Ethiopia Journal - Day 3 - Tues. December 29th

The girls both woke up around 5:30am this morning, which felt fine to me. My body is still a little on Oregon time, so sleeping after 3am isn’t happening for me. So by 5am, I’m so anxious to have the girls wake up to play and hold them. This is temporary, I know, but I’m enjoying it for now. It’s been two days since my completely sleepless night on Sunday…….so I think I’m going to indulge in ONE cup of coffee this morning and see how I do. Ooooohh, I can’t wait – it’s so yummy!

The girls are both smiley this morning, after small bouts of choking and coughing, especially from Zuri. We can tell she is really hurting – her throat is obviously sore because she winces when she coughs and often will start crying as well. We decided to call home really quick and ask Mom to call Dr. Wilson to schedule an appointment for the girls on Saturday, the day after we get back home. They are both really sick and the rattle in their lungs is downright scary to me. All the babies here are sick to some extent, but given that I can feel the rattle when holding the girls and that they have a history of being hospitalized due to something related to this, we don’t want to wait until the 12th for them to be seen. So, Mom said she would call…..hopefully we can get in.

Anyway, I really need a shower this morning. Yesterday, I attempted a shower and messed up using the hot water heater and had nothing but freezing water to shower with. This morning, again, I was totally rebuffed!!! I plugged in the water heater and stepped into the tub ready for a nice warm shower and I got it for about 30 seconds until I heard a neighboring hotel family start their shower and that apparently took all the water that was going to my shower, so the water immediately just stopped coming out. UGH!!!  I can’t catch a break!!  So, I climbed out of the tub, freezing and annoyed, and waited a ½ hour and still no water! About 45 minutes later, I went into the bathroom and found that the water was running again and enjoyed my first warm shower in Ethiopia!!! Oh baby……it was wonderful!!!!

Well, today is shopping day…..and we’re meeting at Hannah’s Hope at 9am to get on the bus and head to the market. We are really REALLY torn about today because we cannot take the girls shopping with us as having them out in public is not socially acceptable. So, to go shopping will require one of us to stay back at the hotel with both girls from 9:00am to about 2:30pm or we can take the girls back to Hannah’s Hope to be with the special mothers during that time & both go shopping. Given the way Zuri cried the first night she was with us, we are both really leery of taking her back to Hannah’s Hope today. But this is our only day to be in the city and spend time in it. We have had little to no opportunity to actually see or experience Ethiopia and both really feel like we cannot pass up this chance, even if it’s just a few hours. So, doubting our decision the whole walk there, we eventually decide to take the girls to Hannah’s Hope to be watched during this time.  I was so conflicted about this choice the entire morning before going and even told Almaz right before leaving (through a shaky & teary voice) that I didn’t know if I would go because of it.  She hugged me and reassured they would be just fine. Michael had come to feel ok about leaving them and when it came time to finally make the decision, I hesitantly agreed that we both would go. Slowly, we took them up to their old bedroom and you would not believe the way the special mothers cried and went crazy when they saw the girls!!! A few of them cried out their names and began kissing and rubbing them before I could even pass the girls over to one of them! They even called out the girls’ names, something in Amharic and reached out quickly like they were vying for who would get them first!!! This was AMAZING to me – and made me feel SO comfortable with leaving them there for a while. They would be smothered and loved to death while we were gone…….I had nothing to worry about. So off we went. I said a prayer in the back of the bus as we drove away asking God to protect their hearts for when we returned to get them and give me peace that we made the right decision.

Hannah's Hope - the girls' last home in Ethiopia.  Their room was on the 2nd floor, behind the skinny little window on the upper, left corner.

Looking from the outside into the first floor baby room

Laundry drying in the yard at Hannah's Hope

Hanging out with the kids at Hannah's Hope before leaving to go shopping.  This sweet little girl liked to see her face on my video camera.

The basketball hoop in the yard - Michael thought it looked cool.

Getting to the market provided us with another great drive through the city, a part of which we had never been through before. There was so much to see and soak in.  Maybe 20 minutes later, the bus eventually pulled over to the side of the dirty road and came to a stop. I could see out the windows that there were a number of small, street-side shops, something akin to a more “stationary” Saturday Market. Johannes said we would have 1 ½ hours to shop before needing to return to the bus. So, we all piled off the bus and the shopping began. Most of us sort of hovered from store to store together, not really wanting to venture up and down the street on our own. Many of the stores sold the same type of goods – clothes, hats, wooden crosses, bags, jewelry, house goods, décor items, scarves and a million more little items uniquely Ethiopian. Many traveling families that had come before us recommended that we go shopping with a list of some sort of what we wanted to buy or for whom. I had all the best intentions of doing that before leaving home, but never did, so we walked into each shop having no clue what we really wanted or should buy. And in addition, there are no prices on anything, so you had to ask the friendly shopkeeper for a price and then prepare to bargain. In addition to the cramped little shops, there was also a constant stream of people outside trying to sell things like chewing gum, maps, sunglasses, belts and other portable goods. My first impulse was to buy one of everything! When will we ever be back and I don’t want to regret not buying enough!!!!! But, soon remember there is not nearly enough room in our luggage to cart home all that we could buy. So, what on earth should we get?? This was the thought that ran through my mind the entire shopping trip. Should I buy that hat? That scarf? That bowl? That fake bird? That bracelet? That drum? That map? That dress? Oh my word – can I buy any of this stuff online when I get home?

That 1 ½ hours went by REALLY fast and I was full of regret after every shop!!! I wanted to buy one of everything!! Plus, poor Michael. For anyone that knows my sweet husband, he is ALWAYS out for a “good deal.” He wants the rock bottom price on everything. This is all well and good when shopping for a television or a new car, but in Ethiopia???? Good grief – it was annoying! He kept asking me to wait to buy something until the next shop where we could probably get it cheaper. I swear, by the last ½ hour we were revisiting half the stores we’d already been in to buy the stuff I had in hand to purchase during the start of the trip!!!! Because of this, I nicknamed him “Market Mike” and he and I joked with each other about his "special" new personality the rest of the afternoon. Market Mike was annoying and totally stressed out and needed to change back to the regular Mike. Seriously though, it was a fun experience, but overwhelming because there was so much to buy and I had really no idea what we wanted and then felt like we ran out of time to get enough. In the end, we came away with some traditional Ethiopian dresses for Emma, Zuri, Zinea and myself, traditional Ethiopian outfits for Mikey & Jake, some hats, jewelry, drums, bags, scarves……a bunch of other little stuff too…….I can’t even really remember them all at this moment.

An intersection we turned through driving in Addis.

After shopping, we went as a group to an Italian restaurant for lunch (haa haa, I think this is sort of funny – going out for Italian in Ethiopia, but anyway….). This restaurant is connected to an art gallery with pieces painted by Ethiopian artists. We ended up finding a painting we fell in love with (well, I fell in love with it and Michael thought it was nice). The painting was our most expensive souvenir costing us $170. Can’t wait to put it up at home. It took at least a few hours to get through the whole meal….all of us ordering pizzas, and by now I was so anxious to go get the girls and call it a day.

In the part of town where we had lunch, it was much more developed than the rest of the city.

Check out the sign above us that someone in our group discovered. HA!

Our great AGCI families enjoying lunch together. (Thanks Rebecca for getting this picture!!) As Almaz described it, it took "two hours for some freakin' pizza." She was a crack up.

While going back to the bus from the restaurant, Michael says to me quietly, “Oh – this is going to be hard.” I look at him and then scan the area around us wondering what he’s talking about. It’s then that I see a young man on a crooked wooden cane, arched completely at the waist and exhibiting a pretty severe body tremor painfully pulling his body down the street toward us as we reach the door of the bus. He approached our group, reaching up with his free hand repeating “hallo, hallo, hallo” over and over to any or all of us that he could reach. My heart is telling me to acknowledge this poor person, turn to him and reach out to touch him with my hand – show him some affection that likely no one is giving him. This is what Christ would do, right? Look at the way He related to SO many sick and disabled in His time, just like this man. But the fear of the unknown, the commonality of this scene in this city and the warnings given to us about not handing out to beggars, nag in my mind and causes me to step onto the bus as if I can’t really hear or see this man. As I do that, the man's outstretched hand brushes against my shoulder and I feel like I’m rejecting him by not acknowledging his contact with a smile or a touch in return. It feels awkward and wrong to ignore him, makes me mad at myself for doing it and yet I did it anyway. Why Melissa?????  Well, this man then made his way onto the bus and labored down the aisle still repeating, “hallo, hallo, hallo” with his outstretched hand. Michael and I were at the very back of the bus and not within reach of him, but some in our group were right next to him. It was beyond painful to watch him.  I’m not sure if anyone gave him money, but I hope so. I wanted to give him everything we had. Our driver said something to this man in Amharic, obviously telling him to get off the bus. After a few minutes, he was sort of guided off the bus but then continued to walk down the outside of it with the same outstretched hand reaching up to the open windows still repeating, "hallo, hallo, hallo."  As we drove away, I watched him walk down the street, nearly tripping on the concrete as he labored with the cane and his pants that were falling off of his waist. My heart broke for this man. Does he have food? Does he have family? Does he have a place to rest?  Does he have hope?  I’ll never know.  I do know that my very short observation of this man and my complete lack of response to him has been burned in my heart and mind and I cannot shake it. Lord, keep it there. Please. I don’t want to go home and forget what I’m seeing and being convicted of here today.  We are not meant to inteact with people such as these and NOT respond.  I know it.

This woman asked us for food or money after getting off the bus.  How could we not give her what we had on us?  Rules or no rules, the few of us that interacted with her could not say no to giving her some food & money that we had on us.  She initially did not want her picture taken, but agreed after our giving her the food & money.  I so badly wanted her picture to remember her face, so I'm thankful she let us take it.

Ethiopia scaffolding.  This was ALL over the place in the city.  Obviously it works, but up close, it looked rather shaky to us.

It appeared that all the signs in the city were written in both Amharic & English.

These cute boys talking in a little alley off the street caught my eye.

Many people were sitting and/or sleeping on the sides of the road and on the medians throughtout the city.

Our drive back through the city was fascinating – and we spent it soaking up the sights, sounds and smells of it. Once back to the hotel, we made the short walk to Hannah’s Hope to get the girls and I have to say that all my worry earlier in the day was wasted because the girls were great and they came back to us with smiles and no tears!! The girls were just getting done taking a bath and getting redressed and we gathered them up and made our way back to the Union. What an amazing group of special mothers AGCI is blessed to have caring for our children and all the others that come through its doors.

Michael hung back at Hannah’s Hope for a few hours to help a bunch of the other dads move an insanely huge washing machine to the new Hannah’s Hope across town, so I headed back to the hotel with both girls on my own. Once Michael got back to the hotel, we all cashed it in early. The girls were extremely tired, and so were we for that matter, so we all laid down for a nap around 4:30pm, waking up around 6:30pm. We made a very lethargic walk downstairs with the babies in the slings and had a quick bite to eat and then almost immediately after, went to bed. The girls did great again tonight, up just twice to eat and back to sleep quickly. Poor Zuri has such a hard time by 4:00 in the morning. Her cough is downright painful and she is so congested she cannot breathe at times. We can tell this is affecting her mood, beyond the huge transition of coming to us. I cannot wait to see more of her little personality peek out in the days and weeks to come. Zinea is pretty sick too, but still smiley and laid back. Of course, we don’t know yet if this is her true personality, but right now she is just a joyful little peanut.

My amazing God, each minute I am here, my eyes are opened and I am being broken.  I know this may seem like such an unremarkable and a common reality to many, nothing suprising or out of the ordinary for a third world country, but the things I am seeing here are rocking my world and I can feel already that the life I knew before is now forever changed.  I came here super prepared for meeting our girls and bringing them to us forever.  I did not prepare though for the poverty, sickness, pain and need that is right in front of us here and how helpless and worthless I feel in doing anything about it.  Somehow, I thought I "knew" about this already and was "aware" of what it looks like.  I was wrong.  My American bubble that I thought I didn't have has been popped.  Lord, how do you want me to "defend the cause of the weak and fatherless - maintain the rights of the poor and oppressed - rescue the week and needy" - as you tell me to do in Psalm 82?  I am overwhelmed but thankful.   

Back at the hotel for a late afternoon nap.  They were super tired.

That's Zuri on the left and Zinea on the right.