Building His Forever Family: Friday

Right off the bat I’ll go ahead and tell you why I’m wearing jackets in some pictures. It’s the rainy season here which means damp. We’ve only had one major downpour (with hail) so far. However when I checked the weather from home I saw 60s and chances of rain. It’s like 60 and damp. It’s cold. Not what I envisioned Africa to feel like. For that matter Josh and I both said Ethiopia doesn’t really look like the “Africa” we have expected. Africa from movies seems just like savanna with lions, zebras, etc. We are in a gigantic city with 4-5 million people. More people are walking along streets than I have EVER seen before in my life. This beats NYC, South America and Mexico hands down.

I asked our driver to take us to see wildlife besides the horses, donkeys, sheep, goats, chickens, cats and dogs we see along the street. He said he refused to take us to see hyenas because it’d have to be in the middle of the night and they eat disgusting things. He is such a good sport and definitely thinks I’m looney.

But I LOVE him because I can ask him anything and he is honest.

In our hotel we have also realized the luxury we have in America of no more smoking inside. People do still smoke everywhere and it’s disgusting. There is a coffee ceremony always going on that you can join in to in the lobby and they always have frankincense burning. Not a fan of that. The hotel is very nice, it’s older but super clean and the door men and guys that Xray our stuff EVERY time we come in are so funny and nice. We have felt very safe and welcome.

This morning we got a late start do to a flat tire but then we went to an Italian pastry shop that Yoftahe grew up going to. It was delicious!!! We also had herbal tea. Yofty (our driver’s nickname) paid for us and got us both 5 pastries each. Then when we thought we’d explode he said we had to eat them all not to insult the owner. (I think he was kidding) but didn’t want to insult. I had to go to the restroom there which was my first fun experience of using a hole. I’ll leave it at that.

Next we headed up Entoto Mtn to see a beautiful view of Addis Ababa in all its grandeur. It was beautiful! We saw lots of donkeys hauling firewood as well as dung for fires. Yofty ran out in the forest for us and got eucalyptus leaves for us to see and smell. We took some pictures and headed back down to the lion zoo. It was fairly small but still fun. African lions have black manes. We also saw an eagle, baboons, antelope like thing, and other monkeys. While we were walking around I noticed a man that seemed to be taking a picture of me directly. I whispered to Yofty and he turned back to watch. Yofty totally told that man off! He made me feel so good. This man is a protector, translator, driver, supporter, comedian, dancer, deejay, full of endless useful knowledge!!

I asked later what he said because it had been in hateful Amharic. He said he used some colorful words that I didn’t need to know and the man walked off. Yay Yofty! We had also been warned of pick pockets at the zoo so we left almost all locked in the car. I’m pretty sure we both were targeted and avoided it. A “blind” man at the zoo bumped into Josh…seriously you are at the zoo, blind? And I had some little kids running around me. But we had nothing in our pockets so no loses!

Insert from Josh- Amy was going to leave this out, but I feel it’s necessary to include J

On the way up the mountain we pass by the US Embassy. We all note this is one of the things you can not take a picture of. Apparently the altitude got to Amy. So on the way down Amy is taking picture of everything on the hillside, small random shops, and yes one partial picture of the US Embassy, how do I know… Well the guard starts yelling, “STOP PULL OVER, STOP PULL OVER” our driver starts going “Did you take a picture of the Embassy, I told Do Not Take Pictures of the Embassy”. So we stop in the middle of the road and an Embassy guard and an Ethiopian government soldier come flying over. Our driver jumps out and talks them. Amy is looking thru her pictures and she took a partial picture of the embassy. She hands the phone to our driver and apologizes to everyone. The Ethiopian soldier leaves, the embassy guard calls his boss over. The Boss then asks for our passports. We hand it to him and he walks off. While we are waiting we become the native attraction. Amy was on the verge of tears and embarrassment. Several kids came running up to the car to see what the crazy white people have done. Our driver shewed all the kids away multiple times. Then the Boss guard comes back over and handed Amy’s passport over. He said it was no big deal and he understood after he deleted the picture. Everything is ok and we all joked about it the rest of the day. But we may be on a terrorist watch list, and by we I mean Amy? However it is very impressive that a guard across a road can see a person taking a picture from the back seat of a car at 35 mph from an IPhone with the window up. Her passport probably has a gigantic X in it or something.

Back to Amy

Next we went to the market to purchase souvenirs. Yofty took us to his friends’ stand where I attempted to purchase multiple items of everything. I would have if I could have! Of course, the man said he was giving me “GREAT deals” on everything. He gave me a bracelet for free and Josh a new wallet before I bought anything. Bribery! But Yofty said his prices were reasonable so we bought…A LOT!

Then we went to eat lunch which is when the down pour came. We went to a hamburger place Yofty recommended but I was very skeptical because Ethiopians like to eat raw beef…seriously. I had to make sure mine was WELL done. It was good and I tried some Mersedem tea. We left there and the freeway was closed so we had to take the long way to Tikuret (Yosef’s orphanage). We got there about 330. There is a man guarding the door that lets us in but otherwise all the other workers there are women – cooks, nannies, nurses, etc.

Insert from Josh again

When Yosef first came in the room we were there and another family to see their little boy. Yosef ran right to Amy! At the beginning of our visit it seemed like Yosef was still very stand offish towards me (completely understandable because of no men having ever cared for him in the orphanage). However the nurse brought us a ball and matchbox monster truck (Grave Digger) to play with. With help from one of the nurses (This nurse is the one who makes the strongest coffee in the world when we come. She does not speak English but she helped tremendously in getting Yosef to play with me. Several times I hear her say Popi and point to me.) We began to kick the ball back and forth. And then we began to push the truck back and forth several times too. This gave him the opportunity to interact with me from a safe distance. Several times I either got to close or kick the ball the wrong way and he got upset. Kind of cool though because he would go to Amy for support. I also got him a sugar cookie and from a distance slowly handed him small bites. He took each bite and ate it slowly. Towards the end we were playing very steadily and then he heard someone crying down the hall. He started up the stair and I was close so I was going to hold his hand. I grabbed his hand to keep him from falling and he kept going. Once he got to the top of the stairs he looked over and saw me. He gave me a look like “it’s really you helping me?” and then he decided to show me down the hallway. Once we got to the end of the hall I turned him around and we walked back to the stairs. He was having a hard time going down so I picked him up and held him. He gave me another really? look and then a whatever look and I held him for 2 or 3 minutes until the caregivers came to get him. Amy took approximately 459 pictures during that time frame. I know that he does not completely trust me but it felt really awesome to hold my sweet little Yosey.

We ate dinner at Yofty’s recommended restaurant called Rico’s. It was good. I had grilled chicken and Josh had a steak. We had very interesting discussions about his religion (Christian Orthodox) vs. ours.

NO ONE promised this would be easy, fast, or without struggles – but it sure was nice to see a step forward today! (As Amy took one step back with the Embassy…haha) We did joke (much later) that if she had been taken inside maybe she could have gone ahead and picked up Yosef’s visa so we could bring him home sooner. No such luck!

I promise we have so many pictures to share but I'll shift and share those once we are home. I'm just hitting the highlights.

The macchiatos that we have been enjoying!!!