Ethiopia - Second Half of Day 1

We arrived back at the Holt office and sat down with our lawyer.  He went over when to be at court and what to expect.  It was a short meeting.  Then, each family was quizzed by a staff member on possible questions we would be asked at court.  We found out that the intake orphanage is called Mussie Children's Home.  We had no idea how important that information would later become.

After it was clear that we're all familiar with our child's history and our adoption timeline, we got to look through the huge notebook that the staff keeps for each child.  The binder is probably three inches thick and contains all of our paperwork.  It felt strange to see our pictures and signatures and personal information in a notebook in Ethiopia.  It was all also translated to Amharic and that was interesting.  I took several pictures of documents, including what appeared to be a birth certificate for Little E.  It was probably issued when he went into care in August 2009.  The most important find, though, was a picture of E's birthfather.  It was small and a little blurry, but it's still so special that we got to see it.  My heart hurt looking at it and thinking about the circumstances that led to his child becoming our child.

When we were all done going through the files, we piled back in the van and headed to the golf club for lunch.  We were all still on cloud nine from meeting our sweet children.  The food was great and the company was enjoyable.  We sat at a table on the patio and enjoyed the warm-ish weather.  We finished just as our driver was returning to get us.  He gave us the choice of going shopping or returning to the care centers.  Uhhhhh.... you have to ask???  


He took it back to the care center and it was obvious that we were not expected yet.  It was bath time for the older kids and nap time for the younger ones.  Sister Martha said a couple of different times that we were deviating from the schedule and were supposed to be shopping.  We waited while they finished Little E's bath.  They had scrubbed all of the pen marks off of him and he was wearing fresh, slightly damp clothes.


We went into the upper level of the playroom and he took to us immediately.  We played with the truck and read and then he and Justin started tossing a football back and forth.  E loved it and started getting really excited.  We tried to keep him quiet, since Jeff and Jennifer's baby had just gone to sleep and they were getting great cuddle time just a few feet away from us.  Soon, though, Sister Martha came in and spoke to E in Amharic and then told us that she told him no throwing balls inside.  Ooops.  :)  So, we started kicking the ball around instead and he loved that, too.

A nanny came by with a cup with some sort of smoothie for him and he held it with the bottom in his palm.  Justin and I both thought that disaster was coming.  But no, he know what he's doing.  Super quick, he brought it to his mouth.  One, two, three huge gulps and the whole cup was empty.

Little E wanted us to read to him, so I grabbed a book with lots of animals.  He wanted me to hold him while Justin read.  He was initially babbling on and on in Amharic, but then we realized that he was starting to repeat the English words Justin was saying!!!  We were blown away.  We haven't known all this time if he would really be able to speak, how clear it would be if he can, or how quickly he'll be able to adapt to a new language.  We were beyond thrilled to hear him talking up a storm in Amharic and elated to hear him attempting English!  Praise God!


Soon after that, our driver came in the door.  I turned my back and pretended not to see him.  That didn't stop the inevitable, though.  I gave E a long hug and he tolerated it.  But when Justin hugged him, E latched on and wrapped his arms and legs around him.  He got really distressed not wanting Justin to leave him.  It was one of the hardest things I've ever done to peel him off of Justin and walk out that door.

We went from there to shop at the Leper's Hospital.  We found a lot of beautiful things and it actually lifted our spirits.  

We arrived back at the guesthouse just in time to do a quick turnaround and jump in a taxi headed to the Sheraton for a Thanksgiving dinner buffet.  Traffic was very congested.  We finally just got out of our taxi and walked.  We had no idea what a big event this was.  We had to go through two security checkpoints to get into the hotel.  I don't know what to say about the Sheraton really.  It's one of the fanciest hotels I've ever been in and it was completely at odds with what we'd been seeing all day.  The food was great and we enjoyed spending time with other adoptive parents.  It really was magical.  But, I also had an underlying uneasiness the entire time.  I felt guilty for having so much food available to us and plenty of money to pay for it after we'd seen people all day who probably don't know where their next meal is coming from.  It was a glaring contrast.  This is us with Jeff and Jennifer.  Jen and I are wearing our Toms and our new scarves from the Leper's Hospital.

Ok.  This might be the funniest thing that happened on the whole trip.  We finished dinner and went out to meet our driver.  Two guys saw where we were headed and rushed ahead of us to open the van door.  After we were all in and seated, they wanted a tip.  Well, Jeff pulls out a wad of birr but couldn't see the denominations so he held it up to try to see and then said, "uh.  no."  Meanwhile, Justin is trying to get some birr out of his money belt which is, of course, inside his pants.  So he's digging around with his hand down the front of his pants and the guy sees what he's doing and gets this horrified expression on his face.  He yells, "you not happy with service" and slams the door.  We laughed all the way back to the Jemimah.  Poor guy thought he was going to get something totally different than he bargained for.


When we got back to the guesthouse, I was able to connect my phone to the computer and get a connection fast enough to send a picture to the kids.  Then, we headed off to bed so we could be up bright and early for court on Friday morning.