Journal 5

Tuesday September 8, 2009

Day 5 – Embassy Day

We passed our interview! It was a long day, but soo worth it. It started out wonderful, Temesgen was happy waking up between mom and dad. He came to bed with us about 3 am and slept great. DJ not so much. He woke up when T came to bed and couldn’t go back to sleep. Changing to Ethiopia time has been hard for him. He gets super tired in the afternoon and goes to bed with the baby, but then can’t stay asleep for the night. I have to journal and pump so going to bed early is not for me.

Elias Temesgen was soo happy this morning. He woke up and we sang the good morning, good morning, good morning song and played on the bed with his back pack funness – I got stickers all over my arm while daddy went to shower and order breakfast.

We ate a nice meal of scrambled eggs, bread, and coffee. I was so sad from scrambled eggs again that I tried ½ a piece of bread – that didn’t make me feel good later so no more for me… Then after breakfast, DJ got Elias dressed and they played while I took a shower – my first hot shower since leaving Dubai. OH, the things I take for granted! It was wonderful. And fast. The tank above my head was all the hot water available to the entire house so I rushed to wash my hair and shave my legs (only the part you could see blow my skirt) and clean the dirt and grime from my face and body. It would have been the highlight of the day had we not passed the Embassy interview.

Last night, Dereje (who works with CCI) told us to be ready for the Embassy at 1:30. He arrived with Anewtu and Alazar at 1:00 while we were all eating lunch. It was a mad dash to get everything together and get out the door. We made it all the way across town with 10 minutes to spare. Whew!! Then we realized we had forgotten our passports. So had Christina and Phil. ARG!! We had a moment of panic and then jumped in the car with Alazar who took us back to the guest house. Typically, Ethiopian people drive crazy (per our standards) – Alazar was driving 10 times crazy. I was concerned for the safety of our children and for the people who were walking on the sidewalks.

Eventually, we made it back, but about 5 minutes before we arrived, Dereje called Alazar on the cell phone and said, “HURRY! HURRY! HURRY!” At that point, Alazar was driving on the wrong side of the road to avoid pedestrians and to move around cars – keep in mind that Addis is VERY crowded. People and cars are piled everywhere like sardines. It was intense. And a little fun.

We were running to the Embassy when we got out of the car and the crossing guard blew his whistle at us and yelled for us to go back and use the crosswalk. Sheesh! That is like the only place in all of Ethiopia where they have some kind of road rule – forget speed limits, traffic lights, or stop signs – but cross the street in front of the US Embassy and don’t use the crosswalk and your in TROUBLE!

So we entered this little room made of plywood that had a bench and a metal detector. Dereje was standing outside on the other side of the room waving at us to hurry so we stripped off all our metal (I had to take Temesgen out of his sling because it had metal snaps) and walked through. There was a guard by the street side of the tiny room on the phone and he motioned for us to come back and wait for him


...yep, that's it. That's as far as I got with the journal. Sad. Sorry :-( I will try to finish it soon...