Why Alison can't bring Zoe home just yet

Olympian Alison Herst has suffered a setback in her efforts to bring her adopted daughter Zoe back to North Bay from Haiti.

Herst, pictured here, and her father Paul have been in Port-au-Prince since October 18 trying to finalize an adoption process which began over a year ago.

A week ago things were looking up.
All that remained was for Zoe to be issued a Haitian passport, and the matter was in the hands of the Haitian Interior Ministry.

Hopes were the passport would be issued within four or five days, meaning Paul, Alison and Zoe could return to Canada Nov. 1.

Application made in wrong name
But an apparent mistake on the part of Herst’s Haitian lawyer has crushed those hopes, said Alison’s mother Linda.

Zoe had been born Tracy Poly Franc to a 15-year-old Haitian girl Oct. 17, ‘02.

Alison, a Grade 6 teacher at Vincent Massey Public School, changed Tracy’s name to Zoe.

“I just liked it,” Herst said. “Zoe means life and she is my life.”

In order to expedite the passport process through the Haitian bureaucracy, Herst’s lawyer was instructed to apply for the passport in Zoe’s birth name.

“Then they found out the lawyer had made the application in Zoe’s adopted name, which has created another mess and will just draw things out even longer,” Linda Herst said.
“Maybe it was a stall tactic on the lawyer’s part, maybe he wants more money, we don’t know.”

Situation becoming unbearable
Baytoday.ca has been unable to contact either Alison or her boyfriend Stacy Jackson, an American Hockey League linesman living in Corpus Christi, TX.

In the meantime, Linda said, the situation is starting to become unbearable.

“They’re all exhausted because it’s hot there and there’s no air conditioning where they’re staying, and Zoe is just a handful because she has nowhere to play properly,” Linda said.

“And the playpen she’s sleeping in is too small, so every time she rolls over she wakes up.”

Linda said the Canadian embassy in Haiti has been very helpful.

“There’s only so much they can do, though, so it’s hard not to get upset.”