Travel Journal ~ April 25th

Saturday morning Abera & Yemene came to pick us up to take us to the transition home. (The transition home is where the children are moved after we passed court. Our agency brings them up from Awassa, or wherever they are, and begins to prepare them for their families and coming to America.) So we hop in the van, ready to meet our children.

Instead, they take us to Mount Entoto. Very interesting to see. It's the highest mountain in Addis (maybe the highest in Ethiopia?) and is where the capital was originally located, so that the king could look out on his land and see anyone preparing to attack. There is a small museum with some amazing artifacts - old gifts from other countries like a diamond encrusted crown from the queen of France - things you'd expect to see in a much higher-security establishment, not in a one-room building.

The view of Addis from Mount Entoto...

The first church in Ethiopia...

The current church on the same grounds...



The king and queen's palace...


After seeing Mount Entoto and the palace we thought "Okay, now we're really meeting our kids!" Only we were dropped off at the Jupiter Hotel again so that we could "take lunch" as Milkiyas says. Talk about a roller coaster...every time we got that butterflies-in-the-stomach feeling, something else came up.

Finally we were on our way to the Shalom transition house. I was surprised by how nice it was. Marc described it as a typical suburban home. I wouldn't say that it was like a new suburban home, but it was similar to some of the older (1970's or 80's) homes built here in Colorado.

When we arrived I think it was Moges (the Johnson's son) who came outside first. As we were talking to him, Macy ran out behind him to say hello. Marc asked for a hug and was granted one, but then she wanted to run back inside to get her shoes, so I didn't get much more than a smile. We went inside, expecting to see Felix, but one of the nannies was upstairs getting him ready. When he was brought down, he was wearing baby pants, a purple girl's shirt with bows on the sleeves and a plaid shirt over it. He looked so funny.

Felix was very interested in the video camera. In Awassa they told us that he is very "mechanical" and loves to take things apart and put them back together. I kind of laughed to myself at that thinking "he's one and a half, how mechanical can he be?" but they were right. He's very interested in anything electronic and wants to know how everything works. Show him once and he can do it himself. It's amazing!



At one point, Macy went upstairs to change clothes, then came back down and sang a song for us...



We were there for maybe about 45 minutes to an hour total. It was kind of uncomfortable because everyone is sitting around watching you, how the kids react to you, how you interact with them, etc.

Milkiyas eventually said that we should all go now. And by "all" he meant ALL. Marc and I had talked about the possibility of this happening. According to our agency, we would go visit the kids several times, then they'd eventually come back with us to our hotel. Somehow we had the feeling that they might just let us take them though. Although we were happy about this, we weren't quite prepared. Our report several months ago said that Felix was in the process of potty training, yet he was still in diapers when we got there. They also had him drinking some sort of powdered milk, so we needed to get to a store for diapers, wipes and milk.

Off we go...


For dinner, the ladies at the guesthouse made injeera for the kids complete with cabbage, carrots, green beans, spinach and I think doro wat as well. When the ladies sat it down the kids both looked at it and didn't move. Maybe they didn't understand my "okay, dig in!" After a moment I tore off some injeera and put it with green beans into Felix' mouth. This must have been the signal Macy was looking for because she dug in at that point, then Felix followed. It's a bit awkward to eat this saucy, somewhat mushy food with no utinsels and only injeera, but these kids knew exactly what they were doing. It was hilarious to watch Felix, this tiny little man with looooong fingers throw his injeera on top of a piece of meat and gobble it up as if he'd been eating that way for 50 years.

Bedtime was a little shaky. Macy actually went upstairs saying "pajama" and Felix followed taking his own clothes off and putting on his pj's. It cracks me up to watch still because our 4 year old won't even get himself dressed.

The kids tried to play around for awhile (we learned later that they're allowed to play until they fall asleep at the transition center). After much shenanigans I finally laid down with Macy on the cot and Marc took Felix on the bed. We turned the lights off and said "matah matah". Macy fell asleep quickly, but Felix cried for quite some time. Bedtime has gotten progressively better since then.

The Johnson's had arrived that afternoon, followed by the Webers later that night, and we all sat on the porch talking late into the evening. It was such a nice way to unwind after an emotional day. I was really feeling overwhelmed at that point, so it was great to just relax and laugh. We turned in around 11:30 and heard the Mellits family arrive a bit later. The gang's all here!