I Never Want to Leave!

Can i sound any more cliche? But it's true. My time here always feels too short, and especially now more then ever. Every place we've been has felt a little bit rushed, so I was glad to spent a few full days at the transition house... because with 25 kids and 10 nannies there's always so much going on! Today is my last day in Ethiopia before we leave for Congo so I'm going to sum up what we've been up to from where I left off...

The 4th day, Wednesday, we started out slow and spent the morning at the Hilton... which was basically a small taste of the pleasures we are used to at home. Internet, pizza, A/C, and lots and lots of "forenge" that look like us. After mom was done with meetings there, we headed off to the transition house. I love that she has a liscense now b/c we feel so independent... but it means we REALLY have to learn our way around... We spent the rest of the day at the house taking, video and pictures of the kids and having the best game of frisbeen in our new large-ish yard. We had an exciting and very random encounter with our next door neighbors who turned out to be American's, so Yours Truly was dubbed the one to shout over the wall and introduce everyone :P It turns out they were just as curious about their new neighbors as we were. They actually enjoyed hearing all of the "joy" coming from the house. That was truly a suprise b/c some of that laughter sounds a lot like screaming sometimes... ;) We'll see how they feel in a couple months, hah.

The 5th day was essentially the 2 hours we spent in Wolita. It was about a 6 hour drive each way and the roads are just awful. My manner of coping is by popping a couple Dramamine and hoping that it knocks me out for most of the drive. Although it was a very quick trip, we had a very successful and worthwile use of our time there :) But no thanks to my new favorite yellow pill I actually have "0" new pictures from this Thursday in Ethiopia.

Day #6: So I didn't get to go to Nazareth to see the babies that many others are coming from far and wide to see while bearing gifts of clothes, toys, and love. But I did however spend ALL morning with the group of kids from Nazareth that came to Addis for a doctors visit. Some were not in pleasant moods after spending a good 5 hours in the car to come down, while others were happy and content to just be out of the car. I loved seeing some of their personalities come out throughtout the day, sometimes quickly dampened upon being sent in to the doctor to get shots :( But all in all, they were a great group and I am excited for anyone that ends up with one of them in their family. After that, Mom and I got to REALLY know Addis Ababa a little better after mising a turn and finding a new way to get to the transition house! It even took us down Churchill street so we could get some last minute shopping in ;)

Day #7: We went back to Miskaye for the morning to finish up some unfinished business that were weren't able to do when we were there a couple days ago. But upon talking to the orphanage director we discovered another child that we would need to go see immediately. We wanted to go see this child ourselves and talk to the birth mother in person while we were in country. It was truly a touching experience and hearing the mothers story about why she was giving up her child was truly heartbreaking and... well... there wasn't a dry eye in the house. Seening the pure love behind what she was doing makes it easy to see that this is what all this is about.

The best decision I made though, was to spend the night at the transition house. I knew my time was running out and I didn't want to miss a minute. And the nannies had only just started doing my hair when my mom had to leave! It was a typical rest of the evening... wagon pulling, jump roping, looking at old pictures of kids, kids skyping home to parents... But after dinner I got to break out my movies that I promised them that I would bring this time. The kids all watched Monsters Inc which I may have enjoyed more than some of them did... and after we put the little ones to bed the older boys picked Men in Black. Good choice. After a few minutes all of the nannies joined in and it was a big party. Everyone was laughing through the whole thing and were completely hooked. And my favorite part may have been the long in depth conversation afterwards about aliens and vampires, and A LOT of things that I thought were common knowledge... but apparently weren't :)

My 8th and last full day in Ethiopia I got to wake up to laughing kids and Ethiopian music playing on the Ipod we got the house last year. It wasn't a sad day though. Although we all knew it was our last day we didn't really talk about it and just enjoyed being there. Each of these kids are really special and really made my time here truly enjoyable. Writing this now it's just starting to sink in and I'm really really going to miss them. The nannies were always great company and although communicating was difficult it didn't stop us from finding a way to have fun :) And I promised to go home and learn more Amharic for the next time I come back. One of the girls even showed me an Ipod App that I'm really going to enjoy practicing with!

Tomorrow my mom and I leave bright and early for the DRC along with our Ethiopian lawyer to protect us! hah I've been told many times that Ethiopia and Congo are very different and right now i will welcome the HEAT as opposed to this COLD Ethiopia that I've been experiencing. I'm excited to finally see this country that i've heard so much about.

I will add more pics (so check back for that :) and I'll update as soon as I can!

Julie

Woleita and back again

We finished the rest of the long drive to Woleita and spent a few hours taking pictures and video of the kids and played with the toys we brought with us. A beach volleyball that we brought turned out to be a bigger hit with the nannies than the kids! Christy started playing with a group of the kids, but they quickly lost interest until only nannies were left and loving every minute of it!
Most of the kids came from really horrible conditions but they were definitely the happiest of all the kids we've seen so far. Most of the kids looked malnourished as they were obviously not getting enough food to eat and their protruding bellies were a sign that the children were starving. Many of them had skin infections, but aside from that you would have no way of knowing how bad off they were because the kids looked so joyful and the nannies showed them so much love. When we had to leave Addis Alam, the caretakers were so happy to see him and were overjoyed to have him back. Although it was very hard to leave him there, we knew that it was a place where he was loved and was happy. Although we were sad to say goodbye to little Addis, we would NOT be lonely for the ride back. We took 4 kids back with us for the 7 hour ride back to Addis Ababa. The baby, Net, just slept the whole time and didn't make a peep the entire ride how which was AWESOME. I couldnt ask for anything more from her :-). Bersufican, however, made up for her absence of noise. He was adorable and he knew it. And it has probably helped him get by with a lot in his little life. And not being able to speak his language also allowed him to pretend like he didnt know that he was being bad. He would continue to mess with the 2 sisters we were bringing back and disturb them as they tried to sleep. None of our commands we were trying were working. "Don't do that", "sit down", "PLEASE go to SLEEP!". He didn't understand any of it until I remembered the word for "Stop it". "Bakka!" I said. And that boy's eyes got sooo wide!! Shocked he was. He was disapointed that he could no longer play us like he had been, and we were pleased to finally be able to control the smartest little 3 year old we have ever met.

On the road to Woleita

Yesterday, we packed up and prepared to embark on a 2 day trip to one of our orphanages in Woleita which was about 7 hours south of Addis Ababa. But first, since it was on the way, we got to stop at Project Mercy! Our friend from school, Bedru, was back in Ethiopia for the summer and had invited us to stop by the school that he grew up going to.Being the Taylor Students that we are, we had heard so much about it that it made for an offer almost too good to pass up.

Our new little buddy Addis Alam (meaning New World) also got to spend these 2 days with us. He had only come to Addis Ababa for a doctor's visit and we needed to take him back to Wolita since he didn't have an adoptive family yet. But by the end of the trip we had fallen in love with him and we didn't want to give him back! Addis spent the night with us in Hosana (with his adorable footie pajamas!!) and he was such a good baby for us! For dinner we tried to feed him injera but he snubbed it. He would only accept bread and milk, but we gladly gave him what he wanted :-)