Ethiopia--Day Three

Poor Dan was sick pretty much this whole day, so I have to write about it instead. This was our greatest adventure day! I convinced the guide our guest house uses to take us to a place called Durba that I had read about in a travel book. I had picked it because it sounded both interesting and somewhat easy to get to. A relative term, as we were to learn. Our guide had never been there, but was willing to try. After driving on a main road out of town—which boasted some great sites because we saw a traditional funeral taking place on the side of the road, and it was “flag day” so we saw a bunch of horses dressed up for what I think was going to be a small parade-type thing—we turned off onto this dirt road.

Just one of the normal sites. So many donkeys!

This is where it got interesting. We would travel for a few minutes, and then our driver, Solomon, or the guide would yell out the window “Durba, Durba” and ask directions. They would keep telling him it was further. Even though it was only an hour out of town, they already spoke enough of a different dialect, that our guide sometimes had a hard time communicating. (I should also mention that the North must be more dangerous because we had to stop twice for police to check the vehicle and ask us where we were going. Our guide had also forgotten to get some vital paperwork from the guest house, so he had to bribe the guards to let us back into the city on our way home.) After doing this for some time, and traveling on a very rough road, we finally made it into Durba where we then found some local willing to show us where the waterfall was—the intended destination. Out of nowhere, we found ourselves driving on the side of a huge ravine. There isn’t much water that flows down the waterfall, but the drop is spectacular.

Also, this was one of those scene from National Geographic because once out of the car, we were surrounded by all the local children who proceeded to follow us everywhere we went. Even more strange was one of the local youths started asking us, in great English, about American politics. Turns out, he is an Ethiopian law student who was home for the summer. At the top of the waterfall, there was a whole family of baboons that we got to get pretty close to and watch for a while—well, as close as I was willing to go.

If you look closely, you can see one of the males, and behind him, many of the village women washing clothes in the river.

By the time we headed back, A had figured out what a novelty American children are (I think they see American tourists every once and awhile, but not American children since both I and A got quite a bit of attention everywhere we went). He would wave at every person we passed through the bus window and revel in how excited people were to wave back at him.

Since Dan was sick—which was not due to the food as I’m sure you are thinking. If it had been the food, we would all have been down, since we all ate the same things, and he didn’t have any of the normal food sickness symptoms—we just went back to the guest house and hung out there. Unfortunately, I don’t think Dan remembers much of this day at all. At the guest house, A, being his normal charming self, got nearly all the workers—a guard, a small boy who must live in the back part of the house, and the driver Solomon—to play different games with him. By the time we left, they were all deeply in love with A. They all gave him hugs and gifts when we left.

Ethiopia--Day Two

Today we did the “City Tour” that our guest house arranged. It basically involved driving around town to have several main buildings pointed out to us and then stopping at a few key locations. Our first stop was at the Ethiopia National Museum. It wasn’t very big, but probably the right size for our boys—and it had a lot of history. Ethiopia is the origin of humanity, after all. Instead of audio sets that you can rent, they have a few people there waiting to be your guide. We hired one, and so got the full history. We also got to see the bones of Lucy, the oldest, most complete skeleton in the world (or actually a replica of her since she’s visiting the States right now). A. got bored pretty quickly, but I., as usual, was all questions. Our museum guide was so impressed by how curious he was about everything and by his pertinent questions.

We next visited the Lion Zoo—as per the kids request. Why is it called that, you ask? Well, that’s it—about 10-12 lions in a big circular building separated into pairs. You are separated from the lions by a chain link fence—and could easily reach in and pet them if you were so bold. It was quite worth it, though, since most of the lions were pretty active—I’m sure partly because they were in mating pairs. We got to watch and listen as some of the males roared to each other for quite a while. And we got to see a lioness slap the amorous male in her pen that wouldn’t leave her alone, after which she then had to jump on him to get her point across. Just not something you get to watch in the States. (We don’t have any photos because it would have cost us 10x the entry fee to take pictures.)

We also drove up on the side of the mountain to see the oldest Christian church in Ethiopia.
The drive was much more interesting than the church because of all the people and foot traffic we saw. Little old ladies which giant bunches of twigs strapped to their backs walking down the hill, an Ethiopia priest making a pilgrimage up to the church, and much more.

The priest (it would have been in focus, but A. bumped Dan at just the wrong moment)
Ladies with bundles
A view of Addis Ababa

We also got to stop at Ethiopia’s largest textile market and bought a nice tablecloth! We then went home and had some of the best soup I have ever tasted, brought to us by our great guest house cook.

Ethiopia--Day One

Today we met a great family from Washington State, Seattle area. True to form I do not recall their last names, but they are Dennis, Gabe and Maggs. They were in Ethiopia adopting 2 children--to total for them 7 children. It was neat to meet someone who was completing their adoption through CHI (also our adoption agency). We didn’t have much planed for the day other than to visit T.. We had been told to show up and call Pastor Abdisa and he would take care of the arrangements to visit the Thomas Center Orphanage. Well come to find out that this week they were processing 5 adoptions at the same time and trying to meet all of the meetings and requirements, not an easy task. The first time we called Pastor Abdisa he was at the US embassy with one family and asked us to call back in 2 hours. When we called him back, he arranged a driver for us to go to the Thomas Center at 15:30. So we had some time. We went to the “Post Office” market. (Why is it called the postal market, not that you go postal from haggling, but because it is next to the national postal center, go figure). We found some cool stuff, this was after all the market for traditional souvenirs.

After a trip to the market we were able to finally visit T.. I do not think that I can explain what it is like to show up at an orphanage and have someone hand you your child to be. It is just as exciting as being able to hold your child in the hospital, only she is bigger and beginning to walk!!! We spent about 45 min at the orphanage with her, feeling like fish in a bowl. There were 3-4 nannies, our driver, and the orphanage patron all watching us interact with T.. It was an odd experience, it almost felt like we were being judged in a subtle way. Beyond that, our interaction with T. was wonderful. She warmed up to me somewhat quickly and then after some time went to Vanessa. She looked just like her pictures, absolutely beautiful, full of personality, and excited about life. It was interesting to see how quickly she attached to us after just an hour. When we were getting ready to leave, she knew that we were going and began to cry. She ran to me (Dan) to pick her up. I carried her downstairs to our waiting car but had to leave her. (One of the frustrations with our current visa process is that you HAVE TO visit the child before the adoption court proceedings, but being that you have not adopted her yet you cannot take her out of the orphanage. It was heart breaking to see her cry as we left. After much pondering about it and discussing it with other adopting parents, etc, we decided that we should limit our contact with her until we are able to bring her out of the orphanage with us. It was just too heart breaking to make her go through the same stress 4 days in a row. (see post for Oct 4 for further details on this).

We went back to our guest house both excited to be adopting this wonderful little girl, but heart broken that it would take another few months to process this adoption be fore we can bring her home. We had a wonderful traditional Ethiopian dinner, some was spicy (they said that they toned it down for us to a 5/10 if normal is 10/10, I was still the only one in our family who could eat the Doro Wat) and some was not, but it was all wonderful.

Ethiopia--Travel Day

We spent a long time on an Airplane, and the boys did amazingly. I think this is the best we have traveled in a long time. Granted this is the first time we have not traveled without a child 3 years old or less. Nonetheless, our plane was only 1 hour late into Addis Ababa Ethiopia, having us arrive at 2am. We had arranged with our guesthouse to pick us up from the airport, and so Tsebay (the manager) had been waiting outside for us until we cleared customs and immigration.

Immigration was interesting, we arrived and were required to fill out an entry card, then we went into this little room where they basically had 3 card tables, 2 people hand writing visas and one person accepting money. After that we had to go through the immigrations booth, just like every other airport. When all was said and done it was probably 02:45 before we got loaded in the van to go to the guest house. After a 15 min drive along the roughest finished road you have ever been on we arrived, stumbled our way upstairs and fell asleep in no time. The best part about traveling with small children is that they do not understand the meaning of sleeping-in, neither for its restorative properties nor for it’s more transient qualities. Our wonderful children were up at 06:30, oh happy day.

Referral!!!!

We just wanted to let everyone know that after starting this adoption process over a year ago, we are finally almost done! We have received a referral! That means that finally there is a specific child for us to adopt. It also means there is only about 2-3 months left in the process if all goes well. So here is a first look at T (name pending )! A little about her is that she is almost exactly a year younger than Kimball, she was abandoned so the birthday is estimated and we pretty much know nothing else about her background, but we do know that she is healthy! We are right now trying to get out there for our 1st of 2 visits. I'm sure we'll be writing again soon.

Something's Missing

If you have recently looked over our blog, you will notice some things are missing. Specifically people names. We didn't want to make our blog private and risk not getting out invitations to everyone, but we also wanted to increase the security of our family. We resolved to just take out the names except for the first letter. (This can be a little confusing with I. but I think you'll figure it out.) So if you know us, you know our names and it won't be a problem at all! So enjoy!!!

Paris--Ooh la la!

For our anniversary this year, Dan took me to Paris WITHOUT the children!!! For those who attended our wedding you may feel a little confused. Yes our anniversary is in Feburary, but D. has been gone so much on different little assignments that May was the earliest we could plan anything. (His office wanted him to wait until July, but D. figured I might not appreciate waiting quite that long--I think his words were more along the line of "my wife will kill me if I make her wait for July." For the record, I really wasn't that upset, but it is nearly pulling teeth to get D. a day off from the clinic, so I approved of any methods necessary.)

For some reason, and maybe it's only because I haven't blogged for a while, but I didn't remember that blogspot would load all the pictures backward. It doesn't make sense to me, but be aware that you are going to see our trip in reverse.

I guess since our hotel was so close to the Eiffel Tower, that we procrastinated going until the last day. Either that or else it was so cold, rainy, and windy, we were hoping it might improve before we left. It didn't. I did something I've never done on a trip before, since the weather was supposed to be nice, and only brought shorts. What a mistake! But it wasn't too bad and we still had a great time. Above is a picture of the local firefighters climbing the tower. We figured it was their annual training exercise and we enjoyed watching them for quite some time. They were still fairly close to the bottom and I wonder how high up they were planning on going.
D. got this picture of Notre-Dame through the telescope at the top of the Eiffel Tower. I included it only because it's such a cool shot!
Yes, this is her. Mona Lisa. You always hear about how small she is, so I decided to put in my picture of her. I wouldn't mind that she is small if you didn't have to elbow everyone around you just to get a small glimpse from 10 feet away. Not the way I enjoy looking at art. We only spent a little while in the Louvre though. It felt like walking through all these Italian museums over again (we did go to the Vatican museum at Christmas). On the other hand, we visited the Orsay museum across the street and could have spent several days in there. It is where they house the Impressionist artists like Degas, Monet, Manet, and on and on. We got kicked out of that museum because of closing time, but we wanted to stay much longer.

Okay, so we were only in Paris for 3 days, but 3 days without children is sooooooo different. Honestly, we came home exhausted because we wore ourselves out. We went to almost every main sight Paris has to offer--at least to look quickly. I'm still amazed at all we fit in and I'm quite content--with the exception of the Orsay--of how much time we had everywhere. Here we are in front of the Arc de Triomphe.
This is inside Notre-Dame at night. How did we get the priveledge of being there when it was night? It just so happened while we were touring Notre-Dame that I finally looked closely at one the the posters I had seen around. There was going to be a Gregorian chant concert in the church THAT NIGHT. I didn't think we would still be able to get tickets, but decided to ask the information desk inside the church, and she was like sure you can buy a ticket now. Not only did we luck out that the concert was the same night, but we got front row seats (it was basically who got in the church first got the best seats--we got in so soon on our account of buying our tickets earlier in the day). It is amazing to see a live performance of chant in a church built to enhance that type of music. It was thrilling! Plus, right before the concert started we found ourselves a nice little dinner boat tour that didn't break the bank and ended up being deserted except for ourselves and one other couple with a small child. That was definately my favorite night in Paris.
I had to put in this picture of D. outside Notre-Dame just to prove that we did occasionally see a little blue sky, but this is the same day as the picture below, where you can see we are needing our umbrellas.
Below you will see the first picture we took in Paris. Why the Eiffel Tower when we didn't visit it until the last day of our trip? That is because this picture was taken at about 12:30 at night from the balcony of our hotel room! I would say we got a pretty good room. Plus, being so close to a major attraction also puts you very close to lots of options for transportation. It was a breeze to get around. Yeah, D. did good this year for our anniversary!