We could look worse after 3 hours of sleep.. here we are leaving the hotel in Washington..
Yay!!!
To the casual observer, one would say "Who cares that that sign says that the flight to Addis Ababa is on time?" However, to a woman who spent the majority of the previous day with real fear that our travel plans would go to crap, this was exciting stuff.
The big plane and first day in Addis
We did a much better job of arranging our flight schedule this time rather than last time. After having to make the connection in Frankfurt, Germany between 2 long flights, we chose to go on one mother long flight so that we couldn’t get in late and get stuck missing a flight someplace in Europe.
This turned out to be a good call as we and our luggage made it on time to Addis, once we cleared the tornados of Kansas City of course.
The bad news? The flight was long. Of course it was. It was 13 hours. The good news? Most of it was during regular day light time when our bodies were used to being awake. Other than having minimal sleep in Washington due to our late arrival from Kansas city, we were otherwise happy ladies watching movies and reading books. Boring at times, but could have been MUCH worse. About 7 hours in, at about 7pm body clock time, we decided we should drug ourselves and try to sleep, because we were planning to machine our way through all of Friday in Addis without napping so we could reset our body clocks. This master plan sort of worked? Turns out mom and I both suck at sleeping sitting up. We both slept maybe 1.5 hours or so? By 11pm body clock time, the sun was coming up over Africa and the coffee and breakfast were being served. By 12:30am body clock time, we were beginning our exciting decent into Addis and the day was starting over again, as it was 8:00am Friday morning in Addis.
Luckily we were so doped up on 1.5 years of pent up adrenaline that nobody cared. We climbed down the steps to the ground and were taken by bus to the airport. We waited in line quite awhile for Mom’s visa but had no problem getting it. I was able to exchange our “drug dealer” esq about of money easily while she was in line. We passed customs with flying colors and spotted our luggage moving by rather quickly. We then entered the “line”- and by “line” I mean this big blob of people all pointing different directions which the airport ladies assured us was “the line” but really looked much more like random spaghetti from above… so we were like.. whateve we’ll be flexible. Eventually our luggage got scanned and we walked out into the sea of people where our Holt driver was waiting with sign in hand. All loaded in the van, we bounced through Addis for a few minutes, past the fantastic Italian restaurant we enjoyed last time, took a right again at the sign for the Cuban embassy (ironic) and drove a few blocks to the door of the Jemimah Guest house.
After exchanging the usual pleasantries, we were sent up to room 34 which neighbors the room Ted and I had used when here in December. It’s actually bigger with more windows. We even have a small patio out the side where you can see the mountains, the poverty, and watch some cows should you choose to.
By this time it was about lunch. We opted to stay at the guest house and enjoyed some traditional Ethiopian food. I haven’t done much Ethiopian food lately because I was a wee bit depressed, so now we can be excited about it again! There were 2 other Holt families around for court, so we decided to tag along with them to visit AHOPE, the Leprosy hospital, and also the coffee place.
For those of you that have read “There Is No Me Without You” by Melissa Green (and if you are close to my family, I very much wish you would because the culture, history, and general info about how adoption started in Ethiopia is VERY personal to me….) you would recall that AHOPE was referenced often. This is where the HIV positive babes and children go when there is no one else. This is the forgotten OF the forgotten. It doesn’t get any lower on the planet earth than being a child with HIV in one of the poorest countries in Africa. We were so blessed to be given a visit; to sit and do puzzles. The little gal that chose me as her partner was rather good at it too. HIV is still very taboo here as the education of how it is transmitted is not known by all people… therefore if you have the forbidden disease you are an outcast. Of course, the baby room did me in. There was a little baby there that had come in HIV+ and likely born from an HIV+ mother and was on deaths door. After a few months there he was improving and was getting the much needed triple cocktail of HIV drugs needed for children. Still, it is heart breaking. These are the kinds of things that take your view of the world and rip it in half… thus the starving HIV children of Africa are the babies holding your pant leg. I dare you to not change.
After a little sniveling and mental notes for advocacy we reluctantly climbed back into the van bound for the Leprosy hospital. I had been there on our last trip so this was not as difficult this time. We walked by the ladies visiting who were missing different parts of their original healthy bodies and proceeded to the gift shop to purchase some of the items made by the patients. After we dumped some birr for more Ethiopian wares, we drove again to one of the main coffee shops. Mom and I opted to wait this one out while the court folks picked up some last minute stuff.
Our windows were soon full of women with babies asking for food or birr. Its just something you don’t forget.
Once we returned, we went to dinner at Avanti with one of the couples who had passed court and was flying out that night and also with our friends the Robinsons who will be joining us on Tuesday for embassy and also picking up their baby boy. Avanti is SO fancy and so wonderful.. it’s kind of a must see when you are at the guest house. I highly recommend the gnocchi and their wine selection is fantastic.
After being fully stuffed with fantastic pasta of awesomeness, we returned back to the guest house to dope ourselves up in attempt to sleep. This was easy, as we had pretty much been awake for 2 days. I took 1 dramamine and was mouth open drooling before Mom came back from her shower. That’s about all I remember
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