We are still adjusting to our new time zone (8 hours ahead of Milwaukee) and we both were up around 1:30AM. So we decided to go downstairs to the kitchen and eat leftover coffee cake and drank some water and warm tea. We had a good conversation about our experience traveling to Hosanna and taking in the trip. After about 30 minutes we wandered back upstairs to our room, laid in bed listening to our iPod and fell back asleep.
We woke up with a start around 8:00 when one of the workers in the house, thinking we were already up, entered our room to empty a trash can. Good thing we were not changing in the middle of the room when she just walked in. Since we were now wide awake, we got ready and went downstairs for breakfast.
After breakfast we piled into to the van and drove over to the care center (where the kids live) to meet them as the first time as their parents (when Michele and the rest of the group met the kids during their first trip, the parents had not gone through court yet, so the adoption was not yet official). The only people who had not yet met their kids was me, another dad who had stayed at home with their kids and a couple who were one of the last families to get their referral before the two trip system was implemented.
You can see the care center from the guest house, it is about a 1/4 mile away but there is no direct drivable road to get there. When we got there one of the nannies that took care of Mehandis was walking in to the care center. She was the nanny who we have pictured with Mehandis during the entrustment ceremony. She recognized us and came over to us with a big smile and gave us warm hugs. Michele had seen her when she was there in July and have her a picture of her and Mehandis.
The care center, which is new for our agency since we were last in Ethiopia, is a really nice house. Our guess is that is was a house of an ambassador since there are numerous embassies in the area (I think the Norway embassy is the next property over). There is a pool outside (no longer used), huge windows, lots of nice detail work along the ceilings and an enormous kitchen.
Our agency films the first-time meetings of the parents with their new kids, so the families are taken one by one. This was the same as when we met Mehandis but that time it was just two families as the rest of the travel group had not yet arrived. This time all the families were there, the process took much longer and Michele and I were the last called, Michele blamed our last name.
Finally we were called, we walked up two floors and into the room where Abera was living. There were 12 kids in this room, all about the same age, in their own small beds that are raised to about waist level. Abera was the second crib in when you walked in to the room. The social worker shows you the baby so you know which one is yours. Michele jumped at the chance to hold him again and her smile brightened the room. Soon I was able to hold him as well. Obviously this is a big moment, meeting your son for the first time, but I have a hard time getting too wrapped up in. It is hard for me to open up so quickly to someone that is a total stranger. It is great to have the meeting video taped but for me the smiles are kind of forced. Not that I am not happy, but all I really just want to do is get to know him.
Below is a short video of Abera back at the guest house.
Soon the film crew was finished taping our meeting and we brought him downstairs and were able to spend about an hour with him. He tried to move on his stomach and had good kicking legs. He seemed generally easy going and happy. The workers came around and it was his feeding time, so we got to feed him some rice cereal and we were happy to see how well he did with it.
It is always fun to see the group of parents with their kids for the first time. You get to know these people without kids for a day or two then all of a sudden all of them are playing mom and day. The room was full of babies (and a couple of toddlers) with many happy parents.
After a quick hour, we left to go back to the care center. Taking advantage of a nice day, Michele, Danielle, Patrick, another couple and I walked back to the guest house. It is about a 10 minute walk and was a bit muddy. After a good lunch our agency drove us over to their office building to do some paperwork for our embassy appointment on Tuesday and let us know what CHSFS is doing in Ethiopia.
It is amazing what our agency has accomplished since they started international adoptions in Ethiopia about 9 years ago. CHSFS is located in Minnesota and handles both international and domestic adoptions Ethiopia is one of several countries that they work with it is their biggest operation outside of the US. They have over 400 employees in Ethiopia, run humanitarian projects, a hospital in Addis Ababa and three schools in different parts of the country. They have ambitious plans for expansion with their humanitarian efforts. Almost all of the funding for all of this comes from the head office in Minnesota, which comes from the fees that we pay to adopt from Ethiopia. We are not sure how much of our fees go toward this but if sure seems like a decent percentage.
It is amazing to think how many people have jobs and how much good is being done because of adoptions in Ethiopia. You look at all of these workers, from the cleaners and cooks at the guest house, the nannies at the care center and the professional employees in the main office, that is a large amount of employees that are all supported by adoptions. Add in the outreach that they do, and it is overwhelming. Many of the professionals, from the social workers to the film crews to the administators, are educated middle class citizens. It is strange to think about when you are there, these 12 families who are there this week, go a long way to helping support all of these jobs. We do believe that at some point adoptions will slow significantly down, or even stop in Ethiopia (it is the trend with international adoption for the process to ebb and flow). If that happens, not only will children not find loving families to take care of them, but all of these jobs and humanitarian work would go away.
After the propaganda presentation from CHSFS, we went back to the care center, picked up our kids, and brought them back to the guest house. We did not get them overnight yet, just for the afternoon. We brought Abera up to our room, laid him down on our bed and played with him.
We got some good pictures and were able to feed him on our own for the first time and generally got to know him a bit better. It was a good afternoon. With his crazy hair and funny looks, he easily made us smile.
Below is another short video of us at the care center with Abera.
After a while we went upstairs to find Patrick, Danielle and Tegagn. We got some good pictures with the two boys but soon it was time to take the kids back to the guest house. I decided to let Michele take him back while I stayed back to take a quick nap. I slept so hard that I was entirely confused as to what day it was when I woke up. It took me a minute, but finally figured it out that it was evening and dinner was coming up soon.
Most of the travel group went to a traditional Ethiopian dinner, the same place they had gone when they traveled a month ago. However Danielle and Patrick were not that interested in going and convinced us to stay home with them. So we stayed back, along with another family, and the cooks made the six of us a couple of pizzas. We had a nice quiet dinner together with good conversation.
After dinner Patrick, Danielle, Michele and I went up to Metro Pizza for some drinks. It is nice to have a place to escape to for a night that is in walking distance. We sat in their bar area and enjoyed St. George's. They played a DVD of 80's love ballads with Whitney Houston, Michael Bolton, Roxette and many more. It was fun to hear and see these videos so far from home. We got a lot of laughs from the songs. We had a great conversation, ranging from our experience so far, adoptions in general and basic getting to know each other stories. While looking at the bar, I noticed they had some Teacher's Whisky. When we traveled to pick up Mehandis, our group stopped at a grocery store that has a liquor section and Michele purchased Teacher's Whisky as our drink for the week. We got a kick out of the name and our cheapness, forgoing the more expensive liquor. So I had to get us shots of the Teacher's. So the bartender poured us our drinks and we got to enjoy our taste of Ethiopia.
We stayed out until 9PM and walked back to our guest house. We used the house computer and sent a quick e-mail to our parents to let them know that we were OK and everything was going great. We soon retired to our room, read in bed and went to sleep around 10:30.
No comments:
Post a Comment