FAYA - Day Two

8:00 am Last night Ray and I slept with the girls. Mesai sleeps well by herself, but Gadisae wrapped herself up with me much of the night. Suffice it to say, I did not sleep the best. We woke early this morning and I began typing last nights report. The little ones are up in the house and our little ones joined them for breakfast. They had bread and tea, the same as our girls prefer. We will continue this at home for them. Ray is going to town this morning to dry to get dirt. Meg and I are going shopping for clothes, food, rugs, shelving units with baskets, and anything else we can think of. The boys will work with Ray to landscape the yard. As soon as I arrived in FAYA, beauty went out the window!! LOL!! Seriously, I arrived windswept and not knowing where my brush was. I realized that really, noone cared! And then this morning I have to go to town with two days dirt and unwashed hair – who really cares!! LOL!! Seriously, I didn’t look *that* bad!! LOL! I Found a TINY Mirror But I will get a shower tomorrow. It was just hard last night as we were so busy after arrival and then today our day is so packed and I don’t know about the water situation. I do know they don’t have hot water. 11:00 pm Today was another very full day. Everyone is asleep, and the house is full of children. Meg and I, Ray and young S left the house this morning to go on our errands. Assembling the Baby Walker Before We Left For Town Daily Traffic The Tiny Mini Cabs in Adama 10 cents a ride to town Cuties in the Neighbourhood Precious Cargo This adorable little boy was walking down the road parallel to us. He had his hand behind his back holding a 8" stick of bread. As he came to his turn-off point, where he would take a left and we would continue straight, there were a group of children. He was obviously shielding his treasure from the 'hordes'. As he turned to the left he quickly switched his bun from behind his back to the front of him, so the kids couldn't see it as he walked away. I tried to take a picture, but he did not that bun seen!! He took off running after he made his exit. It was so cute. Dane and older S went to Addis to pick up furniture. They were going to pick up the three bunkbeds and the two shelving units. We had decided to add another two shelves and to buy two dressers. We were also thinking that it might be better to buy a table and chairs versus making one. When we came here, we came with the intent of Ray making as much furniture as he could. We quickly realized that after buying tools and trying to find the right kind of wood, it would be easier to just buy what we needed. The prices are very similar to Canadian prices, but because of all our donations, we are able to furnish this house! God is good!! But plans changed regarding the furniture. While Meg and I were out this morning we went to a million little shops. One of the first shops we went to was a furniture shop. You have to understand our language barrier to see what adventures and fun we are having!! We asked about a table and chairs – the cost – centanoh – the man tells us the table is 850 birr - $85 – wow! He says with chairs it is $2500 birr – we had decided to buy a table in Addis for $400 – about 4000 birr. This set instead would be a great savings. But now that we had figured this part out, we had to try to explain to him that we wanted benches and not chairs. We have benches in our house and I knew that chairs would create clutter. I wish you could have seen us holding a plank from each end with one hand and trying to sit on it in midair – so he could see what benches are! Well, we finally got it across. We headed to the office and talked about size. When I said I wanted a table 1.5 metres by 3 metres, the woman said, 1.5 x 1.5. After a LOT of discussion, borrowing a tape measure, teaching English for Width and Length, we finally got it figured out that we wanted 4.5 feet by 9 feet table. This is a wonderful size and will feed many children!! He was so surprised and said, That is a BIG table! We told him, We have many children! We talked about benches as well. The whole thing will take about a month to build and will cost 2950 birr - $300. Calculating the Cost of the Beautiful Big Table If you could see the state the wood is in when it is unloaded from the horse and wagons!! There is broken glass all over the ground in front of this working area – so incredibly dangerous!! Before After After Meg and I finished at the furniture shop, we went wandering down the main road. The stores are not very organized and it is hard to find what you want. We went to this one store to get a water bottle and then tried to get the guy in the store to understand that we wanted to know where we could get the huge bags of pasta that he was selling. He tried to sell us his – we wanted the source. He didn’t get it; we gave up. A Little Boy With A Wool Stringer The bridges over these 5’ deep and probably 8’ wide ditches, gutters, are made of wood branches and tire treads. A little dangerous, but creative. Meg and I were having lots of fun doing the shopping. It felt a lot like my adventurous spirit that backpacked around Europe at age 19. Meg has the same ‘go get it’ attitude that I had! What she is doing with these orphans is immensely impressive. For those that don’t know it, Meg is only 21. God gave her a vision and she ran with it! For us, it was a huge privilege to be able to go to FAYA and bless her. It blessed us to see this empty shell of a house, come to life with cribs, beds, bookshelves, dressers, toys, school supplies, medicine, landscaping, bedding, pantry filled etc!!! Wait til you see pictures of what one families endeavor with a whole lot of supporters could do!! Can you imagine how many other orphanages could be blessed! After this store we passed these couches and chairs in front of a building. I wanted to get a couch, so we stopped and asked how much. They only sold them in a set. I said I only wanted a couch – could we? The whole set was 3000 birr. He led us to the back of the building, down an alley, through a gate and into a back yard area where they were making the furniture. Couch Construction Yard Rest Break - Waiting for a Couch Receipt He said we could have the one that was in the yard that afternoon. We could have it for 700 birr - $70. We quickly agreed and again were quite pumped and thrilled with how efficiently we were managing to do all this shopping by ourselves!! Now of course, we weren’t doing too well in the bartering department, but hey, we were knocking things off our list!! *smile* We headed to a little shop after this that had kitchen ware.. We did so well choosing cheese grate, ladels, spoons, mixing bowls, oven proof dishes, stove top baking pans and many more things – basically anything that Meg needed to run her kitchen. Well, I had an idea what the total should be – about $25. Well, when the woman finished adding it up her bill was $51. I told Meg to be ready to walk and call this woman’s bluff. I told her it was too high. She laughed and shook her head. I tried putting some kid size stools in the pile and told her I would pay what she wanted, but I wanted the stools in the same price. She shook her head. Nothing would change her mind, so Meg and I walked out – hoping she would follow us. We went to the store next door and the prices were similar – truly very similar to Canadian prices and yet, they earn 1/100 of what we earn! So we decided to go back. It was annoying cause we knew we were being taken, but what could we do. It is one thing to give voluntarily to people; it is another when someone takes advantage, cause you are a firenge (foreigner)! I told Meg I was going to try another tactic. She wanted 519 birr. So I would give her 500 birr and she *better not say no!* or what was I going to do. This was bartering after all, but I wanted those things and was willing to pay through the nose if I had to!! LOL!! SO I went in with Meg, held out the 500 birr and made it clear that was all. She looked at the cash and agreed. Her boys then very quickly and efficiently tied up our packages into a box, complete with rope carrying handle. While I was standing there in the store, suddenly there was a commotion and this older boy went flying out of the store and grabbed this child that was near the products in front of the store. It looked like he was going to hit him. It settled pretty quickly. I wonder if the child was going to steal? Once we had our couch ordered and paid for for pickup that day, our table and benches ordered and to be paid for the next day, and all our kitchen materials ordered, it was time for the internet shop and then grocery shopping. We headed to an internet shop. The first place was down, so we went next door. It was the worst experience of my life!! I thought it was bad enough when my email took ten minutes to get the page BEGUN, but this was a nightmare. The owner kept coming over and doing things to try to move things along, but after 40 minutes of trying to get my email pages up and loaded, I finally quit and paid and walked out. The joke is I had to pay! No time on the internet – just trying to connect through his incredibly slow system!! I then popped next door to see if it was up and working yet.. It was. It was bizarre. I sat down and began immediately. No problems here! Go figure. So Meg came over, checked her email and then we decided she would go down for groceries while I was up there. She said she would only take a few minutes and I was telling her I would be about an hour. She decided to go anyway. I gave her 1000 birr - $100, as she said that was more than enough. All of this came out of the money we had collected. When I went downstairs about 30 minutes later, she was all done. She had this eensy, weensy, tiny little pile of groceries. It came to a grand total of $40. Right away she told me about this great drink – murkato – this is a drink where it is a tiny coffee cup and there is very strong coffee, steam milk on top, drizzled with chocolate, and then sugar in the bottom. You stir up the heavy sugar and you have a heavenly drink! The man went and got me a murkato and some interesting pastry thingy – I have since had it two more times with different fillings and it is wonderful! It was time she learned how to shop *grin*. Our goal when we came to FAYA was to set them up for 10 kids, and that included filling the pantry for a good period of time. So we went to work. It was so much fun to be able to have the guy follow me around and have him ask: how many kilograms of potatoes? 15 kg potatoes. Then I would say: 10 cabbages, 15 kg carrots, 5kg onions, 12 cans tomatoe paste (large), 20 kg rice, 20 kg pasta, baking powder, baking soda, jam, and on and on. Then we began on the other things: mops, brooms, dettol for sterilizing and sanitizing, shampoo, toothbrushes, soap, laundry soap, scrubbing products, towels – basically anything that we could think that Megan might use in the orphanage. Some of the Supplies By the time we were done, it was another hour later and we had a grand total of $240 spent. We had a ton of food – enough to feed those little children and their workers for about 6-8 weeks (I believe). On top of this Ray and the guys went and we bought 200 kg of teff flour – this is what they use to make the main product – injera. Not UnCommon Sight in Addis While we were at the store waiting for the bill to be tallied, this beautiful woman came in. She was sooooo tiny, with this beautiful head of straightened, yet wavy black hair – total model quality. I look at people all the time, but I am a little more observant of Ethiopian women, since our daughters will look like them one day. We were whispering to each other how gorgeous she was, when Meg heard her say, “Firenge” (foreigners) to the guy she was with. We had a laugh and in a minute, all three of us were talking and laughing that she had understood us and told her friend what we had said. This struck up a conversation and she found out what we were doing there. She was a new mama and had a beautiful Ethio/German baby boy. Soon after this, Meg had to go to meet some guy she knew, so I was left at the store. The woman and I continued conversing and she told me about this little boy living with her and asked if I knew if anyone could take him. He was left with her two years ago, by his mother. His mother is in Dubai, apparently working, but no money has come back for him. This young woman and her husband have the grandmother and boy living with them in their villa, but the husband does not want to adopt the boy. So this young woman is concerned about what to do about the boy when it is time to go back to Germany. She has permission to have him adopted out. When she said this, I immediately asked what his name is. Some of you will know why I asked his name *smile*. It was Andreas. A kind of Italian name for a non practicing Muslim child. She was worried about the child – wondering if he was sick, because his belly was so big and his arms and legs so tiny. This little boy has no joy. He eats what the family eats, but is so sad all the time. He is about 3 ½ - 4 years old. I decided to go and see this child, in case God had put him in my path for a reason. Her driver took us to her villa and I met the child. I asked to see his tummy and it was very bloated. She agreed to take him to the hospital for testing for parasites. I explained to her that it didn’t matter if he didn’t want to go, as she was holding back because of his fear of doctors. I told her if she was mothering him, then she needed to take him, for his own good. She agreed. I told her I would tell Meg about him and see if Meg would be able to help her at all. When Meg and I finally met up again, I told her this story. It was really quite fascinating. This woman is university educated and her sister lives in Vancouver and is in a Pentacostal church as a choir member. She gave me her sister’s info, so I could contact her. I told her my thoughts that we might have been led to this child by God and she was so excited. She said that she had been praying daily for someone to find her and help her with the boy. Meg told her she will talk to S and see if anything can be done by them to help this child. I hope so!!! This young mum, only 21 years, has had a real responsibility to this child, not her own! We left Soron, the young woman, and had a store worker hail us a taxi. It was funny seeing them trying to fit everything into the taxi!! We finally made it and this picture shows you our feelings from all our successful shopping. It has been so much fun darting around and shopping. It is like being 19 again! Here I am in Africa, of all places. Africa!!! Helping set up an orphanage. Who’d of thunk??? Seriously, 18 months ago, I was looking forward to our life finally calmning down: no more house building and no more babies, I said to my friend, Denise. She laughed and said, You always have to keep things interesting. Something will come up. HA! Adoption, Africa, Orphans – wow! Boy!! Were We Successful Today!! When I was at the villa I saw the most amazing trees. One of them is about 10,000 years old, and one is 1,000 years old, according to the girl. They were beautiful! As soon as we got home from shopping we could see how hard the boys had worked! They had gotten all the rocks out of the yard and created a rock wall around the front of the high brick wall. They had also had sand delivered and had spread it and the yucky, rocky, uneven back yard was gone!! Later, Ray intended to get paving stones and create a walkway from the front house steps to the gate. A Caregiver Washing Laundry Gadisae and Mesai had had a wonderful few hours playing with the children in the orphanage and are adjusting so well, that when I told them that I was going shopping and that Wundin Colt (brother Colt) would be looking after them, they just smiled and said, Bye Mummy. But it is clear that we are mummy and daddy. They will spontaneously come up and cuddle, come to mummy or daddy when they got a cut etc. When we arrived home Meg got a wonderful surprise: three more little children had arrived: a 8 year old girl, a 4 year old boy, and a 2 month old baby. The baby and the girl were siblings. The so sad thing is the little boy was so sad. The grief and shock was written all over his face!! But, according to S, the little twins that have only been in the orphanage for a week were as sad, ill looking, brokenhearted, and malnourished, as he does when they arrived. And yet, a week later, they are radiant! A little food, love, care, and somewhere to call your home. So I can’t wait to see the transformation in that little boy!!! We continued with our work at FAYA after the birth mum visit, and then we went out for dinner. When we arrived home again, it was back to work: bookshelves to be assembled, boxes of toys, and supplies to be unpacked and placed on shelves. We finally hit the sack by about midnight.