Day 3 at HH

The doorway into one of the buldings at Hannah's Hope.

The babies' laundry hanging out to dry.

The view from the balcony at Hannah's Hope.  This is where K waved goodbye to us.

The toys are washed and scrubbed each day.

The shoes and crocs are also washed and scrubbed each day.

The injera in the injera basket getting ready to be served for lunch.

The injera cookers.

One of the play areas for the babies.

The baby girls' nursery.

The kids' laundry hanging out to dry.

                                                   The women were always preparing food.

This morning we woke up and couldn’t wait to go to Hannah’s Hope to be with K. I was still so sad about how she was when we left her yesterday. We met the other families for breakfast and we were all very bummed to discover that there was no internet today. We have been fortunate to be able to be connected and it is so hard not to be able to connect with our families. Today when we got to HH sweet K ran up to us right away. She didn’t take any time to warm up to us today. We began our morning routine of stickers and a game with just K. Then, we played with all of the kids for a long time. It is so fun on day three to be able to recognize their fun personalities and discover what makes each of them unique. We sure have a lot of funny moments together. Today was an important day for us because we gave K the book we made for her which shows pictures of her new family and home. She was quiet as we looked through it the first time. Then, she wanted to look through it a second time. On the third time something amazing happened. She was looking at the picture of Luke and she said in a soft voice, “Luke.” I almost fell out of the chair!!!! The only words she has spoken to us in English are ‘yes, mama, and dada.’ It was the most precious sound I have ever heard! I then turned to the page with Andrew and spoke his name and she repeated it back! I did the same thing with Brooke’s page, and again, she repeated Brooke’s name. I was so excited that three of the first words she spoke to us in English were the names of her brothers and sisters!! She then went on to say the word house and snow. Now keep in mind that we have been reading books with her everyday and she hasn’t repeated any words so this was huge!! I couldn’t WAIT to tell the kids. I knew that they would be so excited!!

      We also made another very important discovery. I knew that when we came here I wanted to leave knowing her favorite color. Months ago (maybe even a year ago) I had my first dream of her, and in the dream she was wearing a dress with purple flowers on it. When we got our referral pictures I was just so sure that she would be in purple. This was not the case. She wasn’t in purple in any of her referral pictures, but in many other pictures that were sent to me by other families who were there before us, she was wearing purple. On Day 1 and Day 2 of us being with her she was wearing purple. She wasn’t wearing purple today, but when we sat down to color she kept choosing the purple crayons out of the entire box. Then, I would set three colors out for her to choose from and she always went for the purple one. Brooke is going to be soooo excited as purple is a close second behind her favorite color, pink. Last night before I had even made this discovery of the crayon preference we were looking at some dresses brought in by a man who sells goods at the hotel. When I saw the purple and white one Matt and I decide to buy it. We were sad to discover that it had a tear in it. The man said he would bring us a new one tomorrow which I was thrilled about because I planned to put her in it for our Easter celebration at HH. Sad for us he didn’t end up having another one, but we were happy to discover her favorite color! Today when we got ready to leave HH the sad eyes came out, bottom lip out, but thankfully she didn’t cry as much today. There were some tears, but nothing like yesterday. What a relief!! We were able to feel more peaceful this afternoon knowing that she wasn’t in hysterics when we left. It was a sad van ride back to the hotel because one of the families here had to say goodbye to their sweetie as they fly out tonight. I felt for them as I knew that this would be us in three days. Ugh! I can’t stand the thought!

We got back to the hotel and since we had no internet we simply hung out with the other families and visited. We actually did a LOT of laughing which was therapeutic for me as laughter was something that had been missing in my life(except for the laughs we shared at HH with the kids) the past two weeks with all of the preparation stress. The funniest moment was when Karie and I talked Brian and Matt into going up to the hotel staff and asking to offer to fix the internet. We just knew that it had to be a problem with the server and that all they need to do is reboot it. I am sure that we seemed like quite obnoxious Americans offering to help them with their computer troubles, but when they told us that the internet was down all over the country we just couldn’t imagine this was the case. We sure did get a laugh out of watching them tell us thanks but no thanks to our offer to help. We began to go a little insane with the background music in the hotel. It was this awful soft elevator music with a flute that played American hits such as “Groovy Kind of Love”, “Don’t Cry for me Argentina”, and just about every Beatle song ever made. At one point Nate and I began singing along to “Yesterday.” Brian said that if several years ago someone would have told him that he would be on a trip in Ethiopia waiting to adopt two kids while sitting in a hotel lobby listening to two Americans singing along to “Yesterday” he world have told them they were crazy. Ditto to that and I am so glad that God brought us all together. It was also so nice to be able to talk with other families and share our thoughts and feelings about this crazy process called adoption and to be able to fully understand what the other has been going through. Also therapeutic for me. We had another delicious meal of injera and shiro for dinner. In the lobby they were doing a coffee ceremony which consists of burning charcoal to heat the fire to cook the coffee. The smells and smoke were SO strong that it made us cough and my eyes were burning. The smells followed us up the hallway to the 4th floor where our room is, but luckily it didn’t end up coming into our room. I actually didn’t mind it because I want to always be able to remember the smells of Ethiopia.