Adoption court in Uganda

When we first started this journey I had no idea what anything would be like. I have been to Uganda before but it was with The Go Team.

If you follow along on my face book http://facebook.com/shawnrayferrell then you know how court went. For those of you that have been in suspense I am sorry but we went to the village and hung out with the boys for the weekend. We had a good relaxing weekend and are recharged and ready to tackle this week. 

As far as we can tell court went good. It is such a difficult thing. The judge will not give you a ruling the day you have court. He will set a date about 1-2 weeks later to give his ruling. At the first court date he can tell you no but luckily he did not do that. All of his questions where asked to Jethro's biological Mom. Sarah walked up and down the hall with Jethro and I sat there with a dumb look on my face because Lugandan is not my strongest language. I smiled when everyone else did and made up what I thought was being said.

Court in Uganda is not like on TV with Judge Judy. You sit in the judges office in a row of chairs on the back wall. The lawyer sits across from him and they do all the talking. He is addressed as "my lordship." If he gets a call on his cell phone then he is going to take it. if he wants to take a break and have tea you sit and wait for him to do what ever he wants. Why should I have thought anything different TIA (this is Africa).

Our court time was scheduled at 2:30pm. We arrived a bit late because that is normal here in Uganda. Jethro normally is taking a nap at this time so we kept him up in hopes that he would fall asleep the second we arrived. 

Wrong.

He was a ball of energy that would not stop. the good thing is we where not called into his chambers till about 4:30pm 2 hours later. At 5pm the judge decided to take a lunch break and would not tell us how long so we had to wait out in the lobby, this is when Jet finally took a nap. At 7pm we where called into his chambers(office) and had a court hearing for an hour. By the time we left the building we had been there for 6 hours with a hungry tired 32 and 2 year old. 

Next time more snacks and more naps.