Trip to Ethiopia Part 1

Day 1
We left Nashville, TN on Thursday August 30th on a small Untied commuter plane headed for Chicago. We had 4 large checked bags full of donations and clothes and 4 carry on bags full of neccessities like paperwork for our US Embassy apointment. We arrived in Chicago to begin a four hour layover. After eating our last American meal for ten days at Chili's we read and talked while we waited for our Lufthansa 747 to leave. We slept a lot on the flight across the Atlantic but did not miss a beautiful sunset over Newfoundland, Canada. We landed in Frnakfurt, Germany on Friday morning at 6 am.

Day 2
Killing time for a 5 hour layover is not fun and the Frankfurt airport had little to nothing to do and barely any seats. Thankfully it was early in the morning and wasn't too busy yet. We found seats and watched Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. Kurt got us a healthy breakfast of McDonald's cheese burgers and fries with soda. Already the food tasted different. Our meal was almost $20. We went to the holding area for our next Lufthansa flight to Ethiopia. It was here we figured out we would be stopping in Sudan to let people off the plane and refuel. We were glad that we didn't know about that sooner, I don't think our parents would have been happy to hear about that stop. We flew on another big airplane to Addis Ababa. On this flight we slept and watched Music and Lyrics.

We landed in Addis Ababa at 9:30pm on Friday August 31st. We got our Visas and exchanged money quickly without any issues. On our way to baggage claim we saw Eyob and Cazzoon our CWA escorts for our stay. They helped us get our luggage and we headed out to the car. I pictures a lot more people outside of the airport begging or wanting to help with our bags for money, but hardly anyone was there. We got to our hotel the Ghion and checked in. I though I would be awake all night anxiously awaiting meeting the kids, however the jet lag got the best of me and we both slept very well.

Day 3
We woke up, got ready (Kurt had to hold the plug for my hair dryer in the wall while I did my hair-he's the best!), and went o breakfast. Breakfast was a buffet provided by the hotel. There were a lot of interesting foods, I ate bread and eggs. We then had to wait until 11 am for Cazzoon to pick us up and take us to the kids. He ended up being late :(

On the drive to the care center it was so exciting to see Ethiopia that the time passed quickly. We arrived and walked up to the gates. Cazzoon told us that our kids were very excited about meeting us, they kept asking him when we were coming. We walked in and two little girls ran up and hugged us. One would not let go of Kurt (it wasn't Hannah) We made our way to the building and opened the door. I saw Micah grinning first and Hannah was right next to him. I hugged Micah then Hannah. Kurt hugged them next. The first couple minutes were ackward. Since they didn't speak English and we didn't speak Amharic we just kinda stood there smiling at each other. Hannah almost immediately was on my lap and Micah with Kurt. Micah loved Kurt's digital watch so Kurt let him wear it. They called us Mommy and Daddy from the first time we saw them. Then the kids all went and washed there hands. Kurt and I followed them. We noticed Hannah walking up the stairs crying. Kurt picked her up. Then a Care worker came and took her from Kurt. She went in the house with her. So Kurt and I just followed up the stairs and sat down to eat. Hannah came back with a smile and a new shirt on. She had gotten the sleeves on her other shirt wet, which is why she had been crying. We all ate lunch together with the other two families there picking up their kids. Afterwards we left and took Micah and Hannah back to our hotel room. We all took a nap.

To be continued...