Our cultural dinner at Yod Abbsynia. It was soooo much fun!
The injera in the injera basket before the other foods are placed on top.
I love how beautiful it looks! We all shared the meal by tearing off injera and using it to scoop up the food. They don't use utensils in Ethiopia. It worked and it was delicious!!
Matt and me enjoying the night.
Preparing for the coffee ceremony. Coffee is a big deal here and they have these special coffee ceremonies when they serve it. We actually didn't participate in one. Maybe next time. I don't like coffee and it is apparently rude to decline it. The others didn't want to be awake all night.
All of the fixings for the coffee ceremony. Isn't it pretty?
They brought us a pitcher of soap and water and we washed our hands at the table.
Last night was only the second night since we’ve been here that I had trouble sleeping. I woke up at 4:30 and was wide awake. I really wanted to get up and go work out, but I knew Matt would kill me if I tried to go down to the gym at that time. There is actually a nice gym here, but we never even used it. So I lay in bed until 6:00 so I wouldn’t wake Matt up and then I got up and luckily I had a hot shower! Hooray! Yesterday, we had no hot water so it had been a very refreshing start to the day. I came down and tried to work on the computer. The internet is so hit or miss at all times. This morning at breakfast I was able to get my delicious Ethiopian tea. It is sooooo good! When we got picked up we went straight into our meeting with the directors at HH. We signed our I 600 papers and paid our visa fees. We were all sitting there with sweaty hands as we signed these papers. Not because we weren’t 100% sure that we wanted to adopt our beautiful children, but they are soooo picky with the forms that we were afraid we would make a mistake in ballpoint pen! Then we were told that today would be our last day with our kids. This was a shock to us as we were under the understanding that tomorrow would be the day we said goodbye. Well let me tell you that the floodgates almost opened! I had a hard time focusing on everything else that was said since it was unclear whether or not today was actually our last day. They went over what tomorrow would look like with our court proceeding and the rest of the day’s schedule. We were able to ask questions and get a better sense of what the next few weeks would look like. Then we discovered that we would in fact be able to come back after court tomorrow to say goodbye. Thank goodness!! What a relief! I felt my whole body relax as I knew we had two more days. After our question and answer session we were finally able to go be with our children. They were just washing up for lunch which was kind of a bummer because we had to wait some more to be with them. As soon as they finished K came over to us and she wanted to look through her family book right away. I love that she wants to do that. After looking through it 4 times, we watched the kids become fascinated with some kalidescopes that one of the families brought. They loved them and it was so cute to watch their faces light up as they discovered different designs in the sunlight. We were also able to meet two more of her special mothers and spend some time with them. They are so sweet and wonderful and it is so easy to see how much these children are loved. That makes us feel so much better. Then the girls were ready to dance again. We played Matt’s Ipod for awhile and then the girls went and brought out a radio from their room. It was pure joy watching them dance to the local radio station. One little girl that was in the room with us definitely had some moves down. None of could move our shoulders the way she did, no matter how hard we tried. K danced for a little while, but preferred to sit down and color. Before we knew it, it was time to go. We gave her our usual hugs and kisses and then said goodbye. No tears today, but then when Brian got in the van he said, “Oh man, I saw her tears today.” Oh boy. She didn’t cry in front of us so it made me sad to know she waited until we walked away. He felt terrible for telling us because he thought we knew, but I was glad to know how she was really feeling. It made me wonder if SHE was trying to be strong for US!
Next, we had, Danny, one of the drivers from HH drive us to lunch and then take us shopping. We went to a pizza place and it tasted wonderful!!! We have really enjoyed the food here, but it was a nice change to have pizza. I still can’t drink the soda here. Matt likes it, while I can’t stand it. Then, we went shopping on the streets. This was overwhelming at first because it was so hard to choose what to buy. I definitely wanted to get some things for her that would be special to her and represent the Gambella region where she is from. We ended up being happy with the things we got and I can’t wait to display some of the items in her room. The saddest part about the shopping trip was that there were little children selling things like gum and homemade toothbrushes. After reading John Shores book, Dragon House, I will never look at street children the same again. In Addis you are not allowed to hand out money to beggars because you can create a mob scene. But you can, of course, give people money as long as you are selling something. We bought their toothbrushes and gum and I was dying to give them more, but I knew it would have caused a scene. Then we saw a pregnant woman carrying around a baby just begging for money. She was probably only about 40 years old because she was still nursing the baby, but she looked about 6o. It broke my heart and I asked Danny again if he was sure I couldn’t give them money. He told me no, that we just can’t. I could have easily given that woman all of my money and fed her for a year.
Tonight we had a very special experience at our cultural dinner. We were served the traditional meal of injera and the other 15 different dishes that are served with it. We all eat from the same injera basket and everything was delicious!! We all loved it. We enjoyed the entertainment just as much as the food, if not more. They had musicians and dancers on the stage and they were amazing! We definitely don’t move like that in The US. The neatest thing was that the little girl who was dancing for us today had been doing some of the same moves they were doing on stage. Wass, our other driver form HH, was telling us all about which region the dances were from. We all got caught up in the energy and excitement of the place. None of us wanted to leave. We all agreed it was the best time ever. Even though our Ethiopian restaurant in Columbus doesn’t have entertainment, we can’t wait to take K there. I really need to learn how to cook injera and some dora wat. We also had a great time with the other families laughing and sharing stories. Matt and I have decided that this trip has been so much fun that we are counting this as our 15 year (in November) wedding anniversary trip. We came back to the hotel and experienced another internetless night. It is time to go pack now and process how hard tomorrow will be for us and K.
No comments:
Post a Comment