Ethiopia Part II

Day 4

We spent the morning relaxing at the hotel. In the afternoon we met our guide/driver Gustacho for a little shopping trip. Driving through Addis Ababa is quite an experience. No seat belts, in a little 1987 toyota sedan with two small children who keep trying to play with the door latches and roll down the windows. There are absolutely no traffic laws in Ethiopia. You can stop in the middle of the road while trying to make a left hand turn, (they drive on the right side of the road like in the US) fail to stop at a light, drive around someone on the shoulder, or just make your own lane if traffic is going too slow. We went to a little shop, basically a small shack the size of a large walk-in closet. As we got there it began to pour! We made it inside. Micah and Hannah were incredibley clingy. They had never been in a store before. The owners served us hot tea and the kids coke. Our kids each took one sip and didn't want anymore :) As Kurt and I were shopping the owners offered the kids different things. I was a little annoyed because we were shopping for other people. We didn't want the kids to think they could have whatever they wanted. Thankfully after showing Micah and Hannah a couple things, they stopped. It was a nice store because they sold so many different items we were able to buy a lot in just one stop. After shopping we headed back to the hotel. I was not feeling well. I eventually figured out I could not drink the tea in Ethiopia. We're not sure what kind it was but everytime my stomach got upset. The smog and crazy driving did not help either. We rested in the afternoon then had traditional Ethiopian food for dinner. The kids love Injera!!!! Hannah asked for at every meal while we were there.

Day 5

We needed to go back to the CWA Care Center to complete our paperwork for the Embassy Appointment on Tuesday. It was a cold rainy day just like most every day was while we were in Addis. The driver came to pick us up at our hotel. It was really fun to see the other families and their kids. We were all so focused on the kids on Saturday we didn't visit much. We enjoyed sharing stories and soon found out that Hannah and Micah were very easy compared to the others those first couple of days. Many of the kids were not sleeping well, others were very quiet. We could see early on that our kids were easy going, and generally happy. It was also neat to see all the kids talking and playing with each other. The care workers enjoyed seeing the kids one last time. There were several friends of Hannah and Micah's who were still waiting for their parents that were really excited to see the kids again. Kurt and I let the kids play and eat lunch with their friends while we finished up our paper work. We had done most of it at home, which made everything go much faster that day.

Kurt had left our backpack on the front porch of the care center while we did paperwork. We came back to put something away in it, Kurt noticed that all the snacks were gone and just the wrappers remained. We then found two small plastic figurines, a dog and a horse. Micah and Hannah had gotten in our backpack and shared the snacks, then they tried to take the toys from the care center home with them :o So sneaky. Eyob told us the kids could take the toys, I said no it was okay they needed to stay here, we had the kids take them back inside. When we returned to the hotel room we found that both the kids had a ball in their pocket from the care center. Whatever! :)