Here I sit, in the middle of the night, in the hotel room’s
bathroom, sitting in the dry bathtub on my computer. Josh is trying to sleep but of course, my
mind is racing and will not let me. We
have been in Ethiopia almost 24 hours and have met our son, Dawit.
We arrived via Ethiopian Airlines yesterday morning around
7:30 a.m. After climbing down stairs
that were wheeled over to the plane, we took a super short shuttle bus ride to
the airport terminal. Inside, we waited
in lines to get our visitor’s Visas, go through immigration, gather our luggage
and go through customs. Then we wheeled
our luggage on a cart outside where we met a shuttle van driver from the
Friendship International Hotel.
Fifteen minutes later, we arrived at the hotel and checked
in. When we made it to our room on the 3rd
floor, we showered and attempted a couple hours of sleep. Around 12:30, we woke
up and got ready to head to the orphanage.
We brought 2 suitcases completely full of diapers
(disposable and cloth), formula and a few toothbrushes. We met Alemu (our agency’s on the ground
contact) down in the hotel’s lobby at 2 p.m., but not before quickly gulping
down to Coke’s in the hotel lobby bar.
Yes, Coke, no Mountain Dew anywhere in country.
After meeting our driver and loading up his SUV, we drove
around 45 minutes to Engida Orphanage.
Both side roads to get to Engida were closed and under construction, so
we walked from one of the main roads carrying our backpacks and 2 huge pieces
of luggage across a pile of large rocks, a pile of dirt and finally down the
road they were working on.
Our driver rang the doorbell and knocked on the metal gate,
much like the one my home had in Haiti, and we were greeted by a staff member
of the orphanage. She walked us to the
back door and when she opened it, Dawit was sitting right there in the middle
of the room on the floor, playing with a toy.
We immediately knew it was him. I
went right to him and sat down by him to start playing. He was rather unsure of us at first. I tried to sit him in my lap to play with
some of the bubbles we brought, but he immediately climbed out and sat in front
of me on the floor again.
For an hour or so, we played with bubbles with the children
on the floor, making a mess and cleaning it up with toilet paper. Josh and I were both covered with bubble
solution by the end. Dawit hadn’t quite
mastered blowing into the wand, but I am sure that is soon to come.
Halfway in, one of the caregivers brought a tray with 6 or 7
Ikea plastic cups and spoons with mashed avocado. They gave me Dawit’s portion and I tried to
feed him but he cried and went to another caregiver. She came back a few minutes later with baby
cereal in a new cup and said he just doesn’t like avocado. She fed him the cereal just fine with him
sitting on the floor in front of her.
Then I thought I might have smelled a dirty diaper, so a
nanny took us upstairs to have his diaper changed, we were able to see his room
and three of the other children who were either sleeping or playing upstairs
with another nanny. I think there are a
total of 10 children at his orphanage right now… 4 girls and 6 boys.
You will notice when I post pictures after court, that Dawit
has many Molluscum open sores on his face and neck. He is being treated for this and apparently it
has gotten better. He also has a
bandage on his finger. Recently, his
finger got caught in a door hinge. We
were told he went to the doctor for it for x-rays and there are no broken bones
but I guess his finger nail is pretty damaged and sore. We
haven’t seen it yet and probably won’t till Saturday.
This morning, we are checking out of our hotel and meeting
in the lobby at 8 a.m. to head to an Ethiopian Court for a final hearing in our
case. If the judge is happy with our
answers, we will officially be able to say Dawit is ours and FINALLY show pictures
of him online.
The sights, sounds and smells here are all so similar to
what I remember in Port-au-Prince. Razor
wire on the top of cement walls surrounding businesses and homes, right next to
homes and buildings made entirely of corrugated sheet metal. I think the extremes might be bigger here in
Ethiopia though. There is also a TON of
construction in Addis, everywhere you look it seems. Here
is a picture of some scaffolding that looks so much like that is shown in “The
Prince of Egypt” when the Egyptians force the Israelites to build things for
them.
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