, but at least it's done now.

Grace was still awake through all of this, but she fell asleep shortly after we arrived. We plugged in the last DVD of the second season of The Big Bang Theory and watched the few episodes that remained, as well as the extras and gag reel before turning in.