A Busy Day!

Today was to be an exciting day-for the first time we were going outside of Addis Ababa! We drove for awhile to the north of the city, getting to see some beautiful countryside and traditional huts. We passed so many donkeys loaded down with saddle bags or sacks of grain, etc. Masti sat with me on the bus ride and informed me that they call those "donkey-bishi" like "Mitsubishi". Ha ha, I laughed hard at that. It was very cold and rainy all day long. We were relieved when the orphanage we were visiting had a large indoor room that we could do all our craft activities with the kiddos. We set up several stations and just had a great time doing activities with the kids-they were all a very sweet bunch and very well behaved. They were so much fun to be with and it was a really relaxing time with them. Being out in the country was a breath of fresh air, literally and figuratively—there is SO.MUCH.SMOG in Addis, blech. We left there to go on quite an adventure-we went in search of the birth mother of Kelly and Shane's adopted son from Ethiopia! They had met her one other time, but not in her home so all of us went around on the bus till we got in the right general area where they thought she lived. Then our faithful Bizi hopped out to talk to some folks and show them a picture and in less than 5 minutes he was back with a thumbs up-he had found out where to go find her! I will leave the rest of the details of that meeting up to Kelly to share since it is her story, but suffice it to say we eventually found her and the reunion was miraculous and a beautiful blessing to ALL of us, really. By the time we were done with that, we thought we were headed home and could skip our afternoon plans for orphanage visits since we were so late, but we kept getting calls about when we were coming as they were waiting on us soooooo, off we went! We were visiting another place that works with HIV+ children and arrived, in the cold rain of course, to a sweet group of kids who said "Welcome our guests!" in English that they had obviously practiced well-it was so heart warming! They had waited all day in the yucky cold rain for us to show up and I am so glad we did! We didn't have a lot of time to stay there but we made the most of it-we did face painting and nail painting and coloring. The best part was that the mothers of any of the children that had mothers were there and they all wanted their nails painted too. I had such fun painting all those mama's nails and making them feel fancy!! Some seemed a little sheepish but would finally offer their hard-working hand-but only the left b/c they eat with the right :) I find that so interesting-it took us several rounds of painting nails at various places to finally figure out why the older girls or women only wanted one hand painted, ha! Then they joked that they also wanted lipstick and make up done-seems you get ladies together getting their nails done and they just get giggly and silly, no matter what the culture! So much fun! Finally it was time to go and we rolled into the guest house tired, cold, and wet and scarfed down dinner, had a team meeting and hit the hay. Phew! This day was a whirlwind!! Thanks for hanging in there along my journey-it has been fun to share with y'all back home and I love knowing that I have friends "here" with me virtually!

I may not get the next day posted (which is actually today for me) before I get home as we jump on a plane home at the time I normally post-so look for it soon after I get home! We went to Woliso, south of Addis and it was spectacular to get out of the city and see a whole new side of Ethiopia!