FAYA - Day Three

This was to be our last day at FAYA. We had much to do. Because I am too tired to write at night, I have been writing early in the morning, before the girls wake up. When our girls woke up this morning they put on their shoes and went into the main house (the orphanage) and had tea and bread for breakfast with the other children.

The children are precious. Kalkidan has a smile a mile wide. When she found out that the bikes were for her she was so happy!! When I was opening the suitcases and putting the supplies where they went I gave her the hair products to put away. She took the little clips and said, “For me?” And I said yes. She almost bowled me over throwing herself at me and hugging me, and then gave me the biggest kiss. This little girl has come from nothing, had nothing, and expected nothing. So when someone came and told her that the hair pretties were for her – how special did that make her feel!!!

PICTURE OF KALKIDAN REMOVED FOR ADOPTION REASONS

The little twins are very sweet, and then there are the new children. The little boy, is so sad. Meg says she sees a change in him already, though.

PICTURE OF TWINS REMOVED FOR ADOPTION REASONS


PICTURE OF KALKIDAN AND NEW BOY REMOVED FOR ADOPTION REASONS

The baby has a head of hair and everyone is in love with him. And then there is a new little girl,who is the brother of the baby. All three of them are clearly still adjusting. They have only been there 24 hours.. The difference between them and the older three children is amazing. A little love, food, and care and they change so quickly.

NEW BABY AND NEW GIRL REMOVED FOR ADOPTION REASONS

Ray Tucking in a New Little Family Member of the O.

Meg and I got to work as soon as we woke up. Showers, deodorant, clothing, makeup, hair brushing? Ha. We had work to do. We basically crawled out of bed, threw on our shoes, had some tea and bread, and started moving furniture and unpacking.

Unpacking School Supplies

Some of the Baby Milk and Medicine Cabinet

Unloading Tons of Cough and Cold, Tynenol,

Anti-Fungal, Antibiotic Ointments, Bandaids,

Lidosporin (ear infections), Multi-Vitamins, etc.

Medicine Cabinet - Nicely Stocked Now

The New Bunk Beds and a Dresser

Rearranging Furniture.... Again

New Beds

The New Bedroom

Putting Up the New Kid's Bedroom

New Bedroom Behind the Couch

New Baby in a New Cradle

This side is the diningroom and leads to the front yard. The couch is the divider to the new bedroom. Eventually, there will be a curtain closing it off. (I think that was the plan) The toy shelf full of the donated toys - educational toys from one store owner in our town!

It used to be the room off of the livingroom. It now holds a set of bunkbeds, a crib, and a dresser. Room for 6 more children.

The Old Bunkbed Has Been Delegated to the Caregivers Rooms

New Kitchen Shelving

There was a boy of about 8 years, going through the garbage at the end of the road. He was picking through it for five or ten minutes, so Ray went walking towards him and he gave him 10 birr ($1). He said, Give this to your mother. The little boy beamed and then Ray turned and walked away. When Ray turned around the boy was racing as fast as he could home to his mother. Most times when a person is given money, it will be 1 birr, so this made his day.

There is no phone book in the area we were staying at and Ray would ask Meg for a phone number. Once he asked for the Yellow Pages. HAHA. So one day before we left he presented her with her notebook. The front cover was shut and it was bright yellow. He wrote: THE YELLOW PAGE – and on it were listed all the phone numbers that we had used at her house.

YELLOW PAGE PIC

While I was moving furniture and unpacking, Colt and young S were building bunkbeds. It was not an easy task, as it turned out that two sets of bunkbeds would not fit in one of the bed rooms. So then they had to take apart the old metal ones and take them out to the back house for the caregivers to use. The children will get the new beds. By the time they were done we had two bunkbeds and a crib in one room, a bunkbed and dresser in a second room, and a crib, bassinet, and bunkbed in the third room. They could feasibly put two children in each bed, making 16 beds with the four bunkbeds, plus another 5 babies. So I think they are good for a while. After that, I think their house might be too small.

Ray took off for town with older S and bought paving stones, a large mirror, and brought back the couch, and paid for the table and chairs that we were ordering. When he came back he set to work putting the paving stones down. It was beautiful when it was done. I wish I had a picture before the rocks were removed and the sand and stones laid!! The ground was up and down, and every inch was full of pointy, sharp, round big and small rocks and small boulders.

He also brought back 200 kg of Teff. It was funny to watch these trying to carry these great heavy bags!!

During all of this work there was a moment when I heard a child crying and then I heard a lot of commotion and noise out in the yard. I thought something was wrong. Well, I was wrong. I went outside and you should have seen the excitement. One of the caregivers who was sitting under the tree had looked up and discovered there were mangos growing in the tree!!

Excited Caregive Finding Mangoes

I said, God is good. He has now provided fresh fruit for the children!

We finished all that we could do and then packed up. It was time to say goodbye. Meg has her little family of 6 children and all of her helpers. S is a wonderful man and Meg and he will do very well with this little orphanage.

THANK YOU to all of you who donated money to be able to furnish the orphanage!! We could not have done it without you!!

ADD ORPHANAGE GROUP PIC with US here

The Boys and Their New Friend

Once we were on the road we decided to stop by a restaurant in town and say goodbye to Salam, the orphanage director, where our girls spent six months. She had a clear love of the children and she had asked us to stop by before we took them to Canada.

We stopped for a quick goodbye – hugs for the girls.

Salam - Our Girls 'Mum' For Six Months

While waiting for Salam to arrive to say goodbye to the girls, the boys decided they needed gum. What fun. Soon they had 'vendors' of all kinds clustering around our van!! When will they learn?

Driving in Ethiopia has certainly been different to Canada! There are no seatbelts and the drivers are all over the road, but really I feel safer here than I do in Canada! The girls are going to have to adjust to being tied down in carseats, once we get home!!

The drive from Adama to Addis is long. It is supposed to be an hour, but I think it is more like 2.5 hours. It is well worth the drive through. You see so much amazing scenery and things you would not see in the city: thatched huts (like our girls lived in at one time), children driving their cows home from grazing at the end of the day, rivers, and the landscape.

I love how familiar our children are with people and how loving the Africans are with their children. Gadisae would stand behind the driver and play with his dreads, and rub her hands on his cheeks. Once she stood there putting a sticker on his face. People are so loving towards children here. Though children are very respectful and listen to their elders, they are also loved deeply. An interesting and beautiful combination.

Once we got to Addis we headed to the Weygoss. It is a nice hotel and is very different to the Oziopia. But! The service is vastly different. We had a shared hallway bathroom, versus our own bathroom. And we had to order our food the night before, rather than have it made in the morning. Nothing much different. The water problem is pretty much the same – toilets don’t always flush, and sometimes there is hot water, but no cold, or vise versa. Each place has its flaws. We are enjoying spending a few days in the centre of town. Next time, I would do the same thing: a few days in town, and a few days in the suburbs.

We dropped our bags and immediately walked out the door to the Markush restaurant. It is a nice art gallery with a classy restaurant. There were a number of white people there, where usually we have seen mostly black. The pizza is different to Canadian – I prefer Canadian. The boys and I ordered pizza, but Ray decided to order lasagna cause he was very hungry. We had a laugh when his food arrived. The serving was so HUGE!! LOL!

Ray ended up eating all of my leftovers and some of the boys! We ordered icec ream for the girls and you should have seen the faces from Gadisae!

At one moment Gadisae put her hands together (like I do to show sleep) and said, “Daddy.” Literally, ten seconds later she was sound asleep!!

The boys decided to order two desserts cause they knew they couldn’t take their birr home with them.

"Oinkers"

At one point Mesai said to Dane, “Dane sing a song.” And Colt and Dane began singing, “Hit the road Jack, and don’t you come back no more, no more, no more! Hit the road Jack.” She said this because I had taught her what these words mean because she and Gadisae do a beautiful job of singing many songs and I wanted to teach her a prompt to show her when I wanted her to sing.

It was fun to actually feel like tourists when we went out! On the return walk to our hotel this little boy of about 12 came running up to us. He walked with us for a while. He told us his name was Solomon. I said, “Solomon, the wise man.” The boy spoke good English and he liked it when I told him (he probably already knew) that he was named for a wiseman.

Tomorrow we do some major shopping!