Monday- last day in Ghana--I600 filed!

Today was a lounging day waking up. To breakfast and more time spent with the people around the hotel. More coloring, jump rope, singing, etc. The ladies made us some traditional Ghanaian lunch! Banku (doughy starch) with some spicy vegetables/meat. You dip the dough to pick up the soup like meal. I thought the dough tasted much like sour dough, uncooked of course. Was pretty good and Emmanuella liked it.

Our appointment at the Embassy to file our I600 was at 2pm. This process is where they do the orphan investigation, etc., and once approved, we can get an "exit interview" appt. and obtain her visa. Usually taking 6-8 weeks to get an I600 approval.  The Embassy went fairly smooth and once in the interview, we basically answered a few brief questions and handed in our packet.  PRAY PRAY PRAY they could complete this quickly.

Back to the hotel we went out for our last Chicken and Rice meal together. The ladies had been telling Emmanuella since yesterday that she would have to return to the orphanage just one more time. Today the coordinator told her as well and said a familiar older boy would come to get her.  I have no idea what all she actually understand, but she says, "no" to this and looks sad. I know she at least knows she has to return there. The part I'm not sure on is if she really believes we will come back. She has seen kids leave with their "abruni (white) mommies and daddies" so I can only hope. We walked back from the meal with daddy carrying her on his back. We kept her awake because we know the taxi will be at least an hours drive and then she can take her nap. As soon as she saw the older boy from the orphanage upon arriving back at the hotel, she knew. She started to cry. This was incredibly hard. We gave the boy a few Cedis (their money) and asked that he keep her family book safe (he had a backpack he stored everything) and show it to her often and whenever she asked. We sent a bag full of things (coloring books, etc) but we know they will likely not be around for long. Hopefully he can at least keep this picture book of us safe. We finally had to walk away. I don't think we've ever done anything so hard.
Our flight left at 11:15pm so we arrived at the airport by 8:00.