Final Day in Addis Plus Kosher Pics

View onto our balcony

Well, I figured I better write about our final day in Ethiopia while it's still fresh in my mind.  I definitely want to journal about all this partly for me and Kerry, and partly for all you friends and family who want to know, but most importantly for the boys as they get older and want to hear firsthand about it.  When Kate was adopted, a caseworker said something to the effect that a child deserves to have as much information about their story as is available.  That has really stuck with me, and I truly believe it.  

When a family is adopting multiple children through our adoption agency, and when the children are in separate orphanages like Tam and Yeb are, the agency will sometimes arrange to have one of the children come visit the other orphanage for a day so that the family can spend time with both kids simultaneously.  That's what we got to do on Friday of our visit.  Well, part of the day, anyway.  We had planned to go on our final shopping trip Thursday night, but between court taking so much longer than anticipated and then being able to meet Yeb's birthmother and spend time with her, shopping fell to the bottom of the priority list.  After talking to the agency staff, we decided to go shopping first thing on Friday morning before Tam was brought over for the visit.

Amazing saddle in the national museum.  This one's for you, Grandad!

As a side note, when we first got to Addis and through the first couple days, we were a little miffed at our agency because it felt like communication was almost nonexistent.  Our frustration was only increased by the fact that we met a great adoptive couple on the trip over who are adopting through Holt International, and their trip was completely planned out for them.  They were in a group with other adoptive couples.  They were told exactly where to stay while they were there.  They had an agency van and driver to shuttle them around.  They had an orientation meeting.  You get the picture.  Which to us during the first couple days there seemed like a dream come true because we were faced with staying  in a hotel we had had to randomly choose, try to hire a driver at a daily rate (that's an entire post by itself), choose when and where to go, figure out how to get around by foot, hail taxis, try to communicate despite a language barrier, etc.  It was a pretty steep learning curve, and at the beginning we were definitely feeling some agency envy.

Ethiopian Orthodox Church on Entoto Mountain

However, by the end of the week we were feeling pretty confident in our ability to get around without any help, and really glad for the time flexibility we had had throughout the week.  Since the boys were in different places we had the ability to make it a priority to visit each of them every day, and at the times that worked best for us and them.  A huge advantage was that we could stay with the boys as long as we wanted. We were able to pick and choose from the sightseeing list, pick exactly what kind of restaurants we wanted to eat at and when, and in general just feel like we could do what we wanted when we wanted.  Since our hotel was close to Yeb's orphanage, we did a fair amount of walking to and from, and also explored the area on foot in search of restaurants and shops we had heard of.  We walked every day to the little mercado next door to buy water, went to the bank next to that to exchange money, and a little farther down a side street to an internet cafe.  And throughout the week the agency really did give us the support we needed, just not the kind we had been wishing for on Monday.

View to Addis Ababa from Entoto Mountain.  Notice all the smog.

Ok, with that in mind, by Friday we were feeling fairly confident, and decided to just take a taxi to and from a shopping district.  For some reason I was freaked out by the idea of hailing a taxi, but Kerry was adamant that it really was NO BIG DEAL.  We headed out of the hotel after breakfast, Kerry hailed a taxi, negotiated a price, and we hopped in.  Partway through the drive the driver pulled the car over and left.  We figured he had gone to get gas, but since he didn't speak hardly any English, he hadn't tried to explain before he left.  After waiting a few minutes, finally getting out and hailing another taxi, we were  just about to climb in the 2nd taxi when we hear the 1st driver shouting, and turned around to see him running down the street toward his car with a gas can.  It had apparently run out of gas, and he had to run to get some.  We climbed back in, he put the gas in, and after starting the car from under the hood, we were off again.  Poor man.  He was so flustered and apologetic, and reassured us that it would be no charge (don't worry, we did pay him).  After a minute he just started laughing, and just kept laughing, until all 3 of us were laughing about the whole thing.

Other side of Entoto Mountain.  Ahhh.  Clean air.  And how beautiful is that view?!

He dropped us off at a clothing shop that wasn't in the big shopping district we were wanting to go, but we knew we were close, so figured we could just walk the rest of the way.  This is the adventure part of getting around a city where you don't speak the language.  After walking around for a bit and asking multiple business owners which direction we needed to go, we finally just hailed another taxi.  That guy made a killing on us, but we didn't care at that point.  We made it to the shopping district, found what we were hoping for, and hailed another cab back to the hotel.  Then we packed our purchases into our bags, checked out of the hotel, and took yet another taxi to Yeb's orphanage/agency office.  We stowed our bags in the office, and then could relax a bit knowing that we were going to be there for most of the day.  We played with Yeb for a bit, and then Kerry went with the agency driver to go and pick up Tam and bring him over for the visit.  Before Kerry left he was holding Yeb, who totally fell asleep in him arms clutching a soccer ball, and so then I got to hold the sleeping little boy until lunchtime.  This was the first time that I had been with either boy during a mealtime, and it was fun to see all the little kids take off their shoes, sit down on the mat on the floor, and hold their plates in their laps.  Yeb was a little cranky from just waking up, and wouldn't sit down, and later wouldn't eat.  One of the older boys came over and worked his older boy magic to convince Yeb to sit down, but refused to eat until I fed him by hand.  Mentally I was cringing, because I know that feeding a child is a powerful attachment tool, and we really didn't want to start the bonding process in earnest when we were going to have to leave them, but emotionally I couldn't NOT do it.  Can you blame me?

Gorgeous countryside

There were a ton of donkeys carrying straw down the mountain road,
and also women who were carrying HUGE bundles of
eucalyptus branches down to sell as firewood.

After lunch Kerry and Tam showed up, and for the first couple hours we were wishing that we hadn't agreed to the get together.  Poor Tam was just freaked out being in a new place with new kids, and we felt awful that he was so on edge.  I started repenting for any prayers I had said pleading for Tam to be moved to Yeb's orphanage for the next couple months.  But after a couple hours, he started to settle down and relax, and by the late afternoon he was showing more personality than we had ever seen from him.  Kerry and I realized partway through that for the first time ever we had more than one of our children with us at the same time.  Weird!  Also partway through the afternoon Yeb disappeared to play in the water faucets and have some downtime.  I was so happy to see that he can entertain himself for a bit, because after meeting the boys and realizing that they are both really energetic, I am eyeing afternoon naptime/quiet time as my sanity saver.

Tam meanwhile was happy to explore and wanted us to watch him do all sorts of tricks, jumps, and ball  kicks.  He started doing this hilarious victory dance when he felt especially proud of himself.  That little boy can move!

4:30 rolled around, and we wanted Tam to be back at his orphanage by dinnertime, so we put all our luggage in the agency van, said goodbye to Yeb, and piled in with Tam.  The driver took us across the city, where we got out and said goodbye to Tam.  Fortunately the kids at Tam's orphanage started chanting his name when they saw him, so his goodbye wasn't dramatic at all.  Poor Yeb, though, was screaming bloody murder when we left him.  We both decided that WE're not going to be able to handle getting a babysitter for a while after the boys get home, not because the kids won't be able to be okay, but because we won't be able to handle their sadness as we leave.

The not so glamorous part of staying in a 3rd world country.
Doing laundry in the sink

Merry Christmas!  We put up the tree last night, and Kate was super excited about it.  YOu can tell which section of the tree she took responsibility for decorating. :)

The driver took us to the airport, where we were super early for our flight, but we really didn't want to drag out the goodbyes to the boys.  We bought some food there (fairly nasty), and waited.  During our trip we ordered cheeseburgers twice, once in the airport, and decided never again.  Same with the ice cream.  It's just not Ethiopia's forte.  What we did fall in love with food-wise was the for-real Ethiopian food.  My goal in the next couple months is to get a lot better at making it here at home, and now with a much better frame of reference, I'm excited to renew my efforts.