Visiting Malinga...again

We were missing Malinga and needing a break from Kilema so we took the luxury bus (an oxymoron if I ever heard one) to Dar es Salaam. Roman's mom is now officially African as she survived the trip and seemed to enjoy looking at the beautiful countryside. We have done it a few times so it isn't quite as interesting and the high speeds, broken toilet and lack of air conditioning for 8 hours were enough to send me over the edge. The kids are currently fighting over who will sleep next to Malinga tonight as I type this from the hotel room...thank God for good internet in the big city. It has been a great day and we are all looking forward to when he will be with us permanently. The update on the adoption process now is that we have done all paperwork and it is in the hands of the Tanzanian social services person who will handle our case. Her name is Miss Moyo. She will meet us tomorrow for the first time. She needs to get our foreign reference report from Canada and then she will put our file before the Assistant Commissioner for Social Welfare. He is an imposing and often difficult to deal with senior government official named Mr. Charwell. Once he approves us as fosterparents/guardians we can pick up Malinga at the orphanage. We will then need to apply for a Tanzanian passport (and likely pay some bribes...I can't believe I just said that) to get the whole thing done in time to take him home. One of us needs to get back to Canada soon to work as we are running out of money...but it will have been worth every penny.