Short Stories. World Water Day!

Today is World Water Day!

                                    Most of the world shares water like this, when they have water.

Home Sweet .....although jet lagged, Home.

Such a long travel experience but we have finally arrived home.  It is amazing how far you can travel these days in a relatively short amount of time but when you end the arduous flight travel with a long car ride through a snow storm and then a six hour drive takes nine...that is too much.  We were like horses heading to the barn and kept on going until at last we met our loved ones at the Chanticleer Inn. Eventually our heads touched down on our pillows at home.  Heavy sigh. It had been days of travel. We were at last safely home, but done in.
   

Here are some photos of the guest house we stayed in while in the city of Addis Ababa.  It is typically used by families here to adopt children and provides them a nice homelike atmosphere. We were very comfortable and this is where we were able to get the internet.

                                        Gated courtyard, and razor wire.  Guard house.

Time Out.
I am currently in a self imposed time out.  Upon arriving home I lost my voice.  Gone.  I have so much to say....and can't.  Frustrating for me. Along with friends and family who have called and end up with a few short texts instead.  I am very happy that I have the luxury of being sick at home!  After watching other team members soldier on with their illnesses traveling dusty roads on the bumpy bus, I have it made.  I did drag myself to a friends for dinner the other night. It's just not the invitation that a smart person should ever pass up.   I tried to keep my germs to myself while we engaged in a game of charades as an exchange for conversation.  Yum.  All was worth it and I stayed awake!

"Farenji" Foreigner.  That's what they would call us.  And we learned to say, "amaseginalo," which is "thank you."

Often the kids would yell to us from the street.  Heather was sitting in the front of the bus with her beacon of blond hair announcing our busload of "farenji's."  We would hear the people shouting 'youyouyou' or 'hellohellohello.'  Good english for them, although we weren't quite sure what the correct  response should be. We would just say "amaseginalo" or repeat what they were saying.  We did a lot of waving and they did a lot of waving back.  The Ethiopians we encountered seemed pretty entertained by our attempts at everything and anything.  I guess the white farenji's are rather amusing! Often times there would be students who had good enough english skills to translate for us with the other children but left to our own devices we had to go with the wave and our limited vocabulary. 

Not too close.

Sometimes when we would arrive the children would be very shy.  I would sit down on a bench and they would sit down at the very end of the bench.  As the presentation would progress the children would start sliding down closer and closer to me.....until soon they were next to me, touching me and holding my hands.  It was so sweet.   We developed our own language and forms of entertainment playing thumb wars and every hand game we could think of.  There are now thousands of kids who will give you a high five and know how to move their hand and trick you when you least suspect it!  What a great sense of humor we shared.  Laughter is a universal language.  

  "Special Fish."  I do not recommend ever, ever, ever eating the special fish!  Ask Heather why.

Meeting Sponsored Kids of Chapa

What a day. It will take some time to process this day. Right now after a very full day and a blog post that after an hour of writing suddenly vaporized I am spent. Currently, it's 12:30am and we are getting up at 5:30 am in order to have an early start on our six hour drive back to Addis Ababa tomorrow.

A few special moments to share for now in photos for my family and friends to enjoy. There are so many from this day.

Our First Day......SIx Hour Road Trip !

Today we unpacked all our supplies for the orphanage and then repacked them. We needed to sort everything that came from 15 people and about 20 suitcases. What a task!

We then drove six hours on uneven roads dodging donkeys, carts, people, goats, amidst dirt tornados. We were often busy passing on the left even as we were going uphill. Paul don't read that part. I sat in the front seat so I could see i could see what was going to kill me when we hit it. There were many opportunities. The truckload of camels would have been my first choice.

Our group consists of 15 people from Colorado Springs, Virginia, Italy and Eagle River/Theee Lakes.. Four are teenage girls around 13 years old. The Vision trip leader is a male as is the videographer. You can feel sorry for them. There is a lot of talking at the same time going around them. Two of the women are here with their daughters to visit relatives of their adopted Ethiopian children. That is going to be interesting.

Today we went to our first "Care Point" this is where they are just beginning to develop and get sponsors. Our introduction was to meet and do activities with the 25 sponsored children. We were greeted by the children with singing and signs of welcome. then we participated in a coffee ceremony where the roast the beans in front if you on a small fire, then made us wonderful coffee and serve you popcorn! It was really special. Tomorrow there will be 150 with the unsponsored children joining us in the afternoon.

We sang with them and played games like "London Bridge" and jump rope. The enjoyed balloons and bubbles. Simple things that gave them one on one contact.


Little children who lived next door and shared the stick fence with the care point kept trying to see what was going on. They loved it when I took their picture and showed it to them. When I left I slid some lollipops through the hole in the fence .much to their delight.

We could hardly get in the van to leave kids from all over had swarmed the entrance and wanted to touch us and have some contact. We could see some had leprosy and other ailments but all were so cheerful and loved any attention at all.

Tomorrow we go to have a feast with 300 kids at the Chapa care point. They have ordered live goats for the occasion. They will soon be dead goats. This should be interesting. I will also get to meet four children my family has sponsored. I have gifts and notes for each if of of them. Tomorrow is a big day!

So time to crawl under the mosquito net. I think Paul and my cousin Michael wouldn't be big fans . I've already got mosquito bites so I hope the malaria medication is working .

Bb

P. s. and FYI We have decided to count posts from Facebook that fall under the post....cuz we realized it might be hard to do it under the blog if not registered. So good luck !