Saturday (9/19) was a busy day. We spent the morning at the National Museum (as mentioned here earlier…I’ll have more from inside at a later date). Then we got to spend some time in the afternoon with our children at the Center.

That evening, we were met by some representatives from our adoption agency for a traditional Ethiopian dinner at he Abyssinian. The atmosphere was amazing! There was also a wedding reception there and we might have been a tad bit underdressed. But we got to experience (from a distance) some of the wedding celebration. Priceless!

The food was amazing. I was glad we’d experienced Ethiopian cuisine before, or I would have been completely lost. The food was served in a buffet so you could get as little or as much as you wanted. And there was a server behind the buffet who was very helpful in explaining what some of the different dishes were. And he did so with such passion. I felt kind of bad bypassing the dish that I was pretty sure he said had cow stomach in it.

But not that bad.

There was also a band with dancers. We were told they generally dance until midnight or one in the morning, but since it was such a full house, it was much warmer in there and they probably wouldn’t go that long into the night. We didn’t stay long enough to find out. We had a very long and emotional day ahead of us. And we needed to be in the vans early in the morning. Although we wanted to stay longer, we needed to get back to the hotel to get as much rest as possible.

Videos of the dancers. Can you imagine dancing like this for 5+ hours?

By the way – I love the girls’ big, bouncy hair! I think I secretly hope that Mihret’s will be like that, too. Although we’ll still have no idea how to care for it.

We got to return to the Care Center after nap time on Friday afternoon/evening. Mihret was still quite groggy when we arrived, but she didn’t have any problems with us picking her up and playing with her some more. On our first meeting earlier in the afternoon, we brought a tiny purple plush elephant to share with her. There was much debate amongst ourselves about whether we should take the elephant with us when we left or leave it there with her. She didn’t let go of the elephant the entire time we were with her during the first meeting. We knew she liked it. But we knew there was a very good chance she could lose the elephant and it could get claimed by someone else…which would be a very bad thing. We decided to take it with us and bring it with us every time we came to the Center.

That’s the elephant in the lower section of the picture above. It used to be Aiden’s. But he never really played with it as a baby. Every time we returned to the Care Center, we brought the elephant so there’d be one more thing for her to associate with us. It turned out to be a good thing. On Saturday, she gave us a little smile when she saw the elephant and reached out to it. She loved handing it to us then taking it back from us. Apparently, sharing is a game to her. That might not be a bad thing.

Not sure if we’ll ever get her hair looking like this, but we’ll certainly try. Well…Christy will try. I’ll give moral support. Because I’m lucky to get Alyson’s hair into pigtails.

I need to change the banner of this blog and my avatar to more accurately reflect the nature of my family.

I’m working on it…

Entrance to the Care Center

Now that a lot of the basic information about our journey to Ethiopia has been shared, I want to go back and share some more details about specific days. We’ll see how this goes…

Friday (9/18) morning, we visited our adoption agency’s main Ethiopia office. In addition to finalizing paperwork, we also got a crash course in Amharic, the country’s official language. There are over 80 different languages and dialects used in this diverse country, but Amharic is the language of choice in Addis. We learned words like “good” and “beautiful” and “thank you,” although it took most of us in the travel group several days to remember how to say thank you. Fortunately, we discovered that clasping your hands together (like in prayer) and slightly bowing your head does communicate gratitude as you try to stumble through the word you just can’t quite remember.

When I was about to get out of the van, I turned around and took this picture of Christy. This was when it hit us that this thing was actually REALLY happening.

We piled into the two vans and drove back to the hotel. Although, this time we didn’t stop at the hotel. We went to the Care Center, which was immediately adjacent to our hotel. This was it. It was the moment we’d dreamed about and prayed for since we took the first real steps of this journey almost a year ago (our hearts had been preparing for this moment for a much longer time than that). And now it was finally here. I think it all felt rather surreal – until the van stopped, the doors opened, and it was time to get out and go inside to actually meet our children.

For the health & safety of the children, everyone had to remove their shoes and put on slippers. That's a lot of shoes!

The Center was nothing like I’d expected. I’m not entirely sure what I expected, but I know it wasn’t like this. I guess I envisioned a small shack-like building with maybe three rooms total. It wasn’t like that at all. The Center is much larger, more colorful, and cleaner than I’d seen in my mind’s eye. And I can’t say enough about the staff that cares for these children. They love them. It’s obvious. The love these children. If you want to see a few more pictures from the Center, slip on over to Our Adoption Journey and check out the Hutchison family’s perspective. While we had hoped to be in the same travel group with them, we wound up missing each other by two weeks.

They gave us a quick tour of the facility and I don’t really remember much. I was more concerned about meeting our Little Mihret. They told us that at the end of the tour, we’d have to figure out which one was the child we’d been waiting for over the past long, agonizing months.

She wasn’t there.

We figured out later that none of the children whose parents were in our Travel Group were in their rooms. They had them hidden away somewhere (how sneaky ). So, we went through the rest of the tour, anxious to return to the room and finally meet our Little Girl!

And when we saw her for the first time, there was absolutely no doubt that this was our Little Girl!

Christy gave her to me and she fell asleep again. This time in my arms. It had been a long time since a baby fell asleep in my arms.

Christy got to hold her first. I shared those pictures earlier. You can see them here. Mihret was rather unresponsive, as we expected. She was pretty clueless to what was going on. She is only two, after all. Within ten minutes of Christy picking her up, Mihret fell asleep in her arms. While we wanted to play with her and get to know her, at least she wasn’t screaming her lungs out whenever we tried to hold her. It was also touching to know she was comfortable enough with her new mom that she could fall asleep so quickly. Later on that day, we wondered how many times she’d actually fallen asleep in someone’s arms in the recent past. Like I said earlier, the staff at the facility loves these children. But there’s only so much one-on-one attention you can get in an institution like that – even with a fabulous group of caretakers.

Lunch time!

We arrived shortly before lunch time. While Christy was holding Mihret again, one of the nannies pulled up a chair and motioned for Christy to sit down. We tried to feed her for the first time.

Yeah.

That didn’t go so well.

She fought each bite Christy tried to give her. The nanny stepped in and tried to get her to eat. No dice.

We discovered that we might have another strong-willed child on our hands. She’s mellowed out quite a bit when it comes to food. In fact, she loves to eat. Most of the time. Every once in a while that temper still comes through, though.

We left the facility shortly before the kids’ nap time. Although we knew we’d see her again shortly, it was still very difficult to leave. Mihret didn’t help matters very much. She cried when we put her down in the crib. She didn’t want us to leave. You could argue that it’s comforting that she didn’t want us to leave. And that’s true. But we had to leave. And none of us wanted that to happen, to be quite honest.

But we knew that the day was coming very soon where we wouldn’t have to leave her like that again.

This was my dream…

to post all of my thoughts and pictures regarding our journey to Ethiopia to bring Mihret home and then conclude the series with this video. At the rate I’m going, it’ll be 2010 (or later) before that happens. So, I’ve decided to go ahead and share this video with you.

I realize for many families that have been touched by adoption, this song is sort of a “default.” And it might even be over-used in some circles. But I still used it because, by golly, I still cry when I hear it. And I guess I want you to as well.

Could this be the beginning of a beautiful friendship? I think so…

Oops!

I completely forgot to include the most memorable picture from the streets of Addis in my Around Addis posts (here & here).

Sorry. It’s taken longer to share these than I’d expected. Things have gotten rather busy. Such is life in a family of five, I guess. Anyway, here’s some more pictures from Addis (click here for the previous Addis pics)

Churches

The Ethiopian Orthodox Church has a very prominent position in Ethiopian culture. They also have some beautiful buildings.

This is one of the larger Orthodox church buildings in Addis.

As we drove through the church grounds, we discovered there was a wedding taking place. This was part of the wedding procession. If I could describe the ceremony in one word? Celebratory.

There’s also a large Evangelical presence in some areas (much to the dismay of many Eth. Orthodox “higher-ups”). This congregation wasn’t too far from our hotel. We were told that their average weekly attendance is over 5,000 people.

They seem to have caught on to the Protestant tradition of having really long church names.

Landmarks

Ethiopia has a strong connection with the Lion of Judah.We were in traffic when we passed it, so I had to take these pictures rather quickly while the van was still moving.

The Lion of Judah - from the back.

There he is. In the lower left-hand corner.

National Museum.

The highlight of the National Museum was coming face-to-face with Lucy. Well, not really Lucy. She's on tour in the States. But a copy of Lucy was still in the museum. I'll share more from the museum in a later post.

Traffic

No car seats for the kiddos. That's just the way it is.

A beer delivery truck. I thought some of our traveling companions might appreciate how their beverage of choice was delivered.

This isn’t some sappy play on words where I say that Mihret is my favorite souvenir from Addis. But this is a love story, of sorts.

But first, some background…

Growing up, my favorite flavor of cake was orange cake. I especially liked it with either cream cheese or sour cream flavored icing.

It’s the best. thing. on. Earth.

I would ask for it on any special occasion. Shoot, it was even the flavor of my Groom’s Cake at our wedding.

Yes, I love Orange Cake!

Unfortunately, the cake mix is impossible to find. I’ve looked in Tennessee and now I’ve looked in Muncie. A quick glance at their websites shows that Duncan Hines still makes the mix, but I can’t find it anywhere on Pillsbury’s site. This has left me sorely disappointed.

Distraught, even.

So imagine my surprise when we went to the corner market in Addis to buy the formula Mihret was drinking (Bebelac, to be specific) and other foods when the clouds opened up and a light came down from heaven, filtering through the windows and shining directly upon the top shelf. That’s when I saw it.

Orange Cake Mix!

I had to fly thousands of miles and search to the ends of the earth to find it. Oh, Orange Cake…I’ve missed you so!

The street outside our hotel.

People keep asking what things are like in Addis Ababa. Words cannot begin to explain it. It’s an endless stream of people. It’s also very, very polluted. There’s some development, but right alongside it is extreme poverty. And the traffic…Oh, the traffic…

You are not allowed to take pictures of any government buildings. Even banks. I know this because Ron, a member of our travel group, inadvertently tried to bring his camera into the bank. The armed guards confiscated it. Our tour guide argued with them for a minute in Amharic. Later, he told us that he asked them why they thought we’d be interested in any of the bank’s security. “Look at them,” he said – referencing our white skin. “They have dollars. Do you think they’re interested in stealing birr?” The dollar has huge buying power in Ethiopia. When we were there, one hundred dollars was equal to about 1,250 birr. He had a very valid point. The armed guard just smiled at him and took Ron’s camera anyway. He did get the camera back once we left, by the way.

It’s considered bad form to take pictures of people in Ethiopia without their permission. In an attempt to honor their culture, I tried to limit my photos to buildings and scenery because of this. That’s why there aren’t very many people pictures. But believe me – there were tons of people in the city!

Markets & Shops

Yes, those are fresh (and not-so-fresh) bananas hanging in the storefront.

A small series of shops where I bought a basket for injera bread and a coffee pot. Anyone going to Addis MUST visit these stores! You can contact me for specific directions.

Another must-visit store was the handmade jewelry shop. Again, feel free to contact me for directions.

An open-air market. Although not pictured, there was a plethora of livestock. Especially meat-goats.

Around the city

Most houses and buildings are surrounded with walls. If you look closely, there's broken glass embedded in the top of the wall. They take their security seriously!

Gotta include a shot of Addis Ababa Bible College!

A shot of the skyline

Normally this street was much busier.

Pepsi and Coke signs were prevalent - even in the countryside!

More pictures coming soon…