We finally have internet access...here's what we've been up to! We are LOVING Ethiopia. We feel so blessed to be here. We are meeting Robel today!!! My heart just skipped a beat...we are so excited!!!

Sunday, June 21st
Shew, we finally arrived in DC around 8:30pm and arrived at the hotel at 10pm. With vouchers to eat at their restaurant we had a delicious chicken & three cheese panini and tuna & guacamole wrap. With full tummies and weary, exhausted bodies we fell sound to sleep at 11:30pm. Boy did 5am come early! I hit snooze my usual 5-6 times :) and we were on the shuttle to the airport by 6:20am.
The line for Ethiopian air was short, we were relieved. At the ticket desk we were informed that we needed a printed reason for missing last nights flight to ET from United. ***if any of you miss a flight due to a delay (and it is not your fault) & they reschedule for you...make sure they type the reason on your new ticket or it may not be honored at least not initially!!!*** 40 minutes later we were thrilled to be done with check-in.
While sitting at the gate this adorable little girl came over and was going through my things. She wanted to have my diet coke but I decided to surrender my pringles instead. I have no idea who she belongs to but no one seemed to care that she was taking food from a perfect stranger.. I wonder if this is a foreshadow of things to come as I cannot say no to an adorable, curious little child. Unless of course, they are mine!

Monday, June 22nd
Can you say “long flight?” We slept off and on but ideally it was not the best sleep. I took Ambien but the 3mg of Melatonin actually helped me doze and stay dozing longer..
We arrived in Addis. WOW! This rush of emotions hit me as we flew over the city where our son has resided for almost a year. It really is beautiful. Mountainous, green, and palm trees...which I have always said that “I know I am on vacation when I see palm trees”. :)
We got in a fairly short line for our VISA after waiting for a few minutes in customs...need a VISA first. As I stood there...my feet where killin' me. We stood in the VISA line for probably an hour with only 12-15 people before us...go there directly!
We were met by our in country touring company (Village Ethiopia). We had many people help load up our items into his truck and then wanted a tip...yikes. You may just have to say no or know that you will need to tip all 4 guys that help you load up your 6 items.
We had to make changes in our travel as we missed our flight to Bahir Dar so after paying the “Village people” we went to the Ethiopian Air office to book our direct flight to Lalibella. For anyone who has waited endlessly at a Social Security office....it is much like this. Security guard making sure you get a number and then realizing that they are on number 69 and we have number 31. It was at this point that I decided to check out my tired feet...to my disgust my ankles must have been two times their usual size...can you say bring a diuretic!!! It must have taken us a total of 2-3 hours from walk in to walk out. On the way out I bought gum from a cute young boy and gave a young expecting mother money so she could feed herself and thus her baby. The begging is wearing on me. I feel bad but I'll end up with no money if we continue to give out money left and right.
AAHHHHHH we arrived at the TDS guest house (like a bed and breakfast) around 2pm (we arrived in Addis at 8:50am. It is fabulous here at the guest house. We were greeted by security who actually walked Daniel into town to get us some food later on. We had lots of help bringing our things upstairs and I was happy to tip security to do so. After a nice shower...I put my feet up and feel asleep. I napped for about 5 hours and then ate my wot and injera (yummy)!!! Then after repacking we settled in for bed.

Tuesday, June 23rd
I woke up at 4am ready to go! Yay!!! Our driver will be here at 5:30am to take us to the airport. Off to shower.We got to the airport and we got through security relatively easy. I decided at the last minute that I needed a coca cola and so I exited the waiting area and as I did of course they started boarding. Daniel & I ended up running to the shuttle that took us out to the airplane. I had to leave my cola behind at the x-ray machine. Good thing it was only 11 birr....about a dollar.
On our flight to Lalibella we had two stops first, Bahir Dar then Gondar on our first leg we ended up sitting next to a gal that looked somewhat familiar. It was Julia Odom, Johannes' mom. We talked most of the way to Bahir Dar where she and her Dad got off.

Lalibella is GORGEOUS!!! We were met at the airport by Ficru who is an amazing tour guide. He grew up here in Lalibella so he has some pretty fun insight to how life has changed here over his lifetime. As we left the airport we traveled next to an empty river and many empty canals that if the rains would come, would fill up and leave plenty of water for the off-season. They are almost a month into their rainy season and they have not gotten enough. Pray for rain. In addition to these empty rivers and canals are beautifully plowed fields (by hand!) leveled and divided by rock walls. The fields are ready to plant as soon as the rain starts. They will plant wheat, teff (for injera), barley, other grains & cotton to sustain them. They get about 3 crops a year when the rain comes as it should. Did I mention pray for rain.
On our drive up (& I mean up) there were all sorts of people walking with various loads on their backs...from babies to water cans & sticks. Also donkey's had much on their backs.
We traveled through several villages, some were huts as you would imagine an African village to look like, others where square homes made out of sticks and mud. Some had thatched roofs and some where metal. The thatched roofs last 5-6 years and then must be removed and rebuilt.
We made it to the Jerusalem Guest House...it is so nice. Our room has an amazing view of the valley below. It is so beautiful. I currently can hear beautiful music and crickets.
Today we visited the rock hewn churches. They are not kidding...this is definitely the 8th wonder of the world. These churches are living churches so as we went through them we removed our shoes and got to experience the fabulous people worshiping their God. If we did nothing else our whole trip minus meeting and bringing home Robel. It all would be worth the travel! We definitely intend to bring our family back to Lalibella in 10 years or so. The people of Lalibella live a simplistic, self sustained life. It is so wonderful to see. They are a happy people. It has been a pleasure to be among them today.
After our tour of all 11 churches we came back to our room to chill and ended up napping for 2 hours. We had lunch and dinner here at the guest house which is amazingly yummy and inexpensive.
What a wonderful day. We leave for Kombolcha tomorrow at 6am. I am excited to see the place that Robel is from. It makes me emotional. I wonder how it will all play out. We plan to go to the orphanage Bete Hisanet where Robel was relinquished. We hope to find out more about his family and would LOVE to meet them. Even just a little more info would be great. Off to bed.

Wednesday, June 24th
Today we headed out to Kombolcha (where Robel is from). What a drive! It was absolutely gorgeous and worth the 10 hours (with 3 stops) it took to get to Kombolcha. We traveled on dirt roads, on large rock roads, on asphalt, we saw goats, cows, horses, donkeys and camels! It was amazing to see the little children caring for their little herds. These little ones are probably as young as 4 and sometimes they have their younger siblings with them. They sometimes walk for miles their whole purpose of walking and herding the animals is for food and water which is not attainable for the animals in the village. These roads are steep and rocky and it continues to amaze me how much responsibility these little kids have. I don't know how their mothers do their own duties with their little ones off watering and feeding the animals. Guess they are just used to it. The kids were all so cute (conjo) as we drove by...waving, yelling “you” which is their way of saying hello to the foreinge – us. In one village all the kids held out their hands and yelled...”money, money, money”...obviously someone before us had handed out money. We smiled, waved and kept going. Several of the kids would run as fast as they could after us. Sometimes for 2-300 yards.
When we reached the top of the mountain, we were now on what they called a natural bridge. Seriously it is the top of a flat mountain. They say it is 60k long...I pictured a cliff on both sides but I couldn't even see where the edge was past the villages. I had a “fun” experience with my first village bathroom. It was a little sticks and mud hut with a corregated metal door and no windows. The floor was made out of mud and sticks too and there was a whole in the ground about 6 inches in diameter. Let's just say some of the other “guests” had missed the hole. YUCK! I had to go so I did. It was so gross that I had my skirt tucked into the waist until I was a few feet from the door...modesty did not really matter at this point... The next facility was a bit better, a cement room with what looked like a cement down spout catcher only it was clay and a whole in the middle. There was a bucket of water and a pitcher to “flush”. Crazy! I am glad I had a real toilet tonight. Though I had to use a bucket and pitcher to flush it at least it was a western style toilet.
The towns and villages we went through were beautiful and amazing. We have taken so many photos...it is crazy. I love Ethiopia. It is really very clean. A few villages had scattered garbage but most have not! I am impressed.
When we finally got into Kombolcha we went potty, unpacked a bit so we could get out our donations for Bete Hisanet. After some confusion we were able to enter the compound and share in our first coffee ceremony (a welcome ceremony where they served bread, jam & coffee - if you drink coffee) and tour the facility. It was absolutely immaculate! Everything was so organized. We were so impressed. The kids were amazingly behaved and were cleaning up for supper. There were 2 nannies there at the time and the director for 40 kids and these kids looked good and were very good.
Muhammad met us and let us in and told us about when Robel first came to him as an orphan. Yes, he was relinquished to Muhammad. We took video of him sharing that story with us. We went to bed happy we had made the journey and glad to have seen where Robel was from. Oh, Kombolcha is a somewhat large, industrial city/town. We did not tour it much as it was so busy in town. We did take many photos, hopefully Robel can tell us more. Here we met Steph who is adopting Almaz and will be driving back with us to Addis tomorrow.
Thursday, June 25thAnother day on the road. We started off at 7:30am and drove and drove and drove. There were several parts that completely reminded me of home with pine trees and everything. Today was a great day to travel, fairly cool and gorgeous out. We saw some more beautiful villages and towns and camels and other novelties that pertains to their everyday life. Mostly we visited with Steph and her dad Steven. The time really passed quickly after 4 ½ hours we pulled over for a 5 minute break. Potty time. I got to squat in a farmers field and go. Much cleaner than my accommodations yesterday! The convenience & modesty of my skirt was fabulous, thank you Kelly! That was our only stop and we made it to Addis is 6 ½ hours. Yay. This afternoon we went and had dinner at the TDS hotel afterwards we walked to a little mini mart and bought some teff flour for making Injera. Yum. We look forward to cooking with Robel and bonding while we makes some of his favorites.
Tonight we have met up with 5 of the other 6 families who are adopting through WACAP. It is so fun to hear their stories and get to know them. One easy topic has been any travel stories...most of us have them except for Joe & Candace who are from Tacoma/University Park whose travels were amazingly smooth.
We got to meet Teklu tonight! We found out that we get to meet Robel's brother this week! Yay!!! We are thrilled!!! We can hardly wait! Happy, happy day!