Final Day in Ethiopia

I awoke Thursday very sad that it was our last day there. I was ready to have the comforts of home and see Sam and Cora and introduce Eli to our family, but I was not ready to leave. We really enjoyed our time there, and we were both surprised at how normal it felt to be in Africa. This was the first time we'd been out of America, and it wasn't what we expected. It made the world seem smaller because we saw that even across the world, people are people. They had jobs and families, joys and sadness, a need for God. We also saw the vastness of God's creation, and Ethiopia is beautiful. Every way you looked around the city, you saw green trees and mountains on the horizon.

We went to Hannah's Hope again, just to be there. It was like a magnet, drawing us in. We wanted to memorize every part of it, not just because its special to our son, but because it is the hands and feet of Jesus. I literally did not want to leave, but the babies were asleep and the little ones were sitting down to eat lunch, so we felt a little intrusive. Before we left, we picked some flowers to press and a few stones from outside the gate...free souvenirs! Unfortunately, our larger rock was taken by security, but she let me keep the little one when I said sadly, "For the baby please?"

I took this pic as we were leaving HH. The laundry you see in the background is typical. We were never there that the lines weren't filled with laundry, and there were always a few ladies in the laundry room. It seemed there were also workers whose main job was washing bottles and cooking. I can't imagine all the chores to be done!

On the way back to hotel, we decided to stop and get a buy something from a little vendor (shown below), mostly to break our Birr for tips. The older worker knew NO English, but he understood that we wanted 2 Sprites and 1 bottle of hair oil for Eli. Just then a local boy Danny, maybe 12, came up. We'd met him before and asked him if he could translate for us how much we owed. He quickly got in argument with the worker, who was shooing him away. We ended up paying 250 Birr, or $2.50 for all of it. The boy walked us back to the hotel and was so upset that the man overcharged us. He said it should have been half as much, but not since we are American. We gave him a Birr for his help. He also asked us if we like video games, and we told him we don't have a tv. He said, "America, no tv!?" He just couldn't believe it!

That afternoon we took turns taking naps and occupying Eli. I sat with him for a while on the patio, again just soaking it up. We took lots of random pictures this day, hoping to capture as much as possible. One thing I loved the most was the sounds. Goats, dogs, and roosters could be heard anytime. There were always voices floating up from the street of friends talking in Amharic. Across the street from the hotel they are building a fairly big building, and all day long we could hear picks and hammers chopping rock for the facing on the building (no power tools). There was usually a loud vehicle driving by and a horn honking. The Muslim call to prayer was early in the morning, and I thought it sounded beautiful. It brought me to prayer for the Ethiopian people.

We took showers and bathed Eli then packed everything up, even though it seemed we had just unpacked it! The seven families on our flight were all ready to go. It was a long ride to the airport, and Eli ended up sleeping from the van until we got on the plane, which must have been three hours. And if you think checking in and security at American airports are bad, they don't even compare to ET. It was slow and thorough.

I don't really want to write about the flight home, as I try not to remember! It was long, what else is there to say. I could tell about our baby with diarrhea which leaked on every outfit we had, or the loud child across the isle, or the long wait at immigration, or the person on our last flight who suggested we give our screaming child a pacifier (which made me cry and want to scream "he doesn't take a pacifier because he's lived in an orphanage his whole life!", besides he stopped screaming after he made yet another mess in his diaper, which happened on every take off and landing I suppose due to pressure and you can image changing diapers in airplane bathrooms).

But I won't tell you all of this. Instead, I'll say we loved ET Air, and I loved having all the Ethiopians speak Amharic to Eli and many of them told us that Tamru means Miracle. We also enjoyed our final times with our travel buddies. We had a great seat with a bassinet for Eli, so he slept quite a bit or sat in it to play, it was truly a blessing. Touching down in America was a great feeling too. It was sad to leave Immigration and know that we would likely never see our new friends again, and no one else in the airport knew how special this trip was. Also, I was very aware that Eli would not recognize Amharic the next time he hears it. This part of our journey was over, but really, it was just beginning.

We had a big crowd of family waiting for us in Indy, and it was great to see them. Eli was a trooper, and even smiled for them. He first car seat ride was 2 hours, and he slept most of it. After 9 days at home we are all settling in, but we will never be the same.