Sunday/Monday/Tuesday

Day 4 - Sunday

So we didn't sleep much better last night – we were both wide away by about 3:30am... so we ended up getting up and getting ready for the day. Its funny cause i am never that wide awake at home. Eyob took us to church today. It was Beza International Church and it was very good. I think there were about 500+ at the english service we went to. It was great to meet Eyob for the first time – he is the director of KVI. He came back and had lunch with us and we had a good chat. Chris and Christine and Jessa and Doug went to Adama for the day to see their kids. It was great to hear all about their adventures and meeting their boys. Its funny that Chris and Christine's boy is named Molaign Bedilu and it seems like they got some pictures of Bedilu over the months in error... pretty funny. We did give in and have a short nap this afternoon – hopefully this won't come back to bite us... Overall it was a pretty quiet day. Mike is ready for more adventure and i am slowly warming up to the idea. Tomorrow is court!

Day 5 – Monday

We slept much better last night! Our first full night of sleep!!! We were pretty excited to get up and get going to court. Germatchew picked us up and already had Jessa and Doug in the van. So nice to finally meet them. We then picked up Martha from the Kidslink office. It was a short drive to the court house. Martha led us inside and up the stairs. At the time it felt like we were climbing 10 flights... It was a busy building with lots of people there. We finally got to our destination. It was a large waiting room with chairs on the outside of the room. There were probably about 40+ people waiting there to see the judge. We were only there for about 15 minutes until we were all called in. All three couples and Martha went in together. We were all quite nervous! We entered a little room and the judge had her desk at the end. In front of her were a couple of desks full of paper work and files. We sat in chairs at the other end of the room. She took our passports and then asked us a number of questions. They were all 'yes and no' type things but she did speak to us about our responsibility to teach our sons ethiopian culture and have a support system of other adoptive families. Then she said the magic words to the other couples – 'they are yours'. She then explained to us that there was a letter missing for our file. We had conditionally passed based on when the letter comes. It was very disappointing and i was fighting back the tears. I knew if i started i wouldn't be able to stop. Martha and Germatchew reassured us that we would probably have the letter before we leave to go home.

Once we got back to the guesthouse we could then plan out most of the remaining trips we are making. Then we got a taxi and headed off to Afroland Lodge to meet up with Jessa and Doug. We had quite a taxi ride!!! Our driver first had to change the water in the rad... Mike could explain it better... It was quite something. I am sure mike will write about our trip!! He charged us a bit more but i think that the comedy show we had was included in the price! He was quite a character!!! So, we went out for lunch with Jessa and Doug and Chris and Christine. It was a great lunch and then we met another couple at the restaurant from Alberta with their little guy! We walked around for a bit and then came back to the guesthouse. This was the first time that we had people really begging around us. One girl with a baby on her back followed us for quite a while asking for money. 'Please my baby'.... it was hard to ignore but we just kept walking. Then on the taxi ride on the way home a guy came up to the car and wanted money... It is so hard – but we found out that is actually illegal to give money to beggars... We spent the rest of the evening planning out our donations and shopping trips for tomorrow.

Day 6 - Tuesday

Today was shopping day!!! We had collected quite a bit of money from friends and family. It was to make donations to 3 orphanages. Emnet picked us up and we went to KVI Addis to look at their washing machine. Then we were off to shop. We went to about 5 different stores to see what was out there. Then we had a machiatto :) and decided to go with one we had seen in the second shop. Back we went and to the store. It took a while to figure things out. Another lady was looking at the same one when we got there and she said it was a good one. So, we did the paper work – the receipt had my name on it and loaded it up into the Landcruiser and headed to the orphanage. What a reception we got!!!! All the workers came out and the laundry lady had a big huge smile on her face! We took lots of pictures with the machine. They had 3 other machines there but only 1 was working and there was a huge mountain of laundry to be done! We got to poke our head into Bedi's room and say hi. He was standing in a crib bouncing up and down with another boy – they looked like they were full of mischief!!! We came back to the guesthouse and had lunch. Then we meet the head nurse from the Adama Orphanage and went to the merkato. What a trip!!! This is the largest market in Africa. We drove in and stayed in the car as Sister did all the negotiating. As soon as the vendors see 'ferengi' the price goes up. It didn't take long to find 18 back packs and 12 pair of shoes.

When we got back to the guesthouse, we had a coffee ceremony for Bob and Ceclie. Amazing coffee that is roasted, ground and brewed in front of us and then served. Must have 3 cups!!! Popcorn with sugar is also served. They had spread a mat with lots of lovely flowers from the garden, very special. The rest of the day we rested to get ready for our big trip.