How Accurate Was Our Packing List Anyway??

I decided to re-cap our packing list for those of you who are soon to travel and may want to know if I went overboard or not!  lol  Everything highlighted in blue are things we didn't use this time around.  I did make notes as necessary to explain my thoughts on some of the items......So here goes:

Clothing

*Clothing for Todd and I for 6-7 days...short sleeve shirts and long sleeve shirts to wear over them, 3-4 pairs of pants/jeans....I also included extras of everything

*2-3 pairs of shoes, flip flops for shower, dress shoes and hiking shoes

*sunglasses

*belts

*larger size bag/purse--packing it in suitcase--to use while in Ethiopia to carry our "daily" things

This was a good amount of clothes for the amount of days we were there, I would pack this much again.

Basic Things

*Driver's license, flight tickets and itinerary, credit card

*passports....cash...immunization records  Didn't need our immunization records but ya never know...

*adaptor to convert Ethiopia's electric to our voltage..need to charge batteries and for hair dryer etc. 

*detergent and fabric softner...actually, I cheated and mixed them together!

*clothes line to hang things to dry in our room

*Amharic phrase book/printed out "most used words" translation

*Amharic learning audio on Mp3

*Camera/video camera...chargers and extra batteries...extra camera cards  Only used an 8GB camera card and didn't need more...we took about 700-800 pics on that camera and 150 on our smaller camera

*Sharpie marker

*duct tape....cut a small section of paper towel roll and wrapped some DT around it  I would still bring this

*ALL KINDS of info printed out....from our agency, travel agency and things we wanted to remember

*list of phone numbers and email addresses  

*laptop computer  Didn't use, but if we stayed somewhere different we may have used it at the internet cafe

*small notebook...to record thoughts, info, and sizes/observations about other AAI family's children as requested by them...a pen...list of children to take pics of for their soon to be new parents!

*books/magazines to read  Kind of like that Disney commercial.....I was too excited to read!!  =)

*Ipods

*bubble wrap, in case we buy fragile things to bring back home

*flashlight...incase the power goes out  No power outages at Kings while we were there....but it could happen

*extra garbage bags..dirty clothes etc.

*"Flite Mate" ear plugs....helps to reduce air pressure and prevent air travel nausea. These actually work pretty good  =)

*two 35 gal. tubs filled with stuff for our agency's care center...clothing, crafts and sports equipment. My hubby says no more tubs!  This is because they can easily get caught in customs and get delayed.  The only one we brought back with us got delayed in Chicago and the GR airport had to deliver it to our house in the middle of the night......thankfully, it only had our dirty laundry....hope the inspectors had fun inspecting that!  lol

*various things to take to the care center when we go every day to do with the kids....nail polish, slime, tattoos, silly bands etc.  All were great ideas

*things to do with our little one....special art notebook and paint pens, photo album/video of kids back home   She loved to color/draw and loved the photo album...wasn't too interested in the video but she had to watch it on that little video camera screen and you can't really see or hear it very well, especially with all the toddler chaos going on around you!

Meds/Toiletries

*allergy meds/asthma meds  Needed every day!

*Ginko...helps with altitude and travel  Took it every day!

*Pepto Bismol  Didn't need but would take again anyway.

*Immodium AD  

*Melatonin...to take the first couple of nights to help us sleep  Wonderful!

*Airborne...powder and tablets...to ward off sickness

*Tums  Didn't need

*Elderberry Syrup...immunity booster  Yep...took it every day!

*Advil

*Hydrocortisone cream  Didn't need

*Benedryl cream  Didn't need.

*antibacterial cream  Gave to the Mother with the little boy that had a bad sore on his leg

*Bandaids  Didn't need but would take again

*"Cell Power"...from the health food store....to help with altitude sickness  LOVED this...took it twice every day and actually gave some to a friend that wasn't doing so well and it helped her so I'm sold!  =)  It was recommended to me by a mountain climber....and they should know!  ;)

*Listerine....to swish with a couple times/day and swallow a bit to kill harmful bacteria  Used this twice a day and especially after eating if we went back to the room afterwards!

*vitamins

*No-Jet-Lag....Homeopathic med  Loved this too!  We didn't get jet lag in either direction.....amazing!  

*Acidophilus...healthy digestion, protects against germs  Yep...twice a day and we started taking it a week before we left to go to Ethiopia.

*Dramamine.....for motion sickness  Didn't need.

*T.P....many places in Ethiopia do not have it in their restrooms!  Where we went, we didn't need it but I would still bring it especially if we were traveling out of the city.

*travel size kleenex

*tweezers  Didn't need.

*razors

*deodorant

*hair dryer

*barrette/hair ties etc.

*dental floss

*toothpaste

*extra toothbrushes...incase we forget to brush with bottled water and we need to throw our TBr away Didn't need, we remembered to brush with only bottled water!

*travel toothbrushes...for airplane, the kind with TPaste already on them  These came in very handy but it's not like using your real brush....I might would just carry my own toothbrush in my bag, not use toothpaste but brush really good and then chew a stick of gum.

*make-up

*disposable face washing cloths

*clorox wipes to wipe EVERYTHING down, airline seats, hotel rooms, hands...

*hand sanitizer 

*shampoo/conditioner

*lotion

*brush

*feminine supplies

*Chapstick

*nail clippers  Used these for the girls that were painting their fingernails  =)

*Q-tips

We didn't get around to getting a prescription for Cipro this time around but we would definitely get one for our next trip!  There were too many people getting THAT kind of sickness when we were there, it was scary to NOT have the meds for it!  Better to be prepared!

Snacks

*lots of protein bars

*fruit trail mix

*fruit and nut trail mix

*life savor peppermints

*chewing gum

**We didn't pack a lot of snacks because we figured that food would pretty much be available wherever we may be

**We also didn't pack a lot of extra food like instant oatmeal, mac n cheese etc. like a lot of other families do because we are staying at a hotel and we don't feel that we will have a problem getting food to eat....we love Ethiopian food and there are also American type restaurants over there.

If we were going to stay at a guest house where you can prepare some of your own meals/snacks I might have brought the things directly above, but truthfully, Ethiopia has lots of different types of food to eat, not just Ethiopian, and it's pretty cheap to get a great meal.  Plus most guest houses will cook you certain meals either for free or for a minimal charge.  We had no problem finding something to eat when we were hungry.


Another thought.  Two days after we got there, we noticed that others from our agency were getting sick.  This was the "knock you off your feet for a day to a day and a half type, stay real close to the bathroom, if you know what I mean" sickness!  =(  Probably from the water or something they ate.  Todd and I didn't get sick but we were very careful not to let any water even near our face in the shower!  It's not just your mouth you need to worry about, it's any body opening...like your eyes etc.....  Remember, bacteria are VERY small!  I believe that between keeping the water away from our face and using the Listerine and other precautions, this helped us to avoid the evil "bathroom" sickness.

Our Trip to Ethiopia--Part 6, Our Ethiopia Experience....Our Last Day...and a surprise!

This was our last day in Ethiopia.  I can honestly say that I wasn't ready to go home yet.  I was loving Ethiopia....I was loving being with Tihun.....I was loving being at Layla and I was loving spending time with all of the wonderful people I finally got to meet in person!  Susan, Chris and Ivy...Shelly and Melissa and their hubbies.....miss ya lots!  I knew I was going to miss all of the adoptive families that we met on this trip and also the volunteers/families that were a part of Susan and Chris's group.....and I would miss our awesome driver and friend Jamal.  What it comes down to is that we met a lot of really great people and it's sad that everyone eventually has to go their own way.

I was sad because I knew how hard it was going to be to leave our girl and I was also realizing how much I had become attached to Debritu...T's favorite nanny.  Debritu has the biggest heart for these kids, you can just see the love she has for them in her face when she is caring for them.....I LOVE watching that.  Just thinking about it makes me smile.  If I could have packed her up in my suitcase, I would have!  =)  Funny....I think there were a few adults I said that about!

We went down to breakfast and by this day we had pretty much given up on breakfast all together and just went for the macchiatos.  I'm not really going to write about our trip home so I will just announce it here.  We got into Chicago and IT hit me....and hit me hard!  As we were walking from the gate where we landed to the gate that we were going to fly out of, I saw the Golden Arches.....whaaaa.....can you hear the sound of heaven?! I mean.....I do not frequent Micky D's but I walked up to that counter, looked up in complete awe and within an instant decided that I wanted at least one of EVERYTHING!  Ummm...yeah....I refrained from that impulse order, but this feeling lasted for a good week after we got home.  FOOD!  Good 'ol American type food....even if it was Mexican or Italian....you know what I mean.  I just wanted to eat everything.  Not good.  I have since recovered....thank goodness. Whew!

So we spent the morning with the toddlers as usual and took tons more pictures and video of them.  We loved on Tihun as much as she would let us and then we left the same way as we always did saying our "Ciaos" and blowing kisses.  We were scheduled to go shopping one last time with our trusty Jamal at the wheel.  But before doing that we ran into Ivy and decided to jump into her car really quick and ride to her house with her.  I had the privilege of sitting in the back with Alazar....just about the cutest kid in the world.  They were actually planning on heading to the Hilton to catch some sun and fun in the pool so that's pretty much all A had on his mind.  We pulled into Ivy's compound and she jumped out to go unlock the front door and Todd got out behind her.  I started to open my door and Alazar pounced on me!  "NO"!  He screamed, and he locked me in.  Ummm.....guess he didn't know that all I had to do was lift the door handle??  It took me a minute to figure out why he so desperately did not want me to get out of the car.....apparently he knew if I got out, his trip to the pool would be delayed once again!  I somehow managed to get him and I out of the car and we walked into Ivy's house to get the tour.  Beautiful is all I can say.  Simple but elegant.....but that's Ivy, with a lotta sass thrown in for good measure!  ;)

We headed back to Layla to meet up with Jamal....we hopped out of one car and right into the other.  We went over to a place called Churchill street.  This was my favorite place to shop by far!  The first store I walked into, the store owner offered me a cup of coffee.....now THAT's what I'm talking about!  =)  I bought an armload of stuff from her and then we went down to the next store.  OH MY WORD....I was in heaven.  This store had every single thing I wanted/needed.  This is now my favorite store ever in Ethiopia.  I told Jamal that he'd better remember it so that I can go back there next time.  You should have been there, it was quite funny.  Here's me shopping like there's no tomorrow and three men just watching in amazement.  Ok...so maybe two men....Todd probably wasn't as surprised as Jamal and the store owner were!  I saw Jamal eyeing up one of the scarves that I was going to bring back for the boys and I asked him if he like it and he was so cute.....he looked just like a little boy at Christmas with that embarrassed smile.  I said do you want one, we'll get you one?  "No"....he said.  I said come on...which one do you like?  "Nooo.........the black one".......I thought I would die laughing....so cute.  So I had the store owner get a black one down and I handed it to Jamal.  He said "thank you" and put it right on....with a big smile on his face.

We had Jamal drop us off at our hotel so we could unload all of our things before heading back to Layla one last time.

It was hard to go back this time because I knew it would be the last time.  We spent time with T and also spent time with some of the older kids.  It really wasn't as hard as I thought it was going to be to say goodbye to Tihun.....I think this is because she's not a baby.  With babies, you can cling on to them for dear life and they wouldn't care if you were wiping your tears on their pj's.  She's also not an older child. With an older child, they would start the attachment process and would understand that you wouldn't be back for quite a while....and they would visibly show you how much their heart is getting ripped out by your leaving....that would be hard.

She is a toddler, they are a breed of their own.  Very self absorbed and preoccupied.  She didn't understand how much we loved her, she just thought we were one of the many "Moms and Dads" that come and go....and for some reason she got to be the lucky kid who got to have US assigned to HER!  Some day I will be able to wrap my arms around her and she will love me back.....until then, I just stare at her picture....

We also said good-bye to a few other kids and staff before we left that day.  It was a harder walk back to the hotel and this time it wasn't the altitude.  =(

We got to the hotel thinking that we would have time to take a shower before we had to load up our suitcases on the Kings bus that was headed back to the airport ....but our driver got there an hour early so we had no time at all to even freshen up before we had to start out on our 30 hour journey back home.  Yuck!  So we went approximately 50 hours without a shower because we had one at 6:30 a.m. and it was now 6:30 p.m. and we still had 35 hours to go!  I shudder just typing this.  Needless to say, by the time we got to Chicago I was pretty darn grumpy.....and then they announced that our plane was broken.  So we had at least an hour delay, if not longer.


But as you can see, we lived to tell about our incredible 8 day journey that took us to the other side of the world and to our kids......oops!  I think I just let the cat out of the bag!  Yep, you heard it right....we couldn't stand to leave a certain 9 year old boy behind so we called up our agency when we got home and asked permission to be able to add him to our family along with Tihun.  We are SUPER excited and can't wait to get them both home!  For those of you who would like to see him....here he is:

Yep...I'm a tease.....sorry, we can't share until we pass court for him.  =)

More news to come.....stay tuned!

Our Trip to Ethiopia--Part 5, Our Ethiopia Experience.....Mount Entoto

We got up this morning and quickly got ready to go.  This was our 4th day in Ethiopia and I didn't even want to think about the breakfast downstairs.  We each ate a protein bar and some trail mix and called it breakfast.  We went downstairs and asked to use the internet that is stationed in the lobby.  This was our only source of communication to our family back home.  It was very convenient but not very fast.  You ask them to use it and they will log you on and start the timer.  To give you an example of how slow it was, it took anywhere from 20-40 minutes to get on there, compose a couple paragraph email, skim through the rest of my emails---do not be confused with that meaning I actually opened them!!---and occasionally sending out one other VERY short email.  I ended up with over 350 emails in my inbox by the time we got home....that was real fun straightening out that mess.  =(   Some of the AAI people have actually gone down the street a bit to where Kaldi's is and used the internet cafe that is there.  For us, it just seemed like we didn't have any time to do that, our days were full and usually after we ate dinner, we were dead tired!

We got to Layla around 9:00.  We were invited to go with Susan and Chris's group to take a half day trip to the Entoto Mountains.  But first we wanted to pop into the social workers office to see what we could find out about our 13 year old daughter Hana's birth family.  We walked in and asked them if there was any documentation that her family had ever contacted AAI to find out about her or if they knew if any of her family was still around.  She asked what Hana's last name was and when I told her she looked stunned and said "I have a note on my desk right here, someone called to find out information and they aren't very happy at all"!  I was kind of in shock at what she said and I really wasn't sure WHO it was that was wanting info.  I received a mini lecture on how important it is to do your post placement reports and "Do I understand how hard it's going to be now to console this family and to get them to not be angry anymore"??  Come to find out, Hana's family contacted AAI wanting to know how she was doing and when the social worker went to the files to find all of Hana's post placement reports....there were none!  I explained to the social worker that Hana has only been with us for about 11 months now and that our adoption of her is almost final.  We were planning on doing her 1 year post placement at that time.  The problem was that Hana's first adoptive Mother never did ANY post-placement reports during the 5 years that she had her!  NONE.  When you adopt a child you promise to do at least 3 reports during that first year and then 1 each year after that until the child is 18.  It is VERY important to follow through with this promise because it could mean the difference between Ethiopia continuing to allow foreign adoptions....or NOT!  Please people....get those reports done, it's not that difficult and your children's families desperately want to know how their child is doing......is that so much to ask?  Wouldn't you want to know how your child is doing if you had to endure the pain of giving him/her away to someone else to raise?  I know I would.

I told the social workers that I would gladly write up a letter stating basically why she was now with us and how she is doing etc. and that we would also add some photos with it.  Thank goodness we had the pictures from T's album that we could leave for Hana's family.  These pictures were very nice, all laminated pictures of us, our children and Hana.  They were pictures that I took while we were on vacation last summer for the purpose of hanging them on our dining room wall, so they were very nice individuals, one of Todd and I and then the kids all together.  Plus we had an awesome action shot of Hana playing soccer that I had taken during the last soccer season.  We really wanted to get together with Hana's family because we felt that, more than the letter and pictures, they would be able to ask questions, speak to us and hopefully feel comfortable about where Hana was now.  But the social workers couldn't get a hold of Hana's family in time to arrange a meeting so we will have to wait until our next trip over there.  If we would have thought to ask the first day we were there, chances are, we would have had a better chance at scheduling a meeting.

After we talked to the social workers we hopped into the van with the others and headed to the mountains!  The drive through the city took longer than I thought, Addis is a huge city.  But soon you could tell that we weren't in the city any more.  The scenery outside the van started to change and we started going up. As we were diving up the mountain you could see women carrying huge loads of eucalyptus wood on their backs.  I read somewhere that the Ethiopian government has guards stationed to protect the scarce forests and these ladies are only supposed to be gathering the fallen branches, not chopping them off the trees.  These ladies make their way up the steep roads at dawn, gather wood all day and then make their way down the mountain when they have a full load or at dusk, whichever comes first.....and a lot of them do this barefoot and they could be carrying a child on their front side!
These bundles of wood have to weigh at least 40-60 lbs.  I just don't know how they do it, day after day.  I also read that it is those same guards that are there to protect the forests that can sometimes harass and rape these poor women that are just trying to earn a living.  =(  *Much of Ethiopia still relies on fuel sources like wood, charcoal and dung for cooking.

I didn't take these two pictures.  It was very difficult to get a good picture of the fuelwood carrying ladies while we were driving in the van so I found them on line so I could demonstrate what I was saying about them.

**Something I haven't mentioned yet is the fact that I can't even go up a flight of stairs there without huffing and puffing!  Addis is anywhere between 2200-2500 meters above sea level.....we're talking high altitude here.  That was one of the first things I noticed after arriving was how much thinner the air felt and that first walk up our hotel stairs was brutal!  I felt like a great big couch potato.....I don't think I wrote about our arrival at the hotel that first night..... After a 30 hour journey with almost no sleep and arriving with two large suitcases, two 35 gallon rubbermaid tubs full of donations and two carry-ons, the hotel bellman decided to change our room location 3 times!!  I was SO glad to fall into bed that night!  =)

Back to the mountain........  Mount Entoto is the highest peak overlooking Addis Ababa, which means Beautiful Flower.  Mount Entoto is a sacred place that holds many monasteries.

A view from on top of the mountain....Addis Ababa below

A view of the road we traveled on....notice the eucalyptus trees

We got up to the top and we entered onto the site of King Menelik II's memorial museum. 

This is a view of the gates from the inside looking out

We first bought tickets to enter the part of the museum that charged an admittance fee.  It was a smallish building that held all of the King Menelik's and Empress Taitu's treasures......furniture, photos, Bibles, crowns, robes, and other belongings and gifts that were given to them by heads of other countries for various occasions.  We waited for about 10 minutes or so for the guide to finish up with another tour but we got to look around while we were waiting.  You weren't allowed to take any photographs in here but I suppose that's a good thing because we wouldn't want to publicize the millions...billions?? of dollars worth of treasure that is housed there.  We took our tour and learned quite a bit about Ethiopian history.

We left this part of the museum and started toward what was the oldest church in Addis.  This is the church that King Menelik and his wife Taitu built and dedicated to the Virgin Mary.  

The church is called Maryam Church.

Ethiopians come here and kneel, kiss the ground and start praying or wailing.  A woman was wailing and moaning for about 20 minutes or so while we were there.  One of the ladies that we were with told us that they come here to this church to pray to be healed of diseases like AIDS or other.

This is another alter where you will see people kneeling, kissing the ground and praying.

This is King Menelik and Empress Tiatu's palace....impressive, right?  ;)

Upstairs is their sleeping quarters and down below is their closet.

This is our travel group....these are some great people....miss them a lot!

We continued on up the road so that we could see the 9/11 memorial, called the Ethiopia-U.S. Friendship park.  Addis Ababa's, then mayor Arkebe Oqubay, and then U.S. ambassador Aurelia Brazeal erected this park to show their commitment to fostering over 100 years of foreign relations.

Just incase you didn't know, September 11th is when Ethiopia celebrates their New Year.  So this date is actually a celebration for them....I'm pretty sure that's one of the reasons that they decided to construct this park, so they could pay tribute to those that lost their lives on their day of celebration.

If you click on this picture, it will enlarge so you can read the inscription

This shot was taken as we were coming back down from the top of the mountain

We stopped at the Former Fuelwood Carrying Ladies Association on the way back down.  It is an organization that has taken some of the women out of the brutal life of carrying wood up and down the mountain every day.

This is the scarf shop and boy did they have a lot of scarves!  I think I bought around 11 or so of them at a whopping 5 bucks a piece!  They are beautiful....just wish I would have gotten a few more.  There's always trip #2 though, right?  ;)

We also stopped at the mercato down the street but only for about a half hour.  We were all getting pretty hungry by now and just about all we could think of was food!  We stopped at the Lucy restaurant and had a great meal....although, it took about 2 hours from start to finish!  TIA!

After lunch we headed back to our hotel to drop off all of our purchases and then we walked back to Layla to spend time with T and the other kids.  It was fingernail polish day  =)  We brought tattoo's and fingernail polish, including fingernail stickers, for the older kids to have fun with.  I wish I could post pics of that but we're not allowed to put pics of the kids that don't have families yet so you will just have to imagine it  =)  Even the boys wanted their nails painted!  A good time was had by all and they managed to use up all 6 bottles of nail polish!  

We left to go back to the hotel to get ready for dinner....this was the something special I talked about in my last post.  We were going to go to Dr. Rick Hodes home!  Every friday night for over twenty years he has been celebrating Shabbat with his children and who ever else may show up.  He never knows how many guests he will have or sometimes who those guests may be until he arrives home from work.  Shabbat the Dr. Hodes way is basically welcoming in the Sabbath.  I'm not going to go into the details of what he does because that info belongs to Dr. Rick to share if he chooses.  We had a wonderful time meeting him and all of the children that currently call his house their home.  Dr. Rick currently has 3 houses....one for boys, one for girls and his own house where he and his adopted children live and also temporary guests that are there for various reasons...usually for medical treatment of some kind, but not always.  All of Dr. Rick's children were so sweet and gracious.  One boy that was currently staying there, "M", brought around some tapestries that their gardner made and was trying to sell them to all of us.  He's quite a good salesman....and very cute, I might add...which helps in the selling process tremendously!  We bought two of them.....one for the wall and one is actually a pillow.  We enjoyed a wonderful dinner that Dr. Rick's cook made for us and had a wonderful time talking with him and the other guests that were there!  An unbelievable experience, for sure!  If you haven't read the book that Marilyn Berger wrote about him called "This is a Soul"....you should.  It's a wonderful book.  Although, Doc Rick hasn't even read it.  He told me that he doesn't like to read things about himself, and you can tell while talking with him that he's a very humble man, even after all of the wonderful things he has done in his life to make a difference for so many people.  

We will never forget the time we spent at his house....such a wonderful experience...

Our Trip to Ethiopia--Part 4, Our Ethiopia Experience.....Court Day

Cont. from  Part 3....
As I was laying in bed after a long day....I was thinking about the little guy that had that great big sore on his leg.  All of us that were staying at Kings from AAI pretty much "adopted" this young lady.  Each time any of us passed by her we gave her a little something.....a few birr, a protein bar or some water.  All of a sudden it came to me.  We had a new tube of antibacterial cream that we brought with us.  I decided that I would put it in my bag and when we saw her the next morning, I would give it to her for her little guy.

Day 3 in Ethiopia.....

This was to be a very exciting day.....it was Court Day!  We didn't have to be dressed, at Layla and ready for court until 1:30 p.m. so we dressed in our "gonna be attacked by 15 toddlers" clothes.  The plan was to head back to the hotel at lunch time, eat, get dressed for court and then be back at Layla by 1:15 or so.

We headed out to go to Layla for the morning and I was really looking forward to getting that tube of "protection" to that Mother, but sadly, she was nowhere to be found.

We arrived at Layla and right away I asked about Tihun's Mother.  This was court day and I knew that the Families were due to arrive and then be transported to court by an AAI driver.  I was told that all of the families had already left for court, we missed our opportunity to meet T's Mom....or so I thought.

We went into the toddler room and had been there about an hour.  Everything was going well until I asked the head nanny if we could have Tihun's photo album that we sent to her after we accepted her referral.  The nanny nodded yes, scooped Tihun up in her arms and started heading out of the toddler compound.  We decided to follow along.  We rounded the corner and entered into the office area and as I looked up, the first thing I saw was a row of Ethiopian women all dressed up and sitting in the chairs that lined one side of the room.  Immediately I wondered what we were walking into.  Most of what happened next is pretty much a blur to me but basically what was going on was that Tihun's Mother had requested to see her one more time.  They were trying to get Tihun to go to her Mother, who she didn't know anymore.... and she didn't want to get anywhere near her.  Then they tried to get her to come to me, which she did momentarily, until she realized that her favorite nanny was trying to sneak away and go back to the toddler area.  By this time T was all out screaming and very upset and I turned around just in time to see T's Mother crying and leaving the room.  Obviously this whole scene was very upsetting to her Mom.  Tihun didn't know anyone that was in the room, except for Todd and I...and really, she didn't even know us very well at all.  I was in complete shock watching this whole thing play out.  We can speak and understand only a few words of Amharic so we didn't know what was being said.  Finally I couldn't take it anymore so I took off down the hallway to find someone to explain to me why they all felt it necessary to torture this child??  Finally I got an English speaking person who explained to me that the lady was T's Mom, which I pretty much figured out on my own, and that she wanted to have a visit with T.  I explained to him that this wasn't a good way of going about that, and that T was getting way too upset and so I asked if she could just go back to the toddler area?  He said yes and then they allowed T's Mom to come back there with us.

We got back to the toddler area and everyone was teary, Tihun, her Mother, Debritu...(T's favorite nanny) and me.  Whew!  It took Debritu a good 1/2 hour or so to get her calmed down.  Debritu is excellent at her job and soon she even had T going back and forth between me and her Mom.  T was happy and she even let her Mom hug and kiss her, and she reciprocated the affection.  We were also able to have a conversation with T's Mom through the social worker.  It was a great conversation.  I decided to keep things short and simple because of the emotional time we just went through, and also the fact that we were planning on making the trip to T's Mom's home when we go back to get T.  T's Mom told us that she was happy that T was going to have a good family and she was happy that she was going to live in America.  I asked her if it was alright if we came to visit her when we came back to Ethiopia and she said yes.  She very much enjoyed looking through the two photo albums that we brought with us that had pics of our family, our home etc. and Tihun.  We let her choose as many pictures as she wanted and told her that we would be putting together an album especially for her and that we would bring it with us when we come back.  We took a bunch of pictures of her and T and all of us together.  All in all what started out to be a disaster ended with lots of hugs and kisses and promises be back soon.

**Disclaimer--I don't blame AAI at all for what happened.  It was something that -just happened- it was unforeseen and was remedied as quickly as possible.  I'm pretty sure that they've taken notes on that one and have learned something.  The down side to what happened is that T became very leary of us.  For the rest of that day and part of the next day she mostly only wanted to watch us from a distance or would only be by us if Debritu was right there.  EVERY kid in the toddler room loved us EXCEPT Tihun  =(
That was hard, but we understood and backed off until she was ready.

Before we left for lunch we were told that our court time was pushed back to 2:30.  Great, we thought, that will give us a little more time.  We headed out and went to have lunch at ***, this is the restaurant above Kaldi's....the coffee shop that looks strikingly familiar to a very popular coffee shop here in the states.

Here are some of the views of Addis from the balcony
of the restaurant:

We ate lunch and then headed to the hotel so that we could freshen up before court.  We got ready and left in plenty of time to get back to Layla early.  Unexpectedly we came upon our sweet Mom and the little guy with a leg problem.  I quickly reached into my bag and grabbed my antibiotic cream before anyone else on the street could see what I was doing.  She was sitting down on the sidewalk so I knelt down and motioned for her to show me her son's leg.  I opened the cream and was trying to explain as I was putting it on him.  Thankfully, a very nice Ethiopian man stopped and asked if he could help us.  I had him tell her how important it was for her to keep putting the cream on his leg and I also had him explain to her that if she didn't put it on there he could get an infection and either have to go to the hospital or he could possibly die from it.  We thanked the man for helping us and we went on our way. I felt so relieved that we found her and that someone was actually there to translate for us so I knew she totally understood.

We arrived at Layla and found that hardly anyone was around.  We kind of expected to see a group of families waiting.  We walked into the office and Gail came rushing out to tell us that everyone had been looking for us because the court had called and they wanted everyone to come now.  The power had gone out earlier and that's why they pushed back the court times but the power came back on so they wanted everyone to come again at their scheduled time.  Gail said that from now on they weren't going to change plans because of what the court says, they were just going to continue to show up at their scheduled times!  TIA is something you hear a lot.....which means "This Is Africa".  Yep. The rest of the group had already left and we were to leave now with Abrahim.  Abrahim was great, as he was driving us through town he was telling us all about everything.  We learned so much during that drive.  

We arrived at the court house and went up a few flights of stairs.  We were ushered into a very plain room that had many couples sitting in chairs along every wall.  There were no chairs left so we sat down next to two couples, that were also from AAI, on some sort of wood platform that was very low to the floor.  It's a good thing that we arrived when we did because we were called in right away.  We went into a small room where the judge sat at one side and Yared, one of AAI's lawyers sat at the other.  We were asked to sit in two chairs that were right in the middle of the room.  The judge was very beautiful, soft spoken and graceful.  I knew instantly that I was going to like her.  She asked us questions like.....How many children do you have?......How do your children feel about you adding another child to the family?......Have you spent time with Tihun?.......How do you intend to keep T's Ethiopian culture alive for her?......What have you done to prepare for this adoption?.......Do you realize that problems could arise, and what would you do to remedy this?.....Do you realize that this is permanent and cannot be undone once decided?  We also talked about Hana and how she came to our family....how her first placement didn't work out very well and that she has been with us for almost a year now.  She asked how things were going and we told her they were going really well.  She looked up at us, smiled and and said "Wonderful."  I could tell that this made her very happy.......

Then she hit us with a bomb that we didn't expect.  She said that Tihun's file was missing a paper from the Oromo region and she would need that paper before a decision could be made.  She also noted that our file was expired.  Actually, we weren't expired because we got re-fingerprinted in July and turned in our updated homestudy to USCIS before our actual expiration date.  Normally adoption agencies don't re-do your dossier with all of your updated stuff, they usually just keep it on file, and usually the judge doesn't even look at the expiration date.  The updates are really for the U.S. embassy.  So unfortunately we didn't pass court and we didn't get to hear the judge say "She is yours"......oh how I wanted to hear her say that.  =(    

So the judge rescheduled us for November 26th.  Meaning AAI would come up with the needed papers and she would go over our file once more at that later date......we didn't have to reappear because we fulfilled our requirement, which was to prove that we were there and that we had spent time with T and still wanted her.

Most of the families didn't pass court that day....even families that were with other agencies.  Most of these other family's problems were because of missing MOWA approval letters though, only one other family that I know of was also told that they were expired.  (MOWA is short for "Ministry of Women's Affairs.")

Here are some scenes from around Addis Ababa:

This is Addis Ababa University

The Yekatit 12 Monument.  Dedicated to the thousands of 

innocent Ethiopians who were killed by the Italians in 1937.

Building with....WHAT?! .....wooden scaffolding?  

Where's OSHA when ya need em??!!

The van ride back to Layla was a somber one.  With not very many families passing court, things were pretty quiet.  On our way back we stopped at a really cool coffee bar that is extremely popular.  As we were getting out of the van we pretty much got mobbed by a whole bunch of peddlers trying to sell us anything and everything!  Somehow I managed to get by them on the way into the coffee store though.  I bought a whole bunch of coffee in a couple of different size bags and also a couple of really cool cloth bags that had the store logo etc. on them.   I was happy.  I walked out of the store and got mobbed by all of the peddlers again and I made the mistake of touching a necklace that caught my eye.  After that, the guy wouldn't let me pass.  I said "Ishy"... which means ok... "How much"?  He told me something ridiculous like 300 birr which is about 17 U.S. dollars.  I said slyly.... "For two"?  He looked at me with a kind of insulted look and said firmly  "No....one, one only." I said "200" he said "No, 250..250"  and I said "150"....then he got really mad.  By this time we were drawing a pretty large crowd, including everyone that was in our van.  I was getting tired of this and I really didn't want the necklace that bad anyway so I just gave him a "talk to the hand" kind of motion and started pushing past him.  He got frantic and said "Ishy....150!"  I said fine and then went to get out my money and realized that I had spent almost all of the birr that I had taken out of our bigger stash.  I turned around and said "Sorry....I don't have."  Then he said "100"!!  I said, a little firmer  "I don't have" and shook my head and held out my hands.  He kept saying "100, 100" and I finally said I only have 50.  He got mad and I started to leave again and in his desperation he caved!!  "ISHY"!  He said "50".  So I happily handed him the 50 birr, took my necklace, and turned to get in the van.  I looked up and everyone in the van was cheering.  I had forgotten how many people were watching this whole thing take place.  They were all amazed at my expert bartering abilities  =)  Because I am so nice I will divulge my "secret"......  All you have to do is act like you are interested and then act like you don't want it anymore.  It drives them crazy!  They will either lower the price on the item you were looking at or they will move on to trying to sell you a different item.  And walking away drives them even more crazy!

**Disclaimer #2---Something I noticed while there was that the bartering wasn't like what people had described to me.  People told us that the Ethiopians really enjoy a good bartering session but I think that maybe things have change a little bit.  The Ethiopian Birr has really depreciated and their economy is so bad over there that I really think that trying to get the lowest price out of them may not be so fair of us to do.  I mean, was 17 dollars so bad to pay for a sweet "guys" necklace?  I kept forgetting how much their Birr actually was in U.S. dollars.  The only reason I "talked" him down so far was 1) I decided that I really didn't care if I bought the necklace or not....and.....2) I really didn't have the amount of money he wanted.  I did end up feeling slightly guilty.  It's hard though, when they say 300 birr....to me it seemed like such a huge amount of money......but it's not really.

That night we went to dinner again with the volunteer group and were so surprised when none other than Ivy Dash shows up!  Ivy worked for AAI for around 3 years and did a wonderful job keeping the kids in line and being a much needed liaison between the parents and children or the parents and staff at Layla.  She doesn't currently work there right now and is greatly missed by children and staff.  We had a wonderful time with Ivy over dinner and then made plans with Ivy and Susan's group to do something special the next night.  =)  THAT will be for tomorrow's post.

Our Trip to Ethiopia--Part 3, Our Ethiopia Experience...cont.

Second day in Ethiopia....We got up early again.....actually, I got up early again and Todd implemented "His System."  I get up, he stays in bed and sleeps until he hears the hair dryer running, he then gets up and takes his shower.  Most of the time he still ends up waiting for me though  =)

Day #2 breakfast at the hotel.  Hmmm.  Found that there was less food than the day before that I was actually interested in eating due to... 1) the type of food they were offering today and.... 2) the fact that some things that I tried the day before like the rubbery sausage bites were definitely added to my "do not eat" list.   Thank goodness I ate a protein bar in our room!  I had a smaller plate of food this morning but thoroughly enjoyed my macchiato!  =)

As we were walking to Layla we were getting closer and closer to a young woman with a little boy who was probably 1-2 years old.  She was trying to get our attention by holding her hand out to us and saying "Baby cry, baby cry."

"Ethiopia lesson" time.  When you are walking down the street, you will want to maintain a delicate balance of eye contact, greetings and nods..... with...... looking like you have business to take care of and are "on a mission."  Something that was very hard for me to remember was to not stop or even pause very long when a beggar was trying to get your attention.  If you even look at them, they go full steam ahead and pull out all the tricks.  THEN as soon as other beggars see you stop and talk or give money to one beggar they ALL pounce!  This is a very dangerous thing to let happen!

Back to the young woman with the little boy....  She was trying to get us to stop but we were in the "pretending to be on a mission" mode.  Just as we were going to get too far from her she grabbed my arm and motioned for me to look.  She reached around and pulled out her little boys leg and showed it to us.  He had a very thin little leg and about half way between his ankle and his knee he had a sore about the size of a silver dollar.  I'm not sure what it was from but it looked like it could have been a burn.  It was oozing and open and the little guy started to cry from the pain he was in from it.  There was really nothing that we could do so we slipped her a small amount of money and a protein bar and went on our way.  We were in semi-shock.  It was so sad to see this horrible open wound on such a little boy....and you know he just had to be wrenching in pain.

We made it to Layla and spent the morning there with Tihun.  When it was lunch time for the toddlers we knew it was time for us to go, but Tihun didn't want to go in with the other kids.  She stayed outside with us and then finally she tried to get us to go in with her and have lunch.  "Nay, Mommie Daddie, nay nay" she said to us.  Nay means come.  But we told her "ciao" --goodbye-- and had the nanny tell her that we would be back after lunch.  So all the way out of the compound we got "ciaos" and kisses blown to us from the whole toddler crew!  That was sweet!  =)

We had a driver booked for the next 3 hours so we could go get something to eat and do a little shopping.  Our driver on this day was Jamal.  Here is a picture of him and I standing in the lobby of the Kings Hotel:

Jamal is a really great guy and we had a wonderful time with him the two times we hired him to drive us around town.  We told him that we were hungry so he took us to a traditional Ethiopian type restaurant.  I had the Doro Wat and Todd got a hamburger, which he thought tasted not so much like a hamburger.  We found out later while talking with another American family that the hamburger could have possibly been mixed with goat.  Oh yeah....THAT's why it tasted so....goat like??

 We also ordered coffee from the traditional coffee ceremony that was going on. 

I'm just going to say, I LOVE the coffee in Ethiopia.  They serve it to you in a very small cup....smaller than a tea cup.... along with a side of popcorn.  At first this tiny cup was hard to take since about 20 of those could fit into the coffee mug I use at home...but I soon realized that their coffee is a bit stronger than ours so it helped to ward off my coffee DT's.  I kept telling Ethiopians how big my mug was at home and they couldn't believe that I drank THAT much coffee!  So funny!  Anyway, Ethiopian coffee is served in those tiny cups.  They put two spoonfuls of sugar in the cup, pour the coffee in, and then ask you if you would like sugar in your coffee.  The two scoops is standard, the extra is your choice.  

Love it.

The Doro Wat I had was pretty good but not as good as the Sega Wat that I had the night before.  This was a slightly scary experience that I didn't share in yesterday's post.  We were invited out to eat with Susan PD's group.  It was a restaurant that was a few blocks over but we decided to walk and take in some of the city sights.  We got to where the restaurant was supposed to be just to find out that it had closed and relocated to another part of the city.  Susan used a cell phone and called the restaurant but it was too hard to hear and understand the person on the other end of the line so we decided it was time for plan B.  In Ethiopia you must always be prepared for having to go to plan B.....or  C, or D, or E......well, you get the picture.  So we headed over across the street to another restaurant.  It was pretty crowded inside so we opted to eat out on the terrace.  That sounded great because it was such a nice night.  Once we sat down though, we realized that we could hardly read our menus it was so dark.  There were lights mounted on the building that was near our table but they must have had 2 watt bulbs in them!  I did manage to see Sega Wat and knew that was a beef stew-ish and injera dish so I went with that.  The scary thing was that by the time I actually got my dinner, it was really dark outside...and at one point we lost power all together!  Eating an ethnic dish, in a foreign country, in the dark....is SCARY!!  But you will be glad to know that I was very brave....and thankfully very hungry.....so I ate the whole thing...WITHOUT EVEN SEEING IT! Crazy...I know.  But I will say that it was extremely delicious!  

Sorry...I got sidetracked.....back to the actual day I am writing about....

We ate lunch, which took a good hour and a half.  There is no such thing as fast food in Ethiopia.  There are no McDonalds, Burger Kings, Taco Bells etc. and when you sit down at a restaurant, be prepared to wait for quite a while.  Eating and coffee drinking are to be done in a very slow, relaxed pace.  Kind of hard to do when all you can think about is getting out there and shopping!!

We got on the road and first went to the leprosy colony.  They supposedly have a very nice gift shop with many products that the residents of the colony make but unfortunately it was closed when we got there and we were told that "the lady just didn't show up today."  So we decided to go in to the room where the weavers were working.  We watched a couple men weaving on the big looms.

Then we went into the back room where about 5 ladies were spinning.  They seemed cautious at first but quickly warmed up to us after Jamal explained who we were and what we were doing there.  The ladies encouraged me to try my hand at the different stages of spinning.  I pretty much failed at them all and I know that those ladies had a really good time watching me try and fail....they just kept laughing and laughing and then they would tell me to try again!  It was fantastic to see how their process worked and to see how fast they could spin!  Todd was video taping them working and also of me making a mess of their work, until one little lady in the corner told Jamal that she didn't want her picture taken.  Jamal asked  her why and she told him it was because she was so ugly that no one would want to look at a picture of her.  She said "I am unlovable."  When Jamal told us what she said, it I just about lost it.  I was squatting near the other women talking with them and I could barely stand back up.  I just wanted to cry.  You see, the older lady sitting in the corner that didn't want her picture taken was a victim of leprosy.  Most of her body showed signs of where the leprosy had taken over.  Her face was slightly deformed and pushed over to one side and her hands and feet had no visible fingers or toes, just a slit where her thumb met her hand. But she was very skilled at what she was doing.  She could thread a bobbin of wool 10 times faster than I could WITH fingers!!  

This is a picture of a woman that looks pretty similar to what this dear sweet woman at the leprosy colony looked like.

The women invited us to stay for tea but unfortunately Jamal had to be somewhere by a certain time so we had to keep going.  I would have loved to sit and have tea with those sweet ladies!  On our way out the door I knelt down and put my hand on the lady in the corner's ankle.  She slowly looked up at me and I gave her a nod and she gave me one back.  I really just wanted to wrap my arms around her to show her that she is not unlovable but she had so many spools and supplies sitting around her that I couldn't get to her......but she knew by my touch and my nod what I was saying to her.  I will never forget her.

We then got back in the car and headed to Sabahar, the silk factory.  This was like an oasis in the desert. The grounds were beautiful!  I had a great time choosing a stack of scarves and I also got a tablecloth for our Ethiopian Christmas celebrations.  You could buy pure silk scarves or a silk/cotton blend.

  

Here is their process:

These are the silkworms.  They are pretty tired of eating and are getting ready to cocoon.

Here are the empty cocoons. They are waiting to be cleaned.

Here is the washed silk from the cocoons.

These are the bundles of dyed silk drying on the ledge.

Here are some of their finished products clean and drying.

The last place we went with Jamal was a basket shop which was recommended to us by Susan PD and Chris Little, two AAI veterans.  As we were pulling up to it Jamal yelled something out the window to the men that were sitting around at the side of the building.  We walked into the shop and saw that it was jam packed with stuff.

Soon after we got in the shop Jamal started trying to get me to reconsider shopping there.  I don't know what was said between him and the other men but Jamal decided that we should probably shop somewhere else.  The only thing he told us was that these shop owners don't like it when he brings Americans there because he will tell them if the shop keeper is charging too much!  So essentially they want to be able to freely rip us off without Jamal stepping in and ruining all their fun!  =(  

So we bought only a couple of wooden crosses and left, deciding to shop another day.  

We went back to the hotel and unloaded our booty, freshened up and then walked back to Layla to spend some time with our little T and the other kids.  When we got there we didn't see Tihun anywhere but we soon found out that she had been taken, along with some other kiddos, to go and get her visa picture taken!  That was so exciting to hear!  Just another step in making everything seem so real.  She wasn't doing so well when they got back and I'm pretty sure that she got car sick.  She was burning up because it was a hot day and the windows were probably up in the van.  She was pretty wiped out but recovered quickly after eating a banana.  

We brought her some paint markers and an artist pad and she loved it!  Of course all of the kids wanted to get their hands on it too so I tried to distract them by offering to draw a heart or star on their hand instead.  As soon as I did the first child's hand I had almost every toddler pushing and shoving to get one on their hand!  Then it was "the other hand" and then "on my cheek" and "on my forehead."  This went on for about 5-10 minutes and they all had writing on their faces and hands.  The nanny came out of the building and took one look at the kids and then at me and she gave me the dirtiest look ever!  I explained to her as best as I could that they were washable makers and it would come right off.....she didn't seem impressed.  So I asked her for a rag so I could clean them up.  She went in and got a rag and then she wouldn't let me have it.  SHE washed every single one of my pieces of art work off!  

I'm thinking... "chillax"  Let em be kids for pete's sake!  I'm looking around and they are using leggos to dip into the mudpuddles and drinking it.  They all have runny noses and are wiping it on each other and they are getting into just about anything they can get into.  Why are we so concerned about something that is making them so happy??  ugh.  Whatever.  If she only saw my kids sometimes.....she'd probably have a cow!  =(

As we left for the day we got our usual "Ciaos" and "Kisses" but I was starting to feel my heartstrings being pulled by the love I felt for my little girl.....oh how I didn't want to leave her anymore!  Walking out was probably the hardest thing I had to do everyday.

More to come.....