Next, we went to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, but there must be two separate locations, as I have seen a big fancy one, with a big gate, and we went to a little one where I was patted down before I entered. (The men/boys were “wanded” before they went in.) We paid 325 birr for each set of documents to get yet another set of stamps, verifying the US State Dept's stamps and the Ethiopian Embassy's stamps. (We have 3 “sets”.)
We then went and dropped documents off for translation. You do not get the entire dossier translated, rather, it is 6 types of documents: Birth certificates, marriage license, bank statement, Dr's letter (they would have preferred more details than ours had – lab work, vital signs, etc), employment verification, and police clearances. Interestingly enough, the homestudy does not get translated. I asked about having translations done ahead of time, in the US and was told it needs the Ethiopian stamps. We will pick those up today – the cost was 20 birr per page, and we ended up with a total of 8 pages, so 160 birr, which is just under $20.

From there, we went to MOLSA, but Ato Haddush was in a meeting all morning, so we headed to the orphanages. Our first stop was the Missions of Charity, where Ashenafe and Halofom had been before their adoption. We saw their names in a registry book! The Missions of Charity is a “Mother Teresa” orphanage – way cool. What was not cool, however, is that they would not work with us as private adopters because at least several of the previous private adopters have not filed postplacement reports! In fact, the man there said they had NEVER received a postplacement report from a family who had done a private adoption. It's truly unfortunate, because it negatively impacts all the potential families coming behind you!! So, here's my one word of advice on creating goodwill - file the postplacement reports!!

Anyway, this is where Ashenafe started feeling sick and the first place he threw up.
We went from there to Kidane Mehret, but Sister Lutgarda was just on her way out, so we arranged to come back in the afternoon, after we took Ashenafe back to the hotel to puke in peace. Poor kid!!