Hi all - the internet has been down at the Guest House so am quickly sending this from an internet cafe. We are here safe and sound, got some pretty good sleep on the plane so feel pretty good. We thought we would be getting Little J today but this will not happen until tomorrow (Tuesday). Today we will be getting to go to a museum and to the "post office" which is a shopping area. The nurse from the care center is going with us so she will be able to help us buy donations for the care center with the money my generous friends at work donated.
We were disappointed that the kiddos were not indeed going to come today but we weren't expecting that in the first place. We were well informed by our agency before we traveled that you just "go with the flow", that things aren't always on a schedule. This made Annette feel better since Michelle was not going to be able to get to Ethiopia until Tuesday morning. Before we met up with Beza, the nurse, we were taken to a restaurant called the Zebra Grill. If I had known this at the time, I had forgotten a year later so thank you JJ for mentioning it on your recap! The owner of the Zebra Grill was born in Ethiopia and adopted when he was little and then returned to Ethiopia to open the restaurant. I told this to Tim this morning and he said, Wow,.....I don't want Little J to move back. Daddy's girl yes. He went on to say, well of course I want her to do whatever she wants in life, but man, to be that far away and not see her very often......Thank goodness we have a LOT of years before we have to worry about that!
We had lunch, I knew food would be a problem for me, I'm not very diverse when it comes to food which I really dislike about me, so I brought power bars, a jar of peanut butter and other things that if I needed something, I had something to eat. I can't remember what I ordered but I'm pretty sure I didn't eat much of it. Tim tried something spicy. All the traditional dishes are served with their bread called injera. It is kind of spongy and sour like. Tim was eating his dish and the injera separately and was starting to have some problems - like sweat coming out of his head! Then he started eating them together and well you live and learn, that is what you are supposed to do and then he easily tolerated it. I'm not sure he left food on his plate all week :-) Beza the nurse joined us then and we went to the museum. I had to go to the bathroom (thank goodness #1 only) SO bad and I had forgotten to bring toilet paper. Not usually ever available. Thank goodness Annette had some so the "bathroom" was not inside the museum but outside in a little wood hut. Not a flushing toilet, seems like I recall a hose of running water and nothing really to sit on but hey, at least some place to go! And this is their National museum! We enjoyed seeing the museum and some of the wonderful and ancient items. I also took this opportunity to start grilling Beza about Little J! I figured why wait until tomorrow to ask my questions? So, I asked, does she sleep through the night? Yes. Hallelujah!! I think God gives us older moms a little break since He knows how much we need the sleep! Does she like to be held? No. Hmmm, not what I was expecting, and Beza probably sensed that, she added, she is a very comfortable baby. So, translation, she does not cry (once she receives a bottle!), therefore she does not need to be held. I think I asked a couple other questions and asked about my friend Amanda's little guy. I wanted to send her any info I could before we would go visit him at the care center that Thursday.
We then went to the shopping area called the "post office" where you can buy all sorts of traditional Ethiopian items. I searched and searched but couldn't find any matching outfits for the girls, I was really disappointed. After that, we returned to the Guest House to hang around until dinner. We were talking with Johnny who was on duty and we asked him how to pronounce our daughter's Ethiopian name - we wanted to see if we had been pronouncing it right and we were! It is Nebiyat, Neb e et. He told us that this name means Prophet! WOWWWWW. When we were talking about names, we had decided that if we got a referral for a girl we would call her Jackie. After we received our referral, at first we were going to go with that, but after a couple weeks looking at her pictures:
we didn't think Jackie was right. So, we chose a different name that we had tossed around and decided yes, this fit. Well, AFTER we came to that decision, a few days later I looked up the meaning of her name. I had never done this before, didn't know what my own name meant or Big J's. The meaning of the name we selected: Gift from God. WOW! That she sure is and we've kept her Ethiopian name as her middle name.
Since the other family had not arrived yet, the four of us, Matt, Annette, Tim and me, went to dinner at a place that Matt and his wife had eaten at when they were in Addis the previous September. I had pizza and it was quite good!! On our walk back to the Guest House, we had kids walking with us and they were holding Matt's hand. Annette and I both gave our left over food to these kids. They went running off so I was hopeful it would be enjoyed, Lord knows I didn't really need it!
Ok, sorry that got WAY longer than I thought one day recap could be but tomorrow really is "gotcha" day!!
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