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...
