This morning we were woken by a blowout. Not a tire, a diaper. In fact, the smell was so bad, we had to open all the windows. Be prepared, families following after...these diapers are stinky!
We also discovered this morning that a rattle can be made from an empty water bottle and a packet of macaroni (not cooked, obviously). This entertained him for the next few days and the noise it makes is really not that bad! Totally worth bringing the macaroni in the first place.
We can tell, though, that he's probably not about to be three. He's more like two-and-a-half, which is fine with us. He's not that sturdy, though he's doing pretty good, and his motor skills aren't bad at all. We ARE learning some Amharic from him, or at least baby-Amharic. "Anto" means "Give it to me!" and "Anti" means "Here, I don't want this anymore." Well, those are probably very loose translations.
We've noticed he hoards his food and will eat as fast as possible, shoving anything into his mouth to make sure no one else can take it away. When I realized what he was doing, it almost broke my heart. He just expects me to take things away from him, which I will never do. We learned a new game today together. I say "Show me" and he opens his mouth wide to prove he's swallowed so I'll give him more food. It works and it was easy to learn!
Marc tells me to mention the licking. The kids lick things to make them theirs and he says at the Transition home, some of the kids licked him. he thought it was weird at the time, but it makes sense. They wanted him to be theirs and no one else's. Almost enough to make me cry again thinking about it. These kids are so desperate for homes.
So at 10, the driver picked us up and said we were meeting Robel at the Embassy, but we'd have to wait in the car until he came and got us. Okay, we can do that. So we sat for a few minutes until we saw Robel come out and wave to us, gesturing for us to get out of the car and come in. It worked, they're going to see us and issue a VISA!
We go in, checking our IPODs at the door, showing our passports, and drinking from our open water to prove it's water. And then we're through and up the steps to the VISA room. We wait for a bit for the officer, who interviews us for about a minute, then hands us some papers and tells us to wait for twenty minutes and we'll be done. We got the court transcripts for the adoption and in a bit less than twenty minutes, we have a VISA.
We can go home!! A huge weight is lifted off our shoulders at the thought of being able to get on that plane tomorrow to come home to Dagny. We've missed her so much it hurts.
We went back to the hotel for lunch, because Sintayehu needed a nap. We got him down for about an hour and a half and Robel said he'd meet us about two to go visit the orphanages. I made him macaroni and cheese in the hotpot before we left and he ate the whole bowl and really liked it!
We delivered prayer bears to Kids Care Orphanage, which was nice, but we didn't see any of the kids there. We only spoke to a few people in the office. That was all right, we didn't have a huge amount of time, though it would have been nice to have a tour, even if Sintayehu had not come from there. This is a picture of the front gate:
Lots of the homes in Ethiopia have gates. Drivers honk and someone opens it from the inside.
We took the dolls that Nancy Thompson made for us to Gelgela, which is where Sintayehu came from. We are so glad we went. We were thinking maybe we shouldn't go, since it might bring back bad memories, but he seemed okay and we got to see his bed and meet the manager, who told us a wonderful story about how the orphanage got started. This woman has so much love and so much charisma it was amazing.
Here is a picture of Sintayehu's bed at Gelgela. It's the second bed from the left, painted blue. The guide said we could put him in it for a picture, but I didn't want to do that. It would have felt weird.
And we took a picture of a young man by the gate, who was wearing an Obama shirt translated into Ge'ez!
After the orphanages, we were supposed to meet Robel at Antica for dinner, but he was very late. We'd already ordered our pizza by the time he showed up, though it was good and he had a few pieces. Very tasty and Sintayehu liked it, too.
When we went out of the restaurant, though, the driver was gone. AND...cell service wasn't working, so we couldn't call him. We waited on the front porch of a coffee shop for about twenty minutes (and met a New Yorker there, which was funny) but the driver still didn't show. Robel ended up calling us a cab, which took us over a lot of back roads to the hotel, probably places we wouldn't normally have seen. In the dark, Addis looks even more foreign than when the sun is up.
We found out when we got back that the Spanish couple whose baby was so sick managed to get an emergency VISA and they were due to fly out at midnight. We said our goodbyes and wished them well. The other families have to wait until next week for the Embassy to see them. Their program doesn't make appointments for them - they have to take their chances.
On the way to the room, we bought a piece of chocolate cake from the small cafe to celebrate. The cake was pretty bad, but it was the thought that counted!
No comments:
Post a Comment