Peacing out

Today Tim left us to journey around Asia for the next 6 months! He and 2 of his friends are going to be starting in Southern China and spending a few months with friends all over the country. And then eventually they're make their way through Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, and Thailand... aand that's the extent of what I've been able to gather from him :-). But I don't think even he knows his complete plans for the trip. It's going to be really exciting and props to him for finding the means to do it! As a fresh college grad without any specific plans for the future, I think he's taking advantage of a great opportunity. Towards the end of the trip he knows he will be working with Burmese refugees on the Thailand border so he's in for a great experience there as well.

So I'll definitely be missing him... but as the great sister I am, I was also looking forward to getting his car after he left. Unfortunately, I wont be able to even have his white beat up Camery to remember him by. My family has the unfortunate habit of crashing our cars just before we're supposed to pass it on... so on his drive down from school he ran it into a rail for me to keep me from inheriting it :-). I haven't gotten a chance to thank him for that yet.

And as for my mom, her famous quote lately has been "Dont make me laugh"! Since her surgery its been hurting her a lot to do anything but laughing is especially the worst. So lately we haven't been allowed to have as much fun around her but it is becoming increasingly difficult to do that. Our TV choices are guided more toward boring news stations, our conversations are dryer, but if we're still having too much fun we just send Eric out of the room and that usually takes care of it :-)

Together again... but not in the way we thought

It's very rare that you ever find my whole family together in one place. Even when we are all in the same country our schedules are so crazy that they rarely correlate with each other. So a few days ago my family had planned on taking a family vacation to Arizona to see the Grand Canyon and "force" us to be together. I was very excited and looking forward to see this great wonder that everyone talks about. And I figured it was about time that we take "the classic American vacation" that I'm sure every family must venture at least once in their life. But unfortunately this trip that we were so looking forward to had to be postponed.

It started the day we got back from our trip to Ethiopia. My mom had been feeling a little bit sick, but after a few days, her flu-like symptoms only got worse. As we were packing up to leave for the airport we realized that my mom could barely walk anymore. At that point we knew something had to be wrong, but my determined mother still wanted to go on the trip! And instead of going to the hospital she wanted to figure out what was wrong when we got to Arizona. But after a little bit of debating, we decided that it would be wiser to go to the hospital here instead of Arizona. And good thing we did! Because by the time she arrived to the hospital her appendix had already ruptured and she needed surgery right away. She had made it just in time. The surgery went very well and she's healing up nicely. We all feel so blessed with the timing, despite what happened. My mom travels so often that we feel so fortunate that she was actually in America when it did happen. She visits such remote villages when she's overseas, without a doctor that could have performed the surgery. The thought of this scares me to think how much worse it could have been if it had happened only days before. So the fact that she was home when this happened was definitely a blessing.

But we were still able to have some family time today! My brothers, my dad, and I all visited my mom and we got to spend some time with her at the hospital. And even though the view would have been much more enjoyable at our original destination, this is forcing her to take a break which is exactly what she's been needing. And my dad and I have been taking turns switching out babysitting duty. Each day she's been getting more mobile and the pain has been subduing so much that we're hoping that she will be released tomorrow.

Thank you very much everyone for you prayers and support,

Julie

Last Day here :-(

Today was Sunday and we went to International Evangelical Church in Addis. It was a good service and I would definitely go back if I were to ever return to Ethiopia. Then we made our rounds to say goodbye to all of our friends :-(. At the transition house we said goodbye to all of the precious kids that made our trip so worthwhile. We picked up our 2 baby girls (A 2 year old and an 8 month old) that we would be escorting all the way to their new homes in America and then we packed up to go home!

I've loved spending time with all of the kids here and getting to know the families that were adopting them. Many of them I know I'll be seeing again and am really looking forward to seeing them as they grow up. I love to see how well the kids adjust and how much their lives have changed after finding a family.

Being here definitely gives me an appreciation for what we have and will stay with me for a long time. All I'm going to want to do is talk about my trip to everyone. I'm going to be slipping in my amharic to an obnoxious amount and every time I do the Ethiopian nod or the "yes gasp" I will laugh to myself and remember the kids that taught it to me, and the memories that I had here.

Thank you so much for letting me share my trip with all of you and I really appreciate all of your prayers and support throughout this experience. It made my time here more enjoyable knowing that I had people that were excited for me that I knew I could share my time with.

Thank you all,

Julie

A Saturday on Churchill Street

We got to sleep in today which was a blessing. Then we headed down to Churchill street for one last shopping trip with the families. And once again I was done shopping before arrived, but somehow I left with bags of stuff... But the prices are so cheap that it'd almost be a sin not to take advantage of it!

And lunch was great. We ate at a restaurant that I had never been to before called "Top View". We had to drive up a mountain to get there and from the windows we could see the entire city of Addis Ababa below. It was a very worthwhile outing and anyone planning on going to Addis should consider eating there and getting one of their frappuccino milkshakes. Very yummy.

We killed some time at the Hilton doing some internet and window shopping. I got Christy the same Lonely Planet Amharic Phrase book that I got for myself last year. I loved it because you could figure out anything you could possibly want to say! I got excited to try it out so we decided that we would try to figure out how to ask the house keepers at the Grace guest house for hot water so we could make our own dinner. After I prepared what I wanted to say I realized that I would be asking for "hot dog" instead of "hot water"!! In fear of accidentally ordering one of our noisy neighbors for dinner I decided to instead practice my Amharic before trying to use it again :-X

And did you know that it's 2002 here right now? I know! Crazy right? It's supposedly more accurate to history and when Christ was actually born. I can't say if that's true but I do know that it's been fun being 12 again.

"Don't worry, start living!".

Another family arrived today to meet their 2 new girls (the 3 and 5 year old that we drove back with from Woleita). But before we took them to the transition house we first took them on to a tour of the Fistula Hospital with us. It was very sad to see the pain and suffering that the women have had to experience. Most of them have spent hours and hours walking in pain to the hospital just to get treatment. But they are all getting very good care and most of them get 100% cured and it's completely free to them since all of their surgeries have been covered by Oprah and other donors.

When we got to the transition house, while the family was getting to know their 2 girls, Christy and I played with babies. The older kids were all taking naps, so with a semi-quieter house we got to know some of the little ones that we hadn't really seen yet. And for dinner we went out with the 3 new happy families that we've met this trip and had pizza with them. Pizza seems to be the consistent meal that everyone can enjoy... because it's not injera :-)

And to everyone's surprise my mom officially got her Ethiopian drivers licence! It took a couple days to make it official but she did it!

Ethiopian driving is much crazier then how Americans drive... but she will do just fine. Soon she'll be dodging donkeys and goats as good as the rest of them!

Injera's not so bad... :-)

Today we got to experience another family meeting their kids for the first time. They met their 2 boys and it already felt like a perfect match :-). Then we went straight to their embassy appointment to finalize their adoption along with the family from 2 days ago. We took the 2 new happy families along with the 2 babies we will be escorting home. Tsnot is the 8 month old and Migdis is about 2. All of the embassy appointments went well and everyone passed without any problems! All of the kids were officially theirs! So we did a little more shopping to celebrate. I thought I had finished getting everything that I needed to get the other day, but when I saw more pretty scarves I changed my mind... I think I have a problem.

As for dinner, we were going to go to a typical Ethiopian restaurant with a dancing show with their typical dances. But I was getting a little apprehensive. I knew I would have to face injera again and I wanted to make it right with it again. I used to like it so why couldn't we go back to the way things were before? It was the same restaurant in which I fell in love with it last time so I thought that if my feelings for it would be rekindled it would happen here. So when dinner came it went surprisingly well! I had my share and I found a few toppings that were not too hot to handle. But although I am not ready to say that I'm in love with it again in

the near future, I now know that there is hope for next time :-). Obsi, a 12 year old boy came with us to the restaurant too. He was such a great boy, and it was a lot of fun to take him along. Especially since it was his first time ever driving around Addis or even going to a restaurant at all!

That evening we moved to the Grace guest house because we were getting kicked out of the New Flower. Grace was a georgeous place and felt very much like were staying at a hotel. But we didn't sleep very well :-/. The dogs barked half the night, and the neighbors decided to blast music all night... and American music at that! But what did we expect... its the same everywhere here in Addis Ababa.

... Free day?

This morning my mom told us that it was our free day since she had to spend the whole day getting her Ethiopian drivers liscence (she's got to be absolutely insane :-P) so we could do whatever we wanted. So what did we do? We visited another orphanage. We didn't get to spend much time at Miscaye when we came a few days ago, so we wanted to spend more time with them and get to know them better. And we LOVED it there. We were so impressed with the kids. They were all very sweet and really enjoyed having us there, almost as much as we enjoyed being there. As we came in the door we were greeted with a welcome song and each one of them greeted us with a handshake and a kiss on the cheek. They wanted so badly to make us feel welcome and they did so without even trying. They each had an A+ personality and had me laughing almost the whole day. I took to the older kids as Christy spent more time with the babies. I could ramble on about each of them but that would probably take the rest of the evening :-) I really hope we get to spend a little more time there... the problem is we finished all the work we had to do there and dont have a reason to go back... Why didn't I think to stash my camera behind the couch so we'd have to go back till now?? :-)

Throughout all of my trips to Ethiopia, the older kids are the ones that end up stealing my heart. I love seeing their personalities and playfulness despite some of their really hard, short lives some of them have had. They're mature and experienced beyond they're years, not to have been able to enjoy their childhoods. They're the ones that really left a huge impact on me. Siblings that have had only each other for so long take care of each other so intently. It's so sweet to see a 7 year old brother grab 2 pieces of bread at dinner and hand one to his 4 year old sister before taking a bite of his, but heartbreaking to know that that's what he's had to do for the past 4 years in order for them to survive. Right now they don't even have a concept of "eat until your full" or even leftovers for that matter. They have no idea what their new life will be like where they will always have enough to eat. But my hopes and prayers that they'll be able to adjust to life in America and enjoy the many pleasures that we have, without feeling guilty, or sadness for the people that they've left behind in Ethiopia that have not been given the same opportunity that they've been given. I've gotten to see many kid's lives completely turned around once they've found a family, and the new joy in their lives have tuned the saddest kids into the most joyful I have ever seen. It's then that we're really able to see what a beautiful thing adoption is and the new life they now have through the gift of a family.

I do NOT like injera!

Today started with another early morning. By 8:15 we were out the door and on our way to El Olam. We needed to take 3 babies to the doctors to get a check ups and bloodwork done. None of the babies had prospective families yet and we needed to make sure they were healthy before we could assign them to a family. Christy's baby for the day was Tamarat. I felt bad for her as he turned out to be the messiest baby of all... I'll spare you details and just say she had to change her clothes as soon as we got back... :-P The other 2 were girl baby twins and I took one and my mom took the other. One of the girl babies was a goofy looking baby and made me laugh. But my baby turned out to be perfect if I may say so myself. She was soo cute and behaved so perfectly for me. I hated having to hold her down as they drew blood but at least we were able to stay friends in the end and she slept on my shoulder the whole way home :-).

Then we went back to the New Flower guest house and met a family that was about to go meet their 2 boys for the fist time! They were very excited and their energy rubbed off on us as we took the 30 minute drive to the transition house to meet their new kids! We told them a couple stories that we remembered from our interaction with their kids and their excitement only grew. Then came my favorite part of our trip.

So we videoed and took pictures of the emotional meeting. The kids were so overjoyed to finally meet their family that they've been waiting for for so long, and the parents were in tears as this moment felt so surreal to them.

We were invited to some Ethiopian friends of ours for dinner and I'm sad to say that I did NOT like the injera at all. Not even a little bit... It's a shame since that is their staple meal that they eat twice a day. I used to enjoy it myself but after a very bad experience with it last year I was hoping that it hadn't ruined it for me forever.

And I tried SO hard to eat it today but after a couple close calls of almost not being able to keep it down I realized that it was no use. Maybe one day again I will enjoy the sour bread and spicy meat combo once again!