Travel Journal ~ April 27th

Monday was a no-power day. Each district in Addis has a day where there is no power from 8 am to 8 pm. I guess they're not quite up to "smart-grid" technology yet. Some stores and restaurants have generators, but most places just go without for the day.

Although our embassy appointments were scheduled for Tuesday, you have to go on Monday to pay all of the fees for some reason. The husbands took on that task while us women-folk stayed back at home with the kids.

Marc had to borrow money because none of the ATMs seemed to be working. We had planned to get cash the day before we left Denver, but had the big snow storm and couldn't get out. We were able to get $500 at the airport, but had to use that to pay for our hotel since their credit card system was down at the time. We were perpetually behind the entire trip. If you're going to Ethiopia - bring all the cash you'll need!

When the guys returned from the embassy we took all of the kids to the BCS office where we took photos for their wall, filled out our I-600s together and had coffee.

On the way back from BCS, Milkiyas took us to the weavers' shop. One of BCS's many ministries is to train people for jobs so that they can stay off the street and support their families. These people were trained in weaving and made all sorts of traditional clothing, scarves, etc.

That evening all of the families went out to an Italian restaurant that was walking distance from our hotel. Felix was good, but Macy wanted to wander around and we finally realized that this was probably the first restaurant she had been to. We struggled a bit. It's hard not to parent like you normally would because all of these people are watching you. I mean, you don't want to give the local people a horrible impression of the Americans that are adopting their children....but they just tend to let the kids do what they want, rather than saying no. That's hard for me to do.

Anyway...as Macy was wondering, one of the waitresses spoke to her in Amharic then tried to tell me in broken English that "she loves her and they are going to America". I don't know if Macy said she loves us and we're taking her to America or that we love her and we're taking her to America...but I'll take either one at this point!