dig...swim...dig...swim

My incessant digging has turned up 3 updates on Vietnam:

* The French agency Médecins du monde (MDM) has received 2 more "regular" referrals, bringing their total to 4 under the new system.

*  The Italian agency CIFA posted on October 19 that it received its first 2 "regular" referrals under the new system.
* Children's Bridge (CB) in Canada is waiting for their quota from the DA (which is interesting, since my agency said many moons ago that Vietnam decided not to give any more quotas!?).  CB is also looking at opening a special needs stream.  Their contact person in Vietnam indicates that waiting children include those with HIV, cleft lip/cleft palate, hernia and missing or malformed hand or digits.  This is also interesting, since a) I have been open to most of those needs, as well as many others, since I signed up for Vietnam 3 years ago, and b) the special needs stream was open the whole time that the "regular" stream was closed.  It doesn't make sense to me that families who are open to various special needs wait for 3 years while matching children sit in orphanages all that time. Nor does it make sense that an additional agency is going to open a special needs stream when there are a number of agencies already working in this stream, yet apparently unable (not a judgment, just an observation) to connect waiting children with the families waiting for them. I guess I shouldn't be surprised when things don't make sense....considering what I have seen, lived and learned over the past 6 years.

Does anyone else hate the word "wait" as much as I do?  Stay tuned for more on that topic...and keep on swimming.