Forty Minutes to Get Nowhere!!!

I sat for forty minutes in an internet shop waiting for my email page to load. The guy was very nice and popped around occasionally to try to do things, but this is ADAMA and NOT highspeed. CRAZY!!

I come next door and get on in seconds!! Go figure.

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The girls are asleep and the guys are out – it is time to write! The girls may be on a honeymoon period, so I am aware that things could bottom out. But I believe that God has answered the prayers of many, when we all asked that the girls would attach easily, and have their hearts prepared to meet us. Those prayers have surely been answered!! I will fill in those detail later, but first, let me start at the beginning of the day.

We had to go to the German Embassy today to get the girls Transit Visas, since we are traveling through German on our way home. We do not leave til next Monday, September 1, but we wanted to get it now because we are going to be in Adama for the next few days.

Our wonderful Abebe arranged our day so that our time was used to the best, but still there was much running around to do, as we had so much to accomplish – yet again. I am hoping to slow down and be able to relax after we have left FAYA.

Our first stop of the day was to get our girls’s Visa pictures taken. While at the photo shop people spoke to the girls. They told them that they were ‘lucky’ when they heard they were going to Canada. Whenever someone asked them their names in Amharic, they replied in English, “My name is Mesai (Gadisae)” They were impressed that they could speak English.

We headed to the German Embassy next. When we arrived I could see a few people milling around the gates, so I asked the only white guy I saw there. He told me I could line up with the rest, so we did. After waiting a few minutes I decided to go and take some pictures of the river. There were women washing their laundry down there, and the river bed was beautiful.

There were people all over the bridge at this time – not waiting for the Embassy – just hanging out. I took my river pictures and then I turned and shot a photo of the Embassy. I was immediately swiftly approached by the German guy who was waiting with the rest of us. He frantically told me that pictures were absolutely *not* allowed of the Embassy. Oooops!! Glad *he* caught me and not some German official!! I told him I knew we couldn’t take pictures of the US Embassy, but didn’t realize that we couldn’t of the German Embassy.

It wasn’t too long before the door opened and I was called inside with the girls. Ray was told to wait outside. As I was waiting for them to go through my bags, I saw this white couple with two little black children. We began talking and I promoted Imagine and our BC agency, as I think they are both wonderful. They were discussing their next adoption *smile*. It seems that everyone who adopts from Ethiopia is in a rush to go back! Wonderful people and well adjusted children.

The official who was searching my bag made me try out my mouth spray and my hand sanitizer! If I didn’t die, I guess it meant it wasn’t poison! As I stood there I noticed this guy sitting at the small table behind this official woman. He looked familiar but I wasn’t sure. Then I asked him if he worked for the Embassy (big duh) and he said, “Yes, a policeman and here.” Okaaaay, so he *was* the guy I saw outside. He was not a German waiting to get into the Embassy. He was a guard stopping nuts like me from taking pictures!! LOL!

Embassy Entrance - Ray With Girls

We got through our Visa process and we will have to go back and collect it tomorrow or next Monday.

A few things that I have observed while in Ethiopia:

The women and men that are in the better paid group dress like Westerners. The ones with less money seem to usually dress in traditional clothing.

There are shoe shine boys everywhere!! Sometimes you will see 6 boys in a 30 foot stretch. While there are wealthy looking people walking down the street, you will also see the shoeshine boys that make sure the better dressed people’s shoes always stay clean, by providing the service. This shows the way the money flows – a person will earn enough money to pay someone a few pennies to polish their shoes. This way both are covered and all coexist.

I realized that though we brought granola bars with us we might have been smarter to save the luggage space and weight and buy the local grain here. The kids would have been familiar with it and I could have filled my suitcases with other supplies. I was thinking that imagine if the Chinese came down Canadian streets and handed out rice cookies. It would not be what Canadians would want to eat. So next time we will not bring granola bars.

I didn’t mention just how much it rained yesterday!! A ton. Within minutes there were flooding streets everywhere! The pot holes were twenty feet wide and the water was gushing down the centre of the streets.

If you want to go somewhere yummy for desserts and coffee, go to Kaldi’s. It is the Ethiopian version of Starbucks, but it is NOT Starbucks.

There is a grain market near where we are staying. Every day hundreds of people gather and line up to get their share of the grain. Apparently the government gives it cheaper through these distributors. The people sit all day waiting for the grain, when it was their day to get grain.

What was curious was that Abebe had no idea how bad the famine is in Ethiopia. I am going to guess/wonder if the Ethiopian government is censoring things. We had a great discussion about what *we* know from the reporters who are going out to Ethiopia and bringing back pictures of the children and the devastation.

I think we are seeing signs that our girls are beginning to attach. Or at least, they are not attaching in the wrong areas. When we take them out they do not approach other people. When other people begin talking to them, they warm up slowly. But for us they ask to be picked up or held all the time.

While I was at the photographers with the girls, Ray went to the post office and bought stamps for 15 envelopes, so our girls’ Enat. We are hopeful that she will be able to have the pastor at the church in her area write for her, and then she can mail them to Canada.

The LIGA School was next. This project takes care of 244 kids and 400 families! We would love to have had more time to go out and see some of the families, but our time is so incredibly booked and there is so little time left, so we had to forego that. (We did take care of other families later today. That will come up later in the post. )It took us a while to find it. It was not as joyful a place as the Shelter for Mothers and Children. You could see the children had many needs! We dropped off a suitcase full of supplies, plus a soccer ball, and then some granola bars for everyone. I was just a little surprised at the lack of interest from the children. They appeared to need so much, and yet, they had no delight at the granola bars, nor the soccer ball. When we took the soccer balls to the kids at the Shelter yesterday, they were over the moon with excitement. The same with the suckers. It makes me wonder how hard are the lives of these little children, that they have no obvious joy.

At one point, Colt actually got them lively. It was very cute. They were in a classroom and he would put his head around the door and call out loudly, “Hello!” and the children would respond with, “Selam!” and then he would do it in reverse. That was fun to see.

We tried to find the sponsored children of two girls: Claire and Tracy, who sent gifts with us. We were not able to find them, as they were at the PATH program. The CH contact number that we had was not answering, so we had to miss out on seeing PATH. We will do what we can to get the packages delivered. I am just sorry that I miss out on a photo opportunity for these sponsors who are waiting at home.

Once we left the LIGA School, we headed over to Entoto Mountain to buy the dresses for the girls, and other items for the boys. After a lot of haggling, Abebe was able to get us about 5 or 6 dresses for the girls, plus some cool Ethiopian hats.

While we were buying the hats a little boy kept tugging on my coat, “Mother.” “Mother.” I couldn’t give him anything at that moment, as I had no granola bars with me. If I gave him money at that particular moment I would not be able to do my shopping, and I felt that since we have not done any ‘tourism’ stuff at all, until this moment, that it would be okay to not take care of the child at that time. I kind of brushed him off and continued shopping. He smacked me on the backside as I walked away. It sounds callous, but you can’t do something for every child all the time. I wish I could! The little boy heard me talking to someone about Canada, and immediately I heard this little voice saying, “Mother, I love Canada.” Man, it made me sick to think this child would possibly not get a meal tonight. If I fed him or did not feed him, what would happen to him at the next meal time?

When I finished shopping I reached into my pocket and pulled out a ten birr note – equal to a dollar and handed it to him. Immediately, as I had known would happen, someone else approached me - A mother with a wee new baby on her back. I right away pulled out another ten birr note and put in her hand and said, “For the baby.” She knew what I said and repeated, “Baby.”

We got back to the car and were immediately surrounded by children. Dane was in the van and I was trying to get into the van, because I knew there were granola bars and once I was safely in the car we could hand them out the window. Dane threw open the door; I leapt in, and hands immediately reached forward to the windows.

Ray got the granola bars and I grabbed a few, since I was at the front middle window. Four hands shot in and I handed out four bars. Ray handed out two to a little boy through his window and said, “Give one to your friend.” Cause the little friend had begun walking away. We watched to see what would happen. He ran up to his friend and handed him the bar.. He then looked back at us. I made eye contact and gave him a big thumbs up sign, and smiled. He gave me the thumbs up and smiled back. There is something more dignifying about giving a gift to someone when you act like you are their friend and want to give them it, rather than hand it to them like you are doing them a favour. I believe it saves their dignity.

Just as we were pulling out some more little boys arrived. I began to hand out the bars and one of our boys said, “They already had one.” Now when you are limited in your resources and you want to spread it around, you do have to be tough and only give one thing to people.

I began to pull back my hands from the window, since the kids knew they had already had a granola bar, but then I just couldn’t and I handed them out the window to them, and I nearly sobbed as I said, “I don’t care! They’re hungry.” It just killed me to think these kids are kids like ours and everyday is a struggle to get enough to eat.

While out today, Gadisae found a fruit leather in her backpack. She pulled it out and called to Mesai to see if she had one. No, she did not. Gadisae immediately took a bite of her fruit leather and then took it out of her mouth and handed it back towards Mesai. At this point I had found another one for Mesai and was able to give it to her. Gadisae was commended for her kind spirit.

Here is something funny that happened in traffic. We were going down the right hand lane. The left hand lane was coming towards us. Our driver decided that our lane was too congested, and so he made a turn and pulled into the left hand land and drove up that side, complete with cars driving towards him on the same side of the road. No one honked – hey, this is Ethiopia!!! No road rage – just manners.

The girls are starting to get comfortable. They are fun and silly and full of life. They giggle like little girls, and romp like little boys. One time during the car drive they were playing. They were doing some kind of silly chat game and it involved hands. At one point Mesai reached over and gently smacked Gadisae’s face and said, “Don’t be cheeky!” They were both really playing and those words and tap meant nothing malicious. Well, Gadisae decided to take it a step further, and she accidently head butted Mesai’s nose. Oh, what happened next happened so quickly!!

Mesai began to cry and then reached out and bonked Gadisae on her head with her knuckles. I climbed into the seat with them and pulled Mesai onto my lap and cuddled her. A good attachment situation! She melted in my arms, but was still mad at her sister. Gadisae said, “Mesai are you okay? I am sorry.” All on her own volition. Mesai was most upset still and did not let it go for a while.

They later patched it up and all was settled. So we have now been through learning the vocabulary for: Be nice to your sister; share; stop; and a few more. As we go through situations we will learn what we need.

From the market we headed to the Teff Mill. We had arranged to meet this guy to give him bags of grain for a number of families. We were hoping to do ten families, but as it turned out it was not to be possible. We ended up getting four – 100 kg bags of grain and dividing it ten ways. They will all get some, but only 40 kg each. If we have money leftover after the rest of our people, then we will be able to buy more. As it stands that purchase cost about $500. But that will feed ten families for about 3-4 months, if they can get other goods.

This mill is not to our standards. They grind the grain and then they put it through a strainer and pour it right onto a pile on the floor. From here they bag it up. Not the cleanest method! Finally, after the Teff mill we were basically done for the day. What a long day! And our girls are being amazing troopers!! We headed home and went in to have dinner. The food at our guest house is outstanding. We have been here a week and so far there has only been one item out of about 20 items that I have not been keen on!!

Once we were done dinner we had the girls do a show for us. They are great little singers and they can sing spiritual songs, as well as songs in English and French! They also did a little bit of chanting, and some minor dancing. We video taped it all, so that we will always have their sweet little Amharic voices.

Playing at the Internet Shop

The Sweetest Girls at the Internet Cafe Play With Our Girls

We headed to the internet shop to drop off my post after dinner, and then the guys took off for a movie and I took the girls for a hot chocolate and cake at Kaldis. I knew that it was very late, so I decided to do take out. I was at the counter and told them I wanted a certain cake. I heard a little voice say, “Mummy.” I looked down and Gadisae was pointing at a cake in the bottom window. I asked the man for a piece of that cake. As soon as Gadisae noticed the man taking the cake from the platter, she looked up at me and said, “Thank you, Mummy.”

Shortly after, Mesai came up to Gadisae and Gadisae spoke to her. Mesai then said, “Thank you, Mummy.” I am assuming she told her about the cake.

Once we had arrived home the girls wanted their cakes and I told them they could have them after their baths. They quickly got ready for their baths. While they were playing with the bubbles, I threw their two white sweaters into the tub, with the intent to hand wash them and hang them to dry. Immediately the girls picked up the sweaters and began to wash them, as if they were washing clothes in a bucket or a creek. Bit by bit, we are learning a little of our girls previous life. They did a wonderful job.

After their tub, I helped them put on their jammies and then put a pillow for each of them to sit on, on the floor by their beds. I then gave them each a piece of cake and the cup of hot chocolate and then sat and joined them. Each of them said thank you for the cake at least 2 times.. Finally, while eating still, Mesai got up from her spot on the floor, crawled over Gadisae, came over and spontaneously kissed me on the cheek, before going back to her cake and hot chocolate. I wonder how many times their Enat was able to buy them treats like that. They are such grateful, well mannered children! A real testimony to someone’s love and care before us!

I popped them into bed right after this and they were asleep in two minutes. Before this, I told Mesai she could pray, then Gadisae and then me. They do this adorable little prayer: Father God. I love you. Father God. We love you. Father God please take care of Gadisae. Protect her. In Jesus name, Amen. They then each pray for the other sister.

We have had two awesome nights with them falling asleep very quietly, and cooperatively, and then they have slept peacefully through the night without a peep. When they awake in the morning, it is like they have always been here. Gadisae is quiet in the morning, as if she knows people are sleeping. And no wet beds!

Tomorrow we head to FAYA. We shall see what we can do. It might not be much, as they do not need much built. Hopefully a table, and shelves, and then some landscaping, plus lots of shopping.