Ethiopia Day 3

It's been about two months since we've returned home from Ethiopia and as you know, it's taken me quite some time to blog about our short trip. Honestly I've been hesitant because it brings back so many emotions...especially our last day. Yup, already feeling it...

Wednesday started much earlier for me than the other days. I woke up around 4am and could not fall back asleep. I began thinking about all that had happened and what was to come and well, any mom's out there will know. Ever seen the movie "I don't know how she does it" with Sarah Jessica Parker? She visualizes a list of things that need to be done as she lies in bed...it was kind of like that.  I heard music playing and I thought it was the cook preparing breakfast. (more on that later)
I pulled out my kindle around 5am. At about 5 till 6am, Chris rolled over and I told him what time it was...he looked at his watch, nope! 5 till 5am! I got up at 3am!!! Breakfast wasn't until 7am. Oy vey...

When we got downstairs I was talking with Mimi about my early morning and I mentioned the music that I thought was coming from the kitchen. She said "That was me!!, I couldn't sleep either, you should have come down and talked to me!" UGH! What a missed opportunity! Next time I'm seeking out the music!!

After breakfast we went up to Entoto. It's a mountain that has the royal palace (big fancy hut) of King Menelik II, just click on it to find out! :P We were unable to take pictures in the museum itself but we were able to take photos of the grounds.


Our tour guide Moges in front of the museum



Moges was awesome. Usually you have to ask if you can take a picture of someone, he asked to take a picture with us! Then he gave us his address so we could sent it to him. He started teaching me some basics of writing Amharic and I have the task of signing my name in Amharic when I sent the photo! Yikes!

It was so beautiful up there. No smog, no traffic, just lots of trees and fresh air! The mountain was covered in Juniper and Eucalyptus trees.

A view from the top! Addis Abeba below



We were very high up as you can see. Addis is already 8,000 feet above sea level. Thankfully we didn't have to do too much physical activity. ;)


First Christian church in Addis

The king's house

The king's dining room, kitchen, grand hall with the guest house in front



After our tour of Entoto, we went back to the guest house for lunch. After lunch, one last visit to Miskaye to see Ephraim. The director had told Ephraim that we would be there after lunch. So like any five year old, he thinks that as soon as he's done eating we will be there. We actually arrived about an hour after he ate lunch. We stopped on the way to buy some oranges and bananas (burtuken and muz) for the kids so that delayed us a bit more. The first two days he had been waiting for us to arrive. This day however, they had to search for him. The place is not that big so it wasn't difficult. They found him on his bed, he had cried himself to sleep because he though we were not coming. We were sitting on chairs when he came out. He was frowning and his shirt was wet with tears. He came straight to me and sat on my lap. I gotta admit, my new mommy heart went YES!

I wish I could show you the photos of his sad little face and then his happy face after he ate an orange! :P

We think he knew it was our last day because he was very cuddly and rarely left our laps (just like Zone with his parents the day before). We got out the photo album and I filmed as Chris went through each photo saying names as he repeated. Of course it was dead quiet until I turned the camera on! ha! Then we cuddled some more and he watched the videos we had on our camera. Some were of his cousins on our Florida vacation last April, he loved these! Then it got to videos we had taken there. I thought that as soon as he saw himself playing soccer he would go get his ball, nope. Same with videos of his batmobile, nope. He just stayed on my lap and watched.

When it came time for us to leave, I reluctantly passed him off to Chris and went into the office to try and get someone to tell him that we had to leave but that we would be back. I started crying as I walked to the office but some hilarious ladies in there cheered me up!
They offered me some food, looked like chunky salsa on injera so a very talkative (in Amharic) girl fed me a bite. (feeding someone a bite is a sign of respect, Moges said he feeds his wife every day :) ) I bit down and immediately felt the heat of the peppers in there and of course my eyes bulged and everyone laughed. Through hand motions, I told them my mouth was on fire and they thought it was hilarious. Then ANOTHER BITE! Oy! My nose started running and tears came to my eyes. One of the girls gave me a hello kitty tissue. Finally the manager got off the phone and I was able to stop eating the fire food.
She came with me and explained to Ephraim what was happening and I think he understood. He hugged and kissed us and I pryed myself away. When we got to the car I was crying but hoping my sunglasses covered it. I waved goodbye to Ephraim and then turned to the girls waving from the office and motioned that my mouth was still on fire. The laughter was a good distraction but it was so very difficult to say goodbye to my little boy. We blew kisses to each other until we pulled out of the gate and out of sight.

Yup, I'm crying. We are finally at the last stage and all we need is the go ahead to come get him and have our final interview with the US Embassy. We found out a few days ago that things may not have been fully handled properly by the original social worker that took Ephraim (as well as other children) into care. Nothing illegal but it will delay us (hopefully) only a couple weeks. The benefit is that now we will get a video of an interview of his birth mother (and yes, translated by either voice over or subtitles).

So there is day three and a small update of where we are now. Please pray for patience in us and for protection over Ephraim. There are some infections and parasites going around his care center and the sooner we can get him out of there, the sooner he can be treated.