Ethiopia Part II

January 27

Today was shopping day! We got up around 6 to shower and eat breakfast in time to get our kids to Hannah’s Hope to leave for shopping at 9AM. Breakfast was fried spaghetti (battered, fried noodles, no lie!), injera, fried eggs, and fruit salad.

We all walked over to HH together after breakfast and left our children with their special mothers. Then we piled into 2 vans and drove to the shopping district. The drivers parked directly in front of one store, the owner of which I think is friends with Johannes and/or Danny. The entire travel group went in there, so it was really crowded. Matt and I went in for a little bit, but quickly decided it was too crowded and we would see what was on down the street. All the shops were typical African shops – storefronts open to the street with a counter in the back and shelves all around, floor to ceiling. They all had things hanging from the ceiling and anywhere else there was room.
Matt went several stores down to an “antique” store that had a lot of paintings on the ceiling. We really liked the paintings, but didn’t know what they meant, so we grabbed Johannes to help us translate. The one we ended up buying symbolizes (we think) people traveling from all over the world, even swimming, to the Ethiopian church. We got that by a lot of hand motions and “guess what I’m thinking” games with Johannes translating from the storekeeper (he said “big water”; we said “ocean”, and that kind of thing). We bought several other things there, including drums for the boys and a necklace for me. We wanted an antique hand lettered Bible in Amharic, but we didn’t want to pay the 3000 birr she was asking for it. I think in the end we made her a little mad because I’m a pretty hard bargainer – 2 trips to Africa taught me well!!
There are so many things that I now wish we had bought more of, but I guess we’ll just have to go back.
As we were about to leave, the owner of the first store where most of us bought so many things bought us all cokes. As we were standing out on the sidewalk drinking them, street boys came up to us trying to sell us gum and asking us for candy, money, food. As we got into the van, I pulled out some Dum-Dums and started handing them out. It’s amazing how quickly they swarm you when you have candy. As they were swarming us, a very pregnant police-woman came up and started whacking them with a stick to get them away from us. The boys ran after the van as far as the first traffic light!!

From there we went to the coffee roasters’ and picked up our coffee. Matt got to go in the back to see the roasters at work sorting the beans and roasting them. He also got to have a cup of coffee (I would have too if I like coffee). While he was inside, I was outside playing with 2 very curious little girls. I took their picture and showed it to them, which thrilled them.
After coffee, we went to an Italian restaurant for lunch. This restaurant was also an art gallery that featured the work of over 40 different local artists. Since we will have a new house to decorate and don’t have much nice artwork currently, we took advantage of the great prices (plus we really like African art) and bought several paintings.

Finally, we went back to Hannah’s Hope to pick up our children. Samuel had been fed wheat cereal and was already in his pajamas when we picked him up. We hung out for a few minutes because Almaz wanted to ask Matt about a child.
After that, we went back to the Union. We hung out in the lobby for a little while with Clark and Sara and Travis and Sunny. Samuel puked all over the floor. When we finished our drinks, we headed up to our room to try to put Samuel to bed. However, he would have none of it and screamed for about 2 hours straight. Matt and I took turns taking him for a walk down to the lobby, but it did no good. Finally, he settled down with a bottle and went on to bed. Thank goodness we had gotten the pizza, because there was no way we would have been able to go down to the lobby for dinner. We pretty much had to take turns eating so the other one could hold Samuel. He actually did prett well the rest of the night!

January 28

Today was our meeting with Samuel’s birth mom. I was incredibly nervous all morning. I had visions of us allowing her to hold Samuel and her trying to take him away, running out of the meeting room and trying to get out of the gate at HH. Thankfully none of that happened!

When we were walking down the street that our hotel was on, I saw a woman with her head covered start up the road to HH. I don’t know why, but something in the back of my head wondered if that could be Samuel’s mother. We headed up the road and turned the corner, and the same woman was standing at the gate. She heard us approaching and turned around. Matt and I immediately knew that this was Samuel’s mom. She also immediately recognized Samuel. She came up to us and shook our hands and kissed Samuel.

When Almaz was finished with the birth parent meeting for the family before us, she came out of her office and got Samuel’s mother and us. We allowed his mother to hold him, but he actually became fussy. Thankfully we had made a whole list of questions to ask during the meeting. If we hadn’t, I think I would have been at a complete loss of words and just sat there crying. It was very emotional for me to see how much his mom truly loved him and know that I was taking him away from her. Although we have chosen not to share the details of her situation, I can say that she just doesn't have the means or the support to care for him.
After the meeting, we went back to the hotel for lunch, then nap.

We had to be back by 3 to go over the paperwork with Almaz. After that, I took the opportunity to ask Almaz some questions about Samuel and to meet his special moms. You could totally tell how much they loved him. They were kissing all over him. When I gave them the albums, they kissed the pictures of Samuel! I also took pictures of his room.

That night, we went to the Ethiopian cultural restaurant for dinner. We all sat on benches or in chairs around a little basket that was table-height that they put the big tray of food on. No forks, just injera to eat with.

We ate with Leslyn, Mike, and Getemesay. The food was really good. I especially enjoyed the green beans since I hadn’t had anything green all week. We tried the Ethiopian honey wine, which I didn’t like very much. It tasted like a combination of honey and wood smoke. They also brought out a meat that was absolutely terrible – I thought I was going to gag. It tasted about like stinky socks!! I found out the next day that it was goat. Yuck!!

All during dinner, there was Ethiopian traditional music and dancing. It was a lot of jumping and jerking. I don’t know how they don’t all have terrible neck pain!
Samuel slept the best he had since we had gotten him that night. Unfortunately, we didn’t sleep very well. All night long there was a call to worship. Literally, from about midnight until 6 AM. It kept waking me up, and we couldn’t shut the windows because that was our only source of air. We found out the next day that it was from the Orthodox church, because Thursday was St. Mary’s day, and the holiday began at midnight, so the call to worship started then.