Ethiopia Day 1

It's been two weeks since we got back and I'm finally getting around to writing about our trip. Hey at least I posted pictures on facebook and walmart the next day! I had a feeling this would happen and I came prepared. I brought a journal with me and attempted to put my thoughts to paper. This post I'm calling "day 1" but it is actually the first three days. So here goes nothing...

It took us 28 hours to get to Ethiopia. From the time we arrived at the airport in Kansas City to the time we left the airport in Addis Ababa was a whopping 28 hours! Ouch. We were very excited about going but not about the travel time. Our first flight was from Kansas City to Chicago, a 1 1/2 hour flight.. 

YAY!!

Yay!

 

 Then after a two hour layover, we were off to Frankfurt, Germany, an 8 1/2 hour flight...






We arrived in Frankfurt at 5:45 local time. We found a restaurant to hang out in and eat a little (they fed us a lot on the plane). Then we were boarding on our final flight to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia with a slight layover in Khartoum, Sudan. We didn't get off the plane in Khartoum, some people got off, some got on and we refueled. With the over one hour stop in Khartoum, this flight was 7 1/2 hours...

ummm

yay?



 

We got off the plane and went straight into a line for visas. The line took forever but when we got in there I finished first because the clerk was trying to flirt with me haha! Then straight from that line to the one where they check your passports, then straight to baggage claim (it really is a small airport!), and right next to baggage claim was the bank window where we could exchange our money. The exchange rate was 18:1 so we came out of there with several thousand birr! To give you an idea of the cost of things, a liter of soda is 25 birr.

Then we walked out and saw our driver holding a sign that said Holt. We waited with another couple while yet another couple was going through the same process we had just done. By the time we left the airport it was after 9:30pm local time. We were pretty wiped!

 

We got to the guest house, Lucy Land and Chris tried to get online while I attempted a shower. The mount for the shower head holds it pointing straight out. The water blew straight through the curtain and started flooding the bathroom! Oy. So I hurriedly turned it off and got the shower head off it's holder and attempted to wipe up the floor with towels. Then the tub wasn't draining! So I redressed and went down and asked for help. Why couldn't Chris have been the one to shower first?!! Everything got fixed and we settled in for the night.

 

So, official Ethiopia day 1, which by the way felt like 3 days!  We got up early, our wake up call had been set for 6am. Chris woke up, looked at his watch and rolled over and woke me up. I looked at his watch and said "babe, it's 5" he replies "oh crap, it is". Ugh. So we listened to the echo of the morning calls to prayer going throughout the city. Then Chris turned on the tv and it was a Christian gospel music video that drowned out the calls to prayer. I'm not usually like this but I said "ha! take that Allah!".  We'll call it jet lag.

 

We went down to the complimentary breakfast in the guest house restaurant and ate waaay too much! So yummy! And the coffee! OH don't even get me started on the coffee!! Fun fact: The origin of coffee is in Ethiopia. Yum. After breakfast our Holt driver was waiting to take us (five families in all) to the Holt Ethiopia office.  There we got our briefing and were able to review our respective child's file. In Ephraim's file was his birth certificate and also a very small photo of his mother. I took photos of course. :)

 

From there we split up and were driven to our child's care center (we were spread out to three different ones). There was another couple at our care center who are adopting a 4 (probably closer to 6) year old boy from the same region as Ephraim. That was comforting to know that there was a possibility of someone else there that spoke the same language. They had come earlier and visited their son Zone on Saturday so he already knew who they were. When we pulled into the small courtyard, I was the last to get out of the van. The boys were sitting there waiting for us. Since they already knew who Zone's parents were, Ephraim walked straight up to Chris and gave him a hug!! Can you believe it!?! By the time I got to him, he let me hug him. haha!

 

We went inside their bedroom and discovered that Zone and Ephraim share a bed! How fantastic! Chris pulled out the clothes we brought him but didn't expect his response or he might have done it in a different order! First the socks, Ephraim took off his shoes and put on the socks, then the new shoes...he put on the shoes and put his old ones under the bookshelf of clothes, so well trained! Sometime during the shoes I decided to video tape. Then the shirt came out of the bag and instantly Ephraim took his shirt off and changed. Then the pants...that's when I turned off the camera...he didn't have underwear on HA! So with his shorts around his ankles, he, Chris and the Holt doctor took off his shoes. I have a picture of him showing off his new clothes, he was so happy. AND he "folded" up his old clothes and put them back on that bookshelf of clothes! I need these nannies to train Chris!

 

We brought him a small soccer ball and played with that for nearly an hour. We got nice and sweaty before going to court! We had lots of fun with him. He's so focused. We were able to break him away from the soccer ball long enough to show him the photo album we brought him, he didn't show much interest in it, he was ready for soccer again. ha! When we left hugged Chris again (of course, he gave him all the presents!) and let me hug him. He was smiling so big and waving as we got into the van. He had his soccer ball tucked under his arm and was sitting down at a desk to look at the photo album.

 

From there we went to court. It didn't look anything like a courthouse, just a building. We were in a waiting room next to a small office. When it was our turn we went into the office (several couples at a time) while the judge asked us questions. All of the answers were some form of "yes" and wham bam thank you ma'am just like that she says "ok he is your son".  It took less than five minutes.

 

We went back to the guest house, ordered some lunch then went out for some shopping. We went to a leprosy hospital/hospice compound. They have a little shop where they sell goods that they make and some that they don't. We stocked up on traditional clothing and a few souvenirs. Then back to the guest house for dinner and just hanging out for the rest of the night. We were exhausted, physically and emotionally and like I said, that one day felt like three.