The Baby House

After the first morning of meeting little Miss A. and visiting with the children at the big kid house, we headed out for lunch with the other families and then stayed at the hotel the rest of the day.  In the morning we had breakfast at the hotel restaurant.  We headed to the baby house for paperwork around 10 a.m. and while waiting, I was able to visit with the babies for a few minutes.  We got some information on a few of them for some waiting families and then finished the immigration paperwork.  I had typed in what information I knew, hoping it was correct, and was prepared with blank copies of everything in case we had to fill them out correctly but the office manager simply lined through the incorrect info and wrote it in next to it... so much for official paperwork!  Hey, as long as it worked, I had no intentions of complaining.  With the paperwork madness I've been through the past 3 years, it was nice to just be able to line through something instead of re-do, re-notarize, re-send to the secretary of state's office. 

It was great meeting the other families for lunch that first day.  Until that point, I was feeling very much like I was on a lone expedition with my cousin, so it was nice to have other groups in the same process as we were.   The menu had familiar food but a few of us tried authentic Ethiopian.  Everything was good and after the dinner I'd had at the hotel the previous night and all that airplane food that just isn't 'quite right', I was relieved to have good food, although I had absolutely no appetite.  Toward the end of the meal, the waiter/manager came to our table and essentially said, "you can leave now."  I'm thinking, 'hmm, this is a strange culture... we're being kicked out,' and then I saw the men with machine guns outside.  One of them was yelling at our driver.  While he was arguing with them, we hopped in and off we went.  It was a little frightening because we didn't understand what was going on, but we were told that some embassy official or perhaps an important visitor was in the area and they were closing the entire street.  Quite an ordeal.  I'm not sure what we would have done if we'd gone out and had no driver to get us back to the hotel.     

For the next two days, we had Ethiopian food for lunch.  Our first experience was at Habesha and then we ate at Yod Abyssinia, both cultural restaurants.  We all loved the food and A. seems to like it very well.  I'm hoping I can learn to cook it for her and do it justice.  We had Chinese food one night with another family and then all of us went back to Yod Abyssinia where they had cultural dancers performing.  I definitely enjoyed all the food in Addis Ababa. 

I read a travel guide that said, "it is okay to feel overwhelmed here," and I most definitely did.  The pollution, the level of poverty we saw in different areas, people sleeping outside during the day, people with no shoes, people who had deformities that prevented them from walking, children begging.   I vacillated between feeling okay about my surroundings to just these feelings of despair for so many people who have little to nothing.  A little girl stood by us outside the embassy.  Here we are getting ready to go in and get citizenship for our children and she has no idea why we are there, but she keeps motioning to her mouth, saying she wants food.  I didn't have anything to give her so I gave her gum, which made her smile at least.  My first thought was, "does her mother know she's out here?" then I thought, "maybe she doesn't have one," and then when I'm supposed to be focusing on my own situation, I'm distracted by this hungry little creature I can't feed, having just enjoyed a nice meal myself.  I'm fully comprehending  that we are all indeed incredibly lucky to have had the opportunities to eat, have shelter, have our basic needs met for most if not all of our lives.  So many people don't even have potable water, which is something we just cannot wrap our heads around until we're over there, buying up bottled water like maniacs, afraid to rinse our toothbrushes in the hotel sink.  Visiting a city with a doctor to patient ratio of 1:30,000, drought, HIV/AIDS, and then seeing the countryside and realizing the statistics there must be even worse, yes, we all are unbelievably lucky to live where we do.