First Day in Ethiopia

I won't bore you all with a day-by-day schedule of our trip, but I did think that I could share some excerpts of my journal from our first night and the next day:

Finally, we arrived! Somewhere between all the hours of flight time and losing 9 hours by traveling east, we lost a day! But, we were both feeling pretty good. The monitor onboard the plane said the local time was 7:47 p.m. (which is when we were scheduled to arrive) and the temperature was around 63 degrees.

Once we got off the plane, we stood in line for our visa and that took about 30 minutes. Then we went through customs and found our luggage at baggage claim. We waited in line about 10 more minutes to get through security to leave and then we found our driver, Efrem, who was waiting for us with a CHI sign. The airport was not very busy and it did not take long to find the car. Of course, about 7 young men followed us to try to help us with our luggage. Efrem was very stern with them and said only 1 could help. He put our luggage in the car and we had to borrow money from Ephrim to tip him 10 birr, because we had not exchanged any dollars yet.

I have to pause at this point to say that Paul and I both somehow came on this trip without watches. This was somewhat frustrating on the plane, because we didn’t have our cell phones to tell us what time it was and there was just no frame of reference to even guess. How, after all the lists and double-checking I had done, did we forget a watch?

So, we get in the car with Ephrim and his dashboard clock said 3:23. I assumed it was broken and asked him what time it was, he showed me his cell phone and it was 3:37. What? I didn’t understand. Three in the morning? It surely did not take that long to get through the airport! He insisted that was the local time and showed me his cell phone again. OK! Whatever…I was so disoriented now, it didn’t really seem to matter – what day was it, anyway?!

Once we arrived at the House of Hope (our agency’s transition home where the children were and where we would be staying), the baby was already asleep. Ephrim showed us to our room and I noticed the light was on in the nursery so Paul and I snuck in and asked the nanny if we could just peek in his crib. She smiled and showed us Ashenafi. I stood there looking at this precious baby boy who looked so peaceful, sound asleep with his little pudgy arms outstretched, palms up on each side of his head. He was beautiful! I cried! Paul teared up. I put my hand over my mouth to keep from sobbing, thanked the nurse and quietly backed out of the nursery.

We went back to our room and unloaded our luggage. Ephrim took Paul to get some food and bottled water as I unpacked and got our things a bit more organized. As I was settling in, I sat on the bed, overcome with emotion and began to sob. All these months and months of planning and then hours of traveling, finally I was in Addis and had just seen my son! He was more beautiful than any of the photos I had been sent. He was fat and round and his skin was smooth and soft. I couldn’t wait to get my hands on him first thing tomorrow morning.

What really made me emotional, though, was seeing the babies all in their cribs. I couldn’t help but think, “Your mamas don’t know where you are!” I know they were being well cared for and all healthy, but how did their moms know? How did a mother sleep at night not knowing where her perfectly round, sweet baby boy was eating and sleeping? I was torn inside imagining what these babies’ mothers must have lost in order to make such a great sacrifice so that their children could have a better life. It completely overwhelmed me and I was glad I had the chance to be alone to process.

When Paul came back, we sat on the floor and ate strange cheeseburgers from a place called Burger Queen. They tasted pretty good, but we wiped off the lettuce and tomato, just to be sure. The sack of French fries was huge. I think it must have been 3 potatoes worth of fries in each order! We couldn’t eat them all, but it sure tasted good.

We began to laugh as we realized that we were sitting on a floor eating weird drive-thru food at God-knows-what-time on who-knows-what day in the middle of Ethiopia, Africa. Our son, who we hadn’t met was in the room down the hall and we were supposed to go to sleep??? We just couldn’t get over how surreal everything felt!

We finally charged one of our cell phones and turned it on to see if we could get a local time. It was 12:30 a.m., so we set the alarm for 6:00 and tried to get some sleep. I’m not sure how many times I awoke. When I did, I prayed for my kids at home and would drift back to sleep. However, at 5:45 my eyes opened wide and I felt like it was Christmas morning. I decided to go ahead and get ready so I could get down to the nursery as soon as it was appropriate to do so. We waited until 7:00 and then headed down.

Ashenafi was in his crib, awake and playing with a toy. The nanny picked him up, kissed on him and then with tears in her eyes she handed him to us as she said “Ciao, Ashu…Mommy!” She repeated “Mommy” several times as she gave him to me. She looked so sad to see him go. It broke my heart, but I was encouraged that he had obviously been loved and well cared for. We took some photos and both took turns holding him. He looked directly into my eyes and I fell in love! I smootched on his cheek and he got very still and opened his mouth for more kisses. He let me kiss all over his little fat neck and chubby cheeks. I couldn’t believe it! How could I so immediately fall in love?!

When we took him to our room, Paul laid him on the bed and we both played with him for a while. He giggled and smiled and batted his hands at our faces. When he grabbed hold of my finger with a firm grip, I saw him look into my eyes and I felt such a surge of motherly instincts that I melted!

Side note here…When I met the director of the program, Tsegay, I asked him about the time. He laughed and said that in Ethiopia they tell time differently. Well, of course they do!! He explained that their day begins at sunrise (6:00 a.m.), so 1:00 in the morning is our 7:00 a.m. They still go on a 12-hour schedule and then their night begins at sundown (6:00 p.m.), so 1:00 in the evening is our 7:00 p.m. Great! Just wanted to clarify that!