Finally, we turn the corner and head down an alley way. People were lying in the rocks, sleeping....malnourished dogs walking up and down. The road was rough, then we look to the side and see beautiful paintings on the outside of the wall. We realize that we have arrived.....my heart is in my throat and I have a hard time containing my emotions.
We see these iron doors and then they open....we hear squeals and screams of delight and as I looked out the door.....children are EVERYWHERE! They are screaming, laughing, jumping up and down....trying to get their hand to touch mine through the window of the van. I climb out, only to be surrounded by 30 little people clamoring to touch us and to be hugged and held....I look up and there he is, Abinet........my heart is now out of my chest beating a mile a minute. I look at Bart and I say........"there he is, there is our son!" We walk over and he clearly isn't feeling well. We sit on the ground and just stare. All the busyness just fades away and it is like it is just me, Bart and Abinet in the world. I long for my other kids to be here, to savor this moment with me. I couldn't speak, I didn't want to frighten him and grab him and hug him. So, there we sat.
Soon, he warmed up to us...we were already to grab him and jaunt back to the US. Since, that wasn't an option, we opted on playing soccer with our little man. Bart played with him for the longest time, while I just sat in aah of God's glorious provisions and answered prayers. Then, it was my turn to play. I'm clearly not a soccer player and my son clearly is LOL. He doesn't speak any English, so we are doing great with sign language. He loved it when I threw the ball and he'd bounce it off his chest or off his head. He began to get very good at sign language since our communication was not a whole lot to be desired :)
The nannies were amazing and they love the children oh, so much. They were kind and caring of each child. They did their best with what they are given. There are a lot of kids there and there are so many needs. We fell in love with all of the children there, but Abinet stole our hearts...........as did the beautiful country of Ethiopia.
When we had to go, we were picked up and then headed to the Zebra Grill. It was a colorful restaurant with very good food. They also had toilet paper, which was a huge plus. The view from the restaurant was gorgeous...you could see so much of the city. This is where we had our first taste of injera....it was...interesting....a spongy type of bread that had a vinegary taste to it. I didn't know you were supposed to dip it in something...I ate it, just by picking on it. Blech, bad idea. The funny part was, as we were sitting there, we starting hearing Dolly Parton, Randy Travis and Shania Twain LOL. We travel 1/2 way across the world to hear country music played at the Zebra Grill.
After we left there, we fought traffic to make it to Woudneh's office. We needed to fill out more paperwork. His office was in a big building with lots of other small businesses. It was a busy place. Woudneh was clearly having an issue with something, so he worked on his business and we worked on paperwork. One of our fellow peeps, discovered that there was no toilet paper in the bathroom.....LOL....I'll just leave at that. We also learned that toilet paper is a prized possession and that you brought it with you and took it back with you got down with your business LOL...
We met a lovely man, Solomon (a foolish Solomon, not the wise one). He helped with our paperwork and he informed us that he was creating a life history of our kids, complete with DVD of where our kiddoes lived. Wow, fantastic! I've got to remember to send him a video...need to do that. Once we got done with that, we headed back to the Crown. We all sat in the teapot room and had the best coffee, ever..along with popcorn :) The floor was covered with fragrant grass and the coffee was hand ground and then heated up over open coals. The young lady was a beauty and very funny. She informed me that she was married and had been for 13 yrs. She seemed so young to be married for that long. She also has and 8 yr. old child. We sat, talked and laughed. She took me outside to show me the "just grass" that smelled so good. Then I happened to look up and saw a beautiful yellow flower. I asked about and she gently looked at me and said "I give you flower if you take my child to America. You adopt her." My heart sank as she looked so hopeful. I explained that I couldn't do that....it was so hard...so sad.
We all were tired and so we all headed to bed.............Day 4 coming soon to a blog near you :)
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