Day 5

Today was our next to last day in Ethiopia.  We'd developed a routine, we were getting to know and love Maya more and more each day, and we were learning how to be a family in a foreign country where power couldn't be counted upon.  Not a bad start, as far as we were concerned!  Today was the day we would be taken to see three orphanages: Kebeb Tsehay Children's Home, Kolfe Orphanage, and Kechene Orphanage.  Initially, I was geared up with my camera at the ready and I got some interesting street scenes:

A blue bus taxi:

Cattle...walking by the gas station in downtown Addis Ababa:

Notice the man with the herd of goats:

However, once we arrived at each of the orphanages I was not as compelled to take photos, particularly at Kolfe and Kechene (the government run adolescent boys and girls orphanages respectively).  These young adults were not on exhibit for us.  We were in their home.  For some, the only home they may know prior to being released with a government stipend at the age of 18.  The photos I did take did not contain people, save three of them, and I will explain them.  

The first stop was Kebeb Tsehay.  This was an orphanage for primarily infants and toddlers.  We were able to walk through and greet the caregivers as well as the toddlers.  The infants were in their cribs for feeding, and there were several toddlers running around wanting to interact with us.  Some were more interactive than others, but both the infants and the toddlers were certainly aware of our presence.  This is also where Belay handed us all of Maya's official paperwork.  Her visa, passport, birth certificate, and her Ethiopian courts paperwork.  Finally, I got to see someone's passport with a photo as entertaining as mine!

Here we are with Belay after having received our paperwork.  I can't recall if I've already mentioned that Belay (pronounced Ba-lie) is the Ethiopian coordinator for the adoptions.  He knows all of the children, and I mean all of them, and they know him.  Staff told us that Belay receives about 200 calls on his cell phone each day.  We asked him if there is a science to his matching children with parents.  He claims no, "they just all seem to work out".  We can't imagine having anyone other than Maya.  Thanks Belay:

Here is one of the few photos from the orphanages that contains people.  This was a group of toddlers waiting to walk through the rain with a caregiver to another building.  It was around lunchtime, so I suspect that's where they were headed.  I took this from behind Mark with a telephoto.  I simply wanted faces to be associated with this part of the story:

After lunch, we went to Kolfe Boys Orphanage.  This orphanage is home to approximately 120 adolescent boys.  The boys attend school during the day and then return to their family of friends after.  We were greeted by a couple of very nice boys who wanted to accompany us throughout our walk.  They were very interested in talking with us (all speak English to some degree, as it is a language spoken in school) and showing us their home.  They were very proud of their home and asked us when we were coming back.  We became engaged in conversation with three boys in particular.  We chatted for some time about life in the orphanage, what they were listening to on the radio and what they hoped to do once they left the orphanage.  One shared that he wants to be a professional singer and songwriter, one a professional soccer player, and one an economist.

Walking with others in our group past one of the Kolfe dormitories:

This woman asked us to take her picture.  She is the cook for all of the boys at the orphanage.  Notice the kitchen - not much to it.  She cooks everything with wood.  When I turned to the boy who accompanied us and asked him with a smile on my face if she was a good cook, he smiled back at me and said, "The best!":

Food is then served through each of these windows into the large room that is the cafeteria.  Honestly, we didn't see any tables or chairs.  I'm not certain if they have them or not:

  

(L to R) The professional singer songwriter, the professional soccer player and the economist:

After Kolfe, we went to Kechene.  As a sidebar, this is the orphanage to which all of the feminine hygiene products were donated.  No photos allowed, per our travel packet.  As we pulled into Kechene, the girls arriving home from school were running up the lane leading to the main building, greeting our driver Becky by name.  Becky explained to us that, through taking adoptive parents to the orphanage, he has come to know the girls and they him.  While the mutual teasing continued as Becky slowly drove the car to the main building, it was easy to see that they were genuinely happy to see one another again.  As we toured the facility, Becky and the other drivers sat with several of the girls outside, while one of the girls braided the hair of one of the adoptive mothers.  It seems as though teenage girls love to talk and do hair, regardless of country or circumstance.  

The next day about which we'll post will be our last day in Ethiopia.  I'm not sure when I'll have the chance to post, but I hope you'll hang in there long enough to read it!

Guest House

We've been a little busy since we've been home, so I try to post about a day on our trip when I'm able.  Today, Maya had her first doctor's appointment and came away with a clean bill of health!  She was a goof ball, to say the least, seemingly enjoying making us all laugh with her funny faces dressed in nothing but a diaper!  She is incredibly entertaining.  We just love her!  I'm going to take a break from posting about our trip days and instead give you some photos of our guest house and guest house staff.  The New Flower Guest House is located about 10 minutes from the airport and within walking distance from a super market.  It is very nice by Ethiopian standards and the staff are wonderful.  We were able to sit and talk with each of the staff members and with the owner, Helen, on a regular basis which was very nice.  They were so incredibly accommodating and pleasant, taking a crying Maya from us when it was obvious she missed her caregivers and encouraging us to eat breakfast while they held her, seeing that we had enough candles when the power went out and making sure that all of them were lit, immediately providing us with a bucket of clean water with which to wash when the water heater was not working due to lack of power, cooking the most amazing food for us to eat for dinner - and lots of it, allowing us to poor the injera batter onto the griddle and politely telling us we did very well (even though it was visibly obvious we both needed a lot of practice), hand washing our laundry and hanging it in the sun to dry, kissing and hugging Maya and making her laugh whenever they got the chance to do so.  Need I go on?  These things and so many others helped to make our experience in Ethiopia all that it was.  In one word: unforgettable.

Front gate to the guest house.  When wishing to enter, the driver must beep the horn and one of the staff members runs to the gate to open it up: 

Back yard:

View from our bedroom window:

The living room/dining room area:

Mark and I, along with Gary and Ellen, making good use of the dining room table eating one of Zaresh's fantastic Ethiopian meals:

This was our room.  Maya's crib was at the foot of our bed: 

Maya loved looking out of our bedroom window.  When we left, there were tiny handprints all over it:

Our shower.  As you can see, the hot water tank was electric.  When the mandatory and randomly scheduled blackouts rolled through, which Helen believed "were getting worse", there was no hot water: 

Guest house operator, Helen.  She is also a social worker for the elderly in Addis Ababa, a gerontologist as it is termed there.  She used to live in Philadelphia for a period of time prior to returning to Ethiopia: 

This is Helen's manager, Caleb.  In this photo he is seen writing out our bill for the week.  The book keeping was "loose", to say the least, and the bill was based upon the honor system.  Our last day there, Caleb said to us, "O.K., tell me what you had (i.e. meals, laundry, internet, drinks, etc.):  

Here is Zaresh standing in her magical kitchen!  As you can see, it is the bare minimum.  The large round piece of equipment in front of her is the injera griddle.  This is the large griddle the batter for injera (a flat bread) was poured upon and cooked.  When done, the injera was removed with a large flat woven basket - no spatula - and transferred to another flat area to cool.  It was then put in a basket for keeping.  At her back, you can see a basket covered with netting.  This is where the injera was kept.  Injera was served with each of our meals.  It is what we used to eat our food.

Here is a photo of Maya and Zaresh (to the right) with Ester.  Ester is the one I like to refer to as "The Baby Whisperer".  She was the staff member who calmed Maya down the first morning Maya awoke in strange surroundings.  Ester's family lives in the country, but Ester told me she wanted a different type of life for herself.  She is working at the guest house and goes to school at night to study business.  She was a real sweetheart.  Each time she left work for the night, she would come to Maya and say, "Don't cry, o.k.?  I'll see you tomorrow." and give her a big kiss:

Last but not least is Betty.  Betty was the caregiver that Gladney arranged for us to have at the guesthouse whenever Mark and I wanted to leave the guesthouse.  Betty was familiar to Maya because she cared for Maya while Maya was at the foster care center.  Betty told us that it was always easy to make Maya smile.  Betty also told us that Maya is very strong "and will be a good worker".  She's right, Maya is strong!  Betty herself was an orphan and aged out of the government run orphanage for girls.  She was one of the orphans that Belay trained to be a caregiver so she would have a vocation upon leaving the orphanage.  Betty was wonderful with Maya.  We are certain Maya's body didn't touch anything other than Betty's arms while Betty was with her:

Day 4

Thursday was a day set aside for seeing the sights with an Ethiopian cultural dinner in the evening.  Mark and I were both tired, tired, tired but we wanted to see all that we could so that we can intelligently talk with Maya about her country.  First up was Holy Trinity Church, which contains the tombs of Haile Selassie and his wife and a memorial to victims of the Derg Regime.  The church was gorgeous and our tour guide very informative.  Below are some photos:

The services in the Ethiopian Orthodox church can be lengthy.  Prayer sticks are available so attendees have something on which to lean:

After viewing Holy Trinity, we asked Becky to take us to Entoto Mountain.  This is located outside of Addis Ababa, and the trip offers a glimpse of very rural life.  The ride to the top of the mountain was steep and took about 15 minutes by car.  Eucalyptus trees are plentiful in the area and grow in abundance on Entoto Mountain.  Women from both the village located on top of the mountain and at the bottom of the mountain climb and cut the eucalyptus and carry it down the mountain into their homes.  At times, a woman can be seen resting her load on one of the stone shelves located along the way.  The work appears to be grueling.  I will not complain from this point forward while paying our natural gas heating bill.

At the top of Entoto Mountain there were two Ethiopian Orthodox churches, one of which was the first church in Addis Ababa and carved completely out of a solid piece of rock with hammer and chisel.  Amazing.  Here is a picture of Mark and I standing in a part of this church:

And a view of Addis Ababa from atop Entoto Mountain:

As we were leaving this area, we heard children, lots of them.  Apparently, there was a school above the area at which we were and the children were running down the street.  All ages of children running how far, we did not know.  What I couldn't help but notice was that several of the youngest of these children would stop and kiss the orthodox cross that was found on the gate of the entrance.  Here is a photo of two men who had been sitting at the gate when we arrived approaching one of the young children while he was doing just this:

At the conclusion of this, we asked Becky to take us back to our room.  "You miss Meskele?", he smiled and asked.  We both said, "Yes."  

That evening, we attended the dinner that included live Ethiopian singing and dancing, most of which we captured on video, and delicious Ethiopian food!  

If we were doing this in real time, tomorrow would be Friday and we will be headed to the different orphanages with which Gladney is affiliated.  I will post when able (i.e. when Maya is napping long enough to allow this to happen).

Day 3

Today, Wednesday, was a big day for two reasons: we would see the foster care center in which Maya was cared for and meet her special mother, and we would have our appointment at the US Embassy in order to obtain Maya's visa.  The ride to the foster care center was really the first that we'd taken beyond the several blocks that surrounded our guest house.  It's interesting, because you would see somewhat modest homes alongside of an area that was just destitute by US standards.  This is one of those moments that I'm just unable to put into words.  The poverty was overwhelming and it was these sites and those that we experienced thereafter which served to change our perspective on many things.  It would be difficult for one to take a trip such as this and come away unchanged.  Here are some street scenes:

We arrived at the Gladney foster care center with Maya and were quietly greeted with the smiles and nods of some caregivers.  The foster care center was a building that looked very much like a house in the midst of a neighborhood of other homes.  A couple of the homes were all Gladney foster care centers dedicated to different aged children.  Unfortunately, I only have video of the outside of the center - no photos.  It was at this moment that we realized the children in the foster care centers are truly loved by the caregivers.  We could hear groups of caregivers simultaneously shouting the names of children they recognized and kisses being given in joyous reunions.  As we entered Maya's former room, the same happened.  "Meskele! Meskele! Meskele!" followed by hugs, kisses and efforts to make her smile - they knew her well.  We were able to see her former bed and the caregivers all had a good laugh as Mark compared Maya's belly to his own.  "Just like Daddy!", they kidded.

Each child in the center has a special mother, a dedicated primary caregiver with which the child shares a seemingly special bond.  I'd asked about Maya's special mother and was told that she was not in today because she was not feeling well.  We attempted to convey to the caregivers our being sorry for not being able to meet her and asked that they please tell her we will think of her.  I wasn't sure that our message had been clearly transmitted but thought the jist of it had been.  At this point, we were asked to leave our children with their former caregivers while we toured the rest of the foster care centers. 

 Maya happily went with the women she had grown to know over the past several months, and we knew she would be in good hands.  We toured the rest of the centers and returned for the coffee ceremony.  As Mark and I stepped back into the courtyard of the center, we discovered that our message of being sorry to have not met Maya's special mother most certainly had been understood because there she was!  Additionally, while we were gone the children had been changed into traditional Ethiopian dress.  Tsehay, Maya's special mother, was so happy to see her again and it was so nice to see this reunion.    

We then entered the front room for the traditional coffee ceremony, the entirety of which I have on video.  It was so interesting to watch this, and at some point on this blog I posted a link to a youtube video of a traditional coffee ceremony.  It consisted of grinding and roasting the beans over hot coals followed by percolating the coffee.  The coffee was poured into small cups and served with warm milk, sugar and popcorn - the traditional dessert in Ethiopia.  The coffee was delicious and like nothing we've ever had in the US.  

At the end of the coffee ceremony, it was time for us to go to lunch and then to the US Embassy.  Maya was exhausted and fell asleep in the car on the way to the restaurant.  

Fantastic Ethiopian food, once again, for lunch.  I wish I could have some right now.  Then it was off to the US Embassy.  

Unfortunately, no photography is allowed in, around or in the direction of any government building, US or otherwise, in Ethiopia.  So, this is something that will simply have to exist in our memories.