Wednesday

Wednesday – Day 7

This was the day we were off to Soddo. It was an amazing adventure into the country side. Bedilu was born near this place and spent some time in the orphanage there before going to the city. Emnet picked us up and we left for Soddo by 6:30am. It was amazing to get on the road and out of the city. It is a huge city and it did take quite a while to get into the countryside. We picked up Sirfrehiutwot Kerhlase along the way. She is the project manager for KVI. It was quite a drive!! It took us 5 hours – no stopping!! Such amazing and beautiful countryside! We saw desert and mountains, fence made from cactus and beautiful flowering shrubs. Round huts with amazing painting, cattle and oxen and horses and donkeys and goats and sheep and camels and one hyena hit on the road. Animals are everywhere and the donkeys work very hard!!! It seems that gathering water is a big job here and we see many people spending their days getting water. Donkeys with water jug harness or carts full of water jugs.

We saw 2 different times, friends carrying a sick person on a stretcher to the nearest clinic.... This seemed rather futile as there didn't seem to be towns anywhere near. The second group were mourning – crying and tearing at their hair... It was so sad to see knowing that they probably were too late. We also saw a funeral procession when we got into town.

We got into town, found our hotel - $18/night and had some lunch. Soddo is a very nice city. Very clean and not as crazy as Addis. After lunch we headed to the orphanage. We were welcomed there and had a tour. So many young babies there – some a month or so -just tiny babies! I think there were at least 15 or so babies there. I would have loved to hold them but they are pretty shy of strangers. We saw the bedrooms and the kitchen – cooking over charcoal fire and small burners. They are doing an amazing job. The older kids were at school. There were 2 boys that we there and not in school. They were new to the orphanage and didn't know the local language. We got out our bubbles and played with them while things got arranged. We were waiting for the social worker to come and speak with us as well as a shopping list. The sister went with us to shop.

Chris and Christine gave a donation and so we were off to shop. We got 100kg of Teff and of flour and some formula. Everywhere we went people were calling 'ferengi' – but unlike the big city they weren't asking for money – just wanted to touch us or have their picture taken. We caused quite a stir at the market!!! When we got back to the orphanage we got everything unloaded.

We had an amazing adventure meeting so many people who were involved with Bedilu's early days. They were all so welcoming and humble and I was overcome with how many folks have cared for our son and have been involved in his story. This is his story and so we will not be sharing the details of this day. Some day he may choose to share but until then we will guard his experience and be grateful for the way God has protected him and has used others to bring him to us.

By the end of the day we were all done in. We had a nice dinner and then we were in bed. I did not sleep much that night – very hard bed and noisy place!!!!! I did have a nice shower though – which has been kind of rare :)