Saturday's Greeting from Ghana

Okay, you've created a monster.  So many of you have sent nice comments, words of encouragement and wisdom that I've developed a Pavlovian conditioned response to writing these updates.  In fact, I just had to wipe some saliva off the iPad (j/k).

I'll really go for brevity (if possible) but I realized today that as someone who has never been good at journaling these updates will likely serve me better than my memory often does as I think back on these days here in Ghana and especially the time with Joy.

I fell asleep full of optimism last night but awoke to a frowney-faced 4 year old at 5:40 and figured I was in for another day of walking on the edge of her emotions.

Much of the morning was dodging meltdowns or trying to console her through them.  I've the picture of her standing at the door crying and refusing to turn around etched in my mind (since it's poor form as a parent to actually take a picture at that time).  Eventually soft words and offers to hold her were accepted.

Things started to look up considerably after tummy's were full (her's first, then mine) and we went outside for some walks and to watch people play tennis.  For those who have a mental picture of what a trip to AFRICA is like that involves wild animals running around and the like, Accra (the Capitol city of Ghana) is several million strong and filled with traffic, loud noise, and friendly people (but no elephants as far as I can tell).

We enjoyed a short outing to a local market so I could quickly scoop up some trinkets for the family.  Having Joy in toe really sped up my shopping technique.  For those who have been to this particular market with me before (Becky, Jim, Dad, Malinda, and a few others I'm sure) you're constantly "encouraged" by the locals to come into their shop (basically a bunch of wooden shacks attached to each-other) and haggling is expected.  I like to look around for a while (and have become pretty immune to the barrage of shopkeepers) but today I got right to it and my Ghanian friend who accompanied us paid me the complement of saying that my bargaining prowess made me "more Ghanian than him."

SO MUCH FOR BREVITY .....

A big shout out to my lovely bride of nearing 20 years.  Today is Becky's 41st Birthday and she's more beautiful and precious to me than ever.  We figured that this is the first birthday of hers that we haven't spent together in over 22 years.  We were able to FaceTime twice and the first session was pretty early in the morning back home so Joy and I were actually the first to wish her Happy Birthday and sing to her.  Joy's disposition really took a nice upturn after speaking to and seeing Mommy for the first time today and stayed pretty solid through the second FaceTime session later in our afternoon.  We were blessed by technology to now actually have our first FULL FAMILY PICTURE (see attached below) as the screen capture capabilities of the iPad and iPhone allowed all 8 of us to have some portion of our faces viewable in one image (probably will be the Christmas card this year despite being a bit blurry).

I'd like to say that I've figured out the keys to success with Joy but alas I'm sure that will take more time and devotion.  A few milestones today included actually getting close enough to the swimming pool to touch the water with one hand (she's been very afraid in the past), a silly face session (see attached example), finding someone else to take a photo of us (rather than every duo picture being only from the distance of my arm's length (we thought Joy's arm length would be too short), and my sweet girl snuggling up next to me and falling asleep with my arm around her as I read her the first chapter from Winne-the-Pooh (brilliant writing in my view as a father and Pediatrician, truly captures what I imagine the mind of a young child thinks -- read it slowly if you somehow haven't yet).

I'm saddened that Joy will be heading back to Cape Coast tomorrow- I will miss her immensely and we'll have to go back to our FaceTime-less weekly phone calls (which we treasure but just aren't the same).  I am happy that I'll be heading home as I miss you all (especially my crew).  I look forward to seeing everyone and I'll have more stories, pictures, etc... to share so feel free to pretend to not see me if I'm heading in your direction and make a quick escape.

If all goes well in the courts (I guess that would be a first for us, sorry, a little cynicism just slipped out there) we may have the necessary document by the end of this month such that I can make a quick return trip to file everything with the U.S. Embassy to start that (long) process for getting Joy a Visa/passport to bring her home at long last.  More to come on that front........

Again, a sincere thanks to all of you as you either processed this multifaceted journey with me or possibly just learned how to set your auto-delete e-mail functionality ;-).

For the residents - I guess it will soon be back to my typical boring program director e-mails -- but they have to be better than the stuff MSGME is always sending out (don't tell).

For the rest following us on this adoption journey I will relinquish the rightful post of updater back to the blog queen Becky Homme.

Signing off,
-Jay