Mom...Where do babies come from?...

...They come from poor countries, honey.

That's the subject of this post. Discussion of it doesn't begin immediately, but it would not have looked right anywhere else body of the text. So.

First.
The DREAM Act failed in the Senate, it was close (52 in favor, 44 opposed). I wish the country was different. It makes me embarrassed to live in the United States. It makes me embarrassed to have what I have. The kind of hypocrisy on display by our government is devastating to a full 5% of all of the workers in the United States. The most aggravating aspect of all of this is that this, along with other legislative activities (see the provision denying medical coverage to the children of undocumented immigrants in the revised S-CHIP bill), targets people who are impossible to blame, kids who were brought into the country by their parents.

Next.
Brief anecdote.

I was eating dinner made by Reina, who I must reiterate, is the fukken shit. I just found out that everyone else gets dinner made to order. They tell her what they want, she makes it. Me? I just eat what she gives me. And it's always phen-tastic. Anyway, so I'm eating, explaining to her that I'm going home early (I'm going home early) and talking about how I dialed internationally to make sure nothing got mixed up with changing my ticket date by talking to someone in English but he ended up having a really thick accent so it ended up being in Spanish anyway. And she asks me how much it costs to change the dates.

"$100"
"And how much did you pay for your first ticket? "
"Around $430"
"Oh, wow! How much is that in Quetzales?"
"Ummm..400x7...2800?"
"Ha ha! I'll just pay a coyote (immigrant smuggler), thank you very much! That would only cost me 1000!"

I found this very funny and we chattered on. I'm going to miss her very much. Well, maybe not as we ultimately decided that I'm just going to put her (she's very small) in my suitcase.

Right. Babies. Babies everywhere. I feel great.

So, in the time I've been here, working for Diaz-Duran and Asociados, I've seen pretty much the entire adoption process from the time the State approves a set of parents from abroad, to the time the kid gets on the plane. I've been to fill out forms for a Guatemalan visa, I've brought them in for their passport photos, I've put stamps on 14 pages of governmental approval for adoptions, I've watched foster parents officially sign away their responsibiliy for a child I've talked to state social workers about the blessing these children are receiving, I've held little kids in place while their little hands and feet are put on inkpads and printed on official documents.

Finding out about the international adoption process and where Guatemalan babies (including the adorable little one that lives in my house) come from was probably my most compelling reason for embarking on this whole central american (mis)adventure. And I've learned a lot. more than I really meant to.

First of all, the women in the social service center are extremely friendly. They talk about all of the children that have come through (they remembered my little sister) and how good it is that they're coming to the United States. On the other hand they mention the sadness on the faces of anyone who's taken care of the children when they have to give them up.

One thing that everyone mentions, without fail, is poverty. "There's so much poverty here, so of course they have to give up a child that no one can afford to support" "Better that the children go to place where there's money. That way they can be happy" and the like. Money also comes into play on the Guatemalan side as foster families earn considerable (by Guatemalan standards) sums of money for agreeing to take care of the child. Parents in the United States are also often willing to pay a ton to make sure that their adopted child gets to the US or to shorten the amount of time that the bureaucratic process takes. This is actually a big reason that the Guatemalan government is closing all international adoptions on December 31st through a mandate that I'm not entirely clear on. It seems a lot of people are convinced that adoption has become a sort of human-trafficking process, with Guatemalans essentially "selling" their children to people in the US, with a number of middle-persons making a profit.

So. Adoptions are closing. Good thing? Not really. It's clear that there are children here that are extremely poor who can't be provided for by their families. I had an unexpected conversation with one of the secretaries who's usually extremely curt and reserved (she told me not to use the "workers" bathroom at the office because it's dirty) about the lack of sex ed. in Guatemala and how that results in a good number of unsupportable pregnancies.

Based on the conversations that I've had with lawyers, social workers, and foster moms, I've come to believe that international adoption is probably not the worst bandaid solution to global circumstances that exists. Right now, there is an enormous income gap. There are people who can afford to raise children and people who can't. It makes some people feel good to adopt children from abroad, for whatever reason. It seems like a win-win. But then it stops at that. People seem resigned to that fact that some places are poor and other places are not and that's how it is and how it will be. That's how the people I've talked to here seem to feel. Like they've got a lot of poor kids and lot more coming and so they'd better do something with them. They look at me funny when I say that adoptions a good thing but I hope that someday they won't have to put kids up for adoption from other countries, that someone in Guatemala will be able to do it.

Overall, despite some revelations and surprising exchanges, some of my assumptions coming into this have been confirmed. For one, the law firm is not only the leader in assisting with Guatemalan adoptions, it is also the first law firm in central america to have specialized a number of its policies to assist in proceedings involved with the Central American Free Trade Agreement. It seems like it must be free trade of everything.

There's a fundamental problem here. When say I here, I don't mean my physical location. I mean now. With the world. And I don't exactly know how to solve it. So there you go.

In other news...um...I'll see you all soonish?

At least I'm not Blogging for Breasts...
(real thing, see yahoo's people of the web...didn't read it, just saw it adverstised)

-kevlar

PS: Pop music in spanish is weird. There's a song I've listened to repeatedly due to my temp fam's agreement that there is only one burned cd they can all listen to together (even though half of the tracks aggravate the the 13 year old. It's called "Pinguinos en la Cama" by Ricardo Arjona.

Its chorus begins...."Vamos aclarando el panorama/que hay pinguinos en la cama"
Literally translated: "We are clarifying the panorama/that there are penguins in the bed"
Figuratively translated...I actually have no earthly idea.