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Monday, October 5, 2009

Our Trip To Ethiopia Day 7 - Friday Part 1

The Flat Tire



Donkeys walking by



The children are responsible for the herd







This day is very long & will be hard to describe to anyone who wasnt there to truly feel the emotion and confusion and exhaustion we all had by the end of the day. This is the day we are to visit the orphanage where the birth parent meeting will take place....or so we thought.... It starts off with us getting picked up at approximately 8:15AM. This excursion is supposedly 8AM - 12PM. I distinctly remember our caseworker telling us that Holy Savior Orphanage "Is right there in Addis....so its close..." We based our immunizations on this....we did not take the malaria meds because we were staying in Addis....a higher elevations with no malaria.....wrong! We ask Zeyedeh from the Melkam how far it is to Wenji, the village Annsleigh is from where the orphanage is.....he says...."Um...... lets see.....you go about 10km then take a left.....and then about 100km & turns into such & such & then another 200km you do this and that..." He lost me! Clearly it is far, supposedly 2 1/2 hour ride 1 way. We took our nondrowsy dramamine & off we went. First, the van collected all the families that were adopting chihldren from Holy Savior... 5 of us couples...Once all collected all the families were taken to the HOH to drop the children off so the nannys could watch them...cannot take the children with you when you visit birth families...Going back again and again to the HOH I did not think was such a good idea. When we got there, we stood around for sometime just waiting for one more couple to get dropped off. This was too long of a wait especially for the older kids. The longer we hung around the more behavior issues were coming out of shear confusion on a childs part not quite sure why again they have to go to this HOH. I cant help but wonder if they think...are they leaving me here? Are they going to come back? Alot of the older kids were just really ready to board the plane & go home. Our Annsleigh....well she went nicely to her nurse & her took her as she smiled, clapped and cooed....her nurse said "Oh, shes changed so much already!!! She is sooo happy!" That made Brad and I feel sooooo good! :) We stood around the HOH for some time just waiting & waiting for another couple to arrive. This was too long of a wait especially for the older kids. The longer we hung around the more behavior issues were coming out of sheer confusion on a childs part not quite sure why again they have to go to the HOH again. Alot of the older kids were reallly just ready to board the plane & go home. Well.... finally the other couple is dropped off & we all pile into the van. Off we go......little did we know we would not be back to our little one until dark (7PMish!!!) We bounce along the road & take pics right & left. The further we went the more beautiful it became. Mountains, open plaines, streams, fresher air...After quite some time now, we started passing dramamine around the van for some folks...then the van pulled over onto the shoulder & someone said we had a flat tire....we all got out of the van to stretch our legs while the driver & Tesfu changed the tire. We took some pics of the surroundings & a herd of donkeys walking across the road. After a while the spare tire was on & we continued on. ...we drove & drove & drove & made a pit stop at a restaurant because, get this, THE MEN HAD TO GO PEE!!!!!! HeHeHe! Then we drove on & on & then the van pulled over again, this time at a tire shop. We thought we were just going to drop the tire off & pick it up on the way back...instead we waited on it to be fixed because we were told from this point on the road gets very very bad & we wont want to be stuck without a spare...ok sounds good to me....we better wait...We all got out of the van again to strectch our legs... Tesfu's cell phone rings. Its the orphanage director wondering where we are because he has the birth families waiting? Tesfu tells him what is going on.... beggars start coming around....we are getting better at saying no.....finally we get the tire fixed & we all get back in the van and we are on our way once again...and they were right....the road got worse & worse...






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