Ethiopia Day 1 and 2

Day 1
Travel—ugh!! Lufthansa is a great airline. Each seat has touch screens even on most of the old planes. They serve the kids first and have puzzles and coloring things for them to use. Ana watched movies and cartoons. The first flight was a night flight and Ana probably slept about eight hours out of 12—not bad. We had quite a long layover in Frankfort. Because there are different “wings” to the airport and you have to have a ticket for that wing, you kind of get stuck. There wasn’t too much to do. There was a small playset that had no slides—basically it was a house with stairs. Ana did play with several kids there. (In contrast Singapore’s airport had the most awesome play area I’ve seen in a long time. Ana played about and hour there and there were only four kids on it the whole time.)
We had no problems getting our visa. It did take a little while as they are done by hand and the line was pretty long. But we eventually got through. We ran into problems in customs. We had collected two boxes of used but nice shoes. The customs guy said that they shouldn’t be allowed in because they weren’t nice enough. After 15 minutes of carrying Matt’s passport around he eventually let us go. Our guest house met us there and took us to the house. It was only about ½ hour away. We were happy to go right to bed (after a cold shower!)

Day 2
Ana got up at about 5:40. I had to try to keep her quiet as there was another couple staying right next door. (Matt was in another room.) We had a nice breakfast of fresh bread, juice, and cereal. After a while someone came to take us to Layla. On this day there were five cases going to court and 1 going to embassy. We were literally dropped off and had no idea what we were doing. When the kids figured out who we were they quickly rounded up China and Mitike. (Usually I think they let you meet them one on one without a crowd of observing children. ) They both greeted us with lots of hugs and were very happy. I felt like crying. It didn’t seem real, we’ve waited so long. They drug us along to see their rooms. For the rest of the morning we watched them in PE, English, Library, Computer, and Math class. I got to look at Mitike’s homework book which gave me a good idea of where she should be placed in school. We also had lunch with the kids which was injera (a bread made from teff), wat (which is a stew) and a mixture of potato and beet. The kids ate far more than we did. I think we’ll be purchasing a lot more food soon!
We went out to the National Museum. This was very hard with Ana because she couldn’t touch anything and had to be quiet. She was also exhausted by then because she had played all morning and not had a nap. It was interesting though. It included some information on the different tribes from the South as well as Emperor Hallie Selassie’s bedroom and bathroom. We went briefly to do some shopping at Churchill Street, but it poured and we soon left.
Back at the guest house we had a nice Ethiopian dinner that was very similar to lunch, but also included a spicy meat dish and some French fries. (Ana was so tired I took her up to bed during dinner and she fell asleep in 30 seconds!) Following that we had a coffee ceremony with the other family. It takes a lot of effort to do this from roasting the coffee beans over hot coals, to grinding them in a mortar /pestle to reheating the coffee over the coals. Usually they say during this they talk about their day. There is ample time to find out every detail! Matt had two cups—it is strong, but didn’t keep me awake. I’m running on fumes and will probably sleep for a week after this!