Sorry about letting this blog get bogged by only updating once a month. Nothing and I mean nothing happened during the month of October. As you know we passed NOC but are now waiting for our case to work its way through the court system. Nothing happens in October as there are 13 high festivals/holidays in October. So we continue to get ourselves prepped for our now 2 ½ year old. I have been looking at hotels, racks and B&B. One chain is The Ginger. It reminds me of dorm room living. Maybe a little bigger in square footage but not much. The rooms have a flat screen tv, a bed, a small counter to write on and a shower with toilet – no bathtub. Compared to other hotels this Spartan one is only about $60 a night where others are about $150 a night. Unfortunately this hotel chain is not in all the cities we will be visiting. The next “cheaper” place is the B&B. It is run by an engineer and Psychologist in Delhi. As a bonus it is possible to arrange evening meals in addition to breakfast.
Phone Home
So once we are in country how do we communicate with the folks back home or possibly some of our contacts in India? Obvious solution is to get a throw away phone while there. Doesn't help much if mom and dad want to call to see how things are going and to say hi to their new grandchild. So how about re-chipping your current cell? Well to do that you need to crack the cell to let it accept other company chips. Oh and you need to make sure your phone will work in the country you are going to something about GSM and broadcast frequencies. For the provider we will use in country you need a phone capable of GSM 900/ 1800/ 1900 or a GSM 850/ 900/ 1800/ 1900 Suffice it to say google will be your friend. If you decide to crack your phone, also known as unlock, on your own be careful because if you choose the wrong program you could turn it into a brick.
So AT&T doesn't like to use the word crack they call it subsidy password. When you take out your chip and put in someone else's it will ask for a password. Essentially it unlocks the phone so that it will recognize another network. The crack software does it by recoding the internal program of the phone and makes it universal to accept other chips. The password method keeps the same program that came with the phone. Since I am somewhat phone unsavy this is the method I took. Since we have been with the same provider for a year or so all it took was a 10 minute phone call. The password that the company gives you is specific to a single phone. Now to find a chip and plan for India
Finding a provider and plan is not too messy – google again. There are a few providers that I found and as usual the glom around high population locales. The one we are going to use will only work in Deli which is ok. http://www.roamsimple.com/products/Roam-Simple-India-SIM-Card.aspx use the Idea network. Initial outlay is $19 and calls are at 30 cents minute when you are done you return the chip. The calls are cheaper at http://www.cellularabroad.com/SIMcards.php which uses AirTel but the cost of the chip is over $80 – you keep the chip.
Schlep a PC?
Not sure yet one. All our documents have been scanned in and are available to print and are also on a flash drive. There are a bunch of monster laptops out there. Space and weight are killers whn\en it comes to laptops. MSI mobile has a 10 inch laptop called the wind. It has built in Wi-Fi b/g/n blue tooth and a camera too boot. Might be the ticket. Who uses pen and paper anymore? Could try a blackberry or cousin of the bb but that would mean another learning curve to tackle. See more at http://www.msimobile.com/nblist.aspx?screen=10.0
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Treats
Our suitcase is filling up with clothes for the children at the orphanage – gotta make sure we don't low the weight limitations. Did a Costco run to get toothpaste but the tooth brushes are too costly. The parental unit gave us a hook-up for a dental supply house that will be able to set us up with brushes for about 50 cents or less a piece. We still need to find a site for band aids and “neosporin”.
Lose your referral?
One of the adopting parents created a forum that is limited to those of us adopting from our agency. Today I saw an note that one of the parents lost their referral. Unfortunately they did not give any detail but it happened sometime after they accepted the referral. This could mean that they sent in their acceptance form, you get this after you say yes to a particular child. That means that it either got kicked back during the NOC, Court hearing, or something changed in their home study that adversely affected their status. Rather sobering news.
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