Mr Messy had arranged to meet Assistant at the orphanage at 9am, so being woken early by baby gave him chance to have a shower and a leisurely breakfast before the driver arrived to pick him up. I gave him the list of children to check up on at the orphanage, the questions for the orphanage nurse (she said on my last trip that once baby was officially adopted we could have her weight and vaccination records) and sent him on his way. About 15 minutes later the driver pulled up back in the courtyard!! Apparently we needed 8 passport size photos of baby before we can get the birth certificate. We knew we needed the photos, but thought they were for her passport and British Visa, so I was going to get them this afternoon when Mr Messy was out. I dashed upstairs dressed baby in her whitest outfit (picture is supposed to be in a white outfit on a white background) rounded up Little Prince and set off to the Friendship Mall to get the photographs done. Baby managed fairly well for her photographs, but once they were over started to scream and wouldnt be calmed down at all. One of the shop assistants asked if I needed to breastfeed her!! No, but she did need feeding urgently!! I took baby and Little Prince back to the Guest House to feed her, while Mr Messy waited at the shop for the photographs. Once he was back he and the driver headed straight back to the orphanage, however, the birth certificate office was now closed for its long lunch, and Mr Messy was asked to come back at 1.30pm. When he was back at the Guest House again, he said he felt like he had been driving round in circles all day lol.
We took advantage of the "down time" to get baby bathed again. She was MUCH happier about the process this time, laughing and splashing with her feet. Perhaps its because she's more settled or perhaps its because her bottom isn't so sore now! I managed to work on a couple of the matted parts of the back of her hair, and she only has a few left now. We also used the Body Shop Shea Butter on her skin after her bath and her skin is lovely and soft and smells beautiful now :-) After her bath we let her play and kick on her changing mat for a while to let her bottom get some fresh air. She seemed to enjoy this, until she got tired again and is now sleeping peacefully in her cot. Drama Teen and Little Prince are playing less peacefully on our bed with their DSs. They seem to play nicely for a while then they fall out again, then they make up and start the process over again!!!
At 1.30pm the driver turned up to collect Mr Messy, to try again at the Birth Certificate Offices. He was out for AGES!! He was taken to the orphanage to pick up Assistant and together they went to the Central Registry for Births, Marriages and Deaths. He needed a photocopy of both of our Passport ID pages, which we didn't know so they had to get that done on the way there. When you arrive you take a ticket with a number on and wait your turn to be called. Luckily Assistant had a ticket from an earlier visit to correct a different child's certificate so they were able to jump the queue quite a bit!! The ticket is Amharic and they call the numbers in Amharic, so Assistant was definitely needed for this part of the process. When their number was called they went to the first room and presented the papers to the man behind the desk, he checks everything is in order and creates a file. They then went to the next office where they paid the fee (300 birr - already included in the donation to the orphanage), they then took the file and receipt back to the first office where it was put at the bottom of a big pile to be turned into a birth certificate once the clerk reaches the file. As there were so many files ahead of ours it wasn't possible to get the certificate on this first trip and Mr Messy and Assistant will return to the Central Registry on Monday to collect it. Mr Messy said it was all fairly orderly but everyone was crowded together, which might make young children uncomfortable. Once they have the certificate on Monday, then Mr Messy and Assistant are going straight round to the Passport Offices to apply for baby's Ethiopian Passport, which Assistant says can be issued there and then if all the paperwork is in order - keep your fingers crossed that it is!!!
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