Back to Addis

Fitsum showed up shortly after we finished breakfast to haul us back to Addis. He had told us the day before that we could take our time on the way back and stop and see any sites that we wanted. It was more or less decided that we wanted to get back to Addis sooner rather than later. So we were not necessarily opposed to going a bit more slowly than we had on the way down, when we were on a tight schedule, but we did not necessarily want to take the day to tour one of the national parks and see the birds.

At dinner in Awassa, when we were talking to the adoptive father doing the film, Solomon, the driver with him from WHFC told us about a fish market, not far from the hotel, where there were monkeys. He said that we should definitely have Fitsum take us there the next day. When I mentioned it at breakfast, the other couple was fine with going.

Now, when he said fish market, I had men around counters, throwing fish to one another. Then I realized that I was not in Seattle, and my vision switched to something from Andrew Zimmern Bizarre Foods. Dirt floor, battered tarps, wooden stands, and people everywhere bartering and negotiating for fish.
Well, I was wrong on all points. We drove up to a set of gates with guard stands on either side, and into a national park. We drove over into a grove of trees and parked. On the way you could see small brown monkeys jumping out of the trees to get a closer look.

The grove was on the edge of a lake and the fisherman were all coming in with their small boats, and their small catches. Little kids were running all over the place, and when they saw that I was completely giddy over the blue balled monkeys they ran and go bread – kind of like English muffins or soda bread and sold Cory two pieces. This was so we could coax the monkeys over to us, and it certainly worked.
There was one monkey in particular that really liked me. I felt so bad for the little guy. I’m not sure if I have mentioned before that there are dogs wandering everywhere with no owner in particular. Well, as I was feeding this monkey I noticed that he had marks all over him, like big festering sores kind of marks…. I was a little concerned that I was going to get some sort of monkey leprosy. But he was smaller than some of the others and seemed Very hungry.

I asked Fitsum what was wrong with the monkey and he told me that it was the dogs – that they attacked the monkeys and the sores were actually the bit marks from the attack… Poor monkey!!!! So I kept feeding him, holding out the bread with him taking it out of my hand. The little ingrate tried to steal my ring. Yup, I had a cheeky, blue balled monkey try to steal my cheap ring from Mazatlan. So there I am yelling at a monkey at this “fish market” saying let go you bad monkey. Bad monkey. The monkey seriously put his head down and his hands between his legs, until I got over it and then he started taking the bread from me. He tried to steal one more time – the rest of the piece of bread, and he got yelled at again. “Endlessly, horribly bad monkey!! That is rude. Don’t do that”. Yes, I was serious. I forgot that there were other people around me. And no, it is not on video. Thank God Cory as sleeping on the job. This time the monkey kept his head and hands down for a really long time. Then when we walked away to explore more, he followed me. I think he liked the tough love.

There were also a lot of crazy looking pelican type birds here. The kids would go over to where the fishermen were cleaning the fish and take handfuls of the guts to throw at the birds so they would stand up and show their full bodies, so that us tourists could take photos. Then of course they expected payment.

The lake was gorgeous and the birds were interesting, but let’s face it, it was all about the monkeys for me. If I could have gotten a visa for one of those guys – well, let’s just say there’d be some poop flinging happening in this house right now.
So we left and headed back to Addis. On the way we took our time, stopping to take a photo here or there and having a cup of coffee at a little roadside hotel/café. Basically just relaxing and if I haven’t mentioned it before, let me now, or if I have, do it again. If you are in Ethiopia, bring your own toilet paper. I cannot tell you how invaluable those little rolls of travel Charmin are. And also, don’t forget hand sanitizing wipes of some sort too. Some of the toilets outside of Addis are holes in the ground with a place for your feet on either side. There is pee all over the floor, and I don’t want to know what kinds of spiders, and it smells like the outhouses at parks here in the US in the middle of the summer time. Although on the main road down, the hotels that you would stop at have normal toilets, rarely with TP. Or soap and water to wash with. Crazy for a country that eats with their hands and are so concerned with washing them before meals.

Of course on our way out of the park, we were required to pay for use of the park. I can't remember exactly what it was but when someone with a rifle tells you to pay, you just do it.

One last story about the way back to Addis – the Camels. As we were coming up the road, we saw a herd of camels coming down along the side. This was something new. So our driver stopped for us to take pictures. He told us that they were from the Oroma region and that they were leading their camels to water. That is one hell of a walk. We’re talking days. As were taking photos, it became painfully obvious that the kids herding them were not cool with that. One kid, and he was a kid, I would say 13 maybe, was coming toward us across the road, yelling and shaking a rock at us, ready to throw it at us. His cohort, a little older, maybe 16 or 17, stood in front of the car so we couldn’t leave. Everyone quit taking pictures, pusses, and waited to find out what was happening. (My camera was dead) Our driver had no idea what they were yelling at us. Apparently he did not speak that dialect and it had no similarity to anything that he did. A car going in the opposite direction stopped in the middle of the road and they spoke their language. They explained to our driver that the boys were upset because we were taking pictures without paying. Seriously!!!! I think that we ended up paying them 10 birr, a dollar, but it was still annoying. Violent little extortionist. After we left there was a second herd of camels, and this time we offered money up front – gave them 20 birr and they were nice enough to pose with the camels too.

Next stop Addis. I’ll talk about getting back and meeting B for the first time.













I think that the pics are fairly self explanatory and I'm too lazy to label each one. Let me know if you have any questions!!

Slacker

I know I am and I promise that I am working on the next post in our trip, but I just haven't seemed to have a moment where I can fully concentrate on it.

Been a little busy with Boko, my crappy job, regular things, and then of course Shelby and Sake have decided that one or the other must die. This has come about in the last two days and it is out of control. Even with muzzles on they try to beat each other into the floor. I have never seen anything like this and I'm hoping my vet is on the prozac/lithium boat because I am running out of ideas short of leaving them muzzled/kenneled forever. AHHHHHH!!!!

Birth Family Visit

Warning : Someone is obviously a little wordy!!! Read at your own risk.

It was surprisingly easy to get up and ready for our birth family visit. Compared to sleeping in the chair in the airport in Amsterdam or trying to sleep on a flight with greasy feet in front of me, I think that 3 hours in the bed probably felt like 8!
We got all of our stuff together, we were leaving to drive south and would not be back until the next day. When we went down to the lobby our driver Fitsum was waiting for us. He loaded us in and drove to the guest house, where we picked up the second couple, and I have to say, had some of the most heavenly bread ever. It is made fresh every morning by the cook at the guest house and it is absolutely to die for. So good. After Cory and the other couple were done eating, we loaded up in the Land Cruiser and took off.

Driving in Ethiopia is an adventure it itself. At almost no time is there not someone or something on the road with the cars. And it is fully expected and understood that the cars are sharing their space. Sharing it with people, donkeys, donkey cars, horses, horse carts, dogs – lots of dogs, goat herds, cows, camels, etc.. And as you’re traveling on this highway in and out of little towns, all along the way are these little make shift houses and huts on the side of the road. Imagine driving along I-80 and people have just started putting up tents, or cabins, or some other type of small housing along the side of the road. The interstate! And everywhere are little kids. Some dressed, some not. Older kids walking to school, older kids who obviously are not in school, probably because their parents cannot afford it. Younger children, playing and standing along the side of the road. Right up on the shoulder, where a donkey cart could come by or a car could veer to avoid a horse cart. And I mean barely just walking tiny. Just standing there, watching. And its constant. There are children EVERYWHERE in this country. And rarely with adult supervision, at least once they could walk.

We drove through the Rift Valley – you know the cradle of civilization, where they found Lucy. Its dry and I won’t say barren, but dry, definitely dry, and very large. There are a few large lakes that you drive by, and as I mentioned lots of little towns. Each one seemed to be in a war too. Coke vs. Pepsi. A town had signs for one or the other, not both. Way to go guys. Can’t imagine why I saw so many kids with their teeth rotting out!

We also saw a lot of green houses. Extremely large green houses. Way bigger than a football field. I had read before going that Ethiopia was getting into the floral business, exporting to other countries, and this was obviously the production area so to speak.

When we got to the WHFC office in Awassa, we picked up a couple of guys who were going to help with the birth family visits, then went and picked up another man who was more familiar with the area we were going to. I can’t remember the names of the two men from WHFC and feel so bad. They were not the regular social worker whose name I had memorized so I think that it through me off. We all loaded back up in the car and started to Arbegona.

In Arbegona, where by the way you cease to be on pavement, it is now all dirt roads, we met with the birth families of the children that the other couple was adopting. It was very interesting to see both of their houses and this was where we first started being stalked by children. Cameras are like catnip for these kids. They see one and they are all over you to get their picture taken and have you show it to them. They were following us up and down streets like we were the Piper and they were, well you know the rest.

I probably shouldn’t share too much about the other family visits, for privacy, but it was interesting to see the two different types of houses that the women lived in. One was a small house, wood framed, with no real floor covering and odd papers posted to the walls for decoration. The second house was a hut, dirt floor, dark on the inside. In a very small place was the seating area, an eating area, a small bed and then a partition where the fire was for cooking. A hole in the top of the hut. It took us a while to focus in the dark and never noticed until we went back out into the sun that Cory had black soot all over him from the “walls” of the hut. Actually the grass fringes that hung out and had collected, I would imagine, years of soot from the cooking.

From here, we walked back to the car and we were standing around, wondering what was next. Where we were going to meet B’s dad. Finally the WHFC employees from Awassa ( I feel SO bad that I cannot remember their names) said that he did not show up. The plan had been for him to walk from his village to Arbegona and meet us at the community center. Well, for some reason, he did not show. They had no idea why and gave us the option of driving to his house to meet with him. It crossed our minds that he may not WANT to meet us, but we really wanted to be able to give him the letter we had written and the pictures of B, plus, be able to tell B that we had, so we said sure. We asked how far it was, and they said that for the dad it would have been a 5 hour walk – and it was about 20km.

Finally I got to be in the front seat, so for once I wasn’t feeling like throwing up. The countryside was very pretty. Green, creeks, mountains and clean air – which I would really appreciate later in the week in Addis. And people EVERYWHERE. You know how when you are driving in the mountains, going camping or fishing and you really have to pee, so you just pull over and hop out behind a tree. Good luck doing that here. Every time I thought, here’s a spot where I could go, I would see one pair of eyes peak out through the bush, and then another, and possibly another. There were kids mostly. Just like on the road coming down, but this was a dirt road where cars rarely come.

I honestly can’t remember how long we drove for, maybe an hour. It probably wouldn’t have taken as long if the Land Cruiser had a transmission that wasn’t about to fall out and the driver knew how to use the four wheel drive. The road really was not as bad as he thought it was and would not have been a problem for my Jeep. Finally he was not willing to go any further, the road was getting more rutted, so they paid a kid to run down the road to his dad’s house and find him. We waited in that spot for about an hour and a half. Taking pictures of the massive group of kids who had accumulated and finding a tree to pee behind where I was finally not bothered by anyone but a nosey cow.

Finally there he was, B’s dad. It all happened really fast, and we walked back up the road a bit from where we had been hanging out to a building that I had not paid much attention to. It was behind a high fence and pretty nondescript. Come to find out though, it was a church. We went in and sat down on the lawn to talk to him. The interpreters closed the gates behind us to keep all of the other locals out of the meeting. Honestly, I am not sure at one point they all just came in but I do remember looking up at one point during the visit and realizing that we had a massive audience.

We found out that he never got the message that we were coming and that he needed to go to Arbegona. So yay! We had not hunted this poor man down and forced him into a situation that he did not want to be in. When he got there he looked a little red eyed, almost as if he had cried recently, but maybe he had just hurried from his house. He started off the whole conversation by thanking us for taking his son. He immediately explained why he had to do this, and how happy he was that his son would be taken care of. It made the whole thing so easy for us. We asked the questions that we had, and as expected, it was difficult for it to be translated exactly and we did not necessarily get the detail we would have hoped for. You can’t really get a family medical history and we were a little disappointed not to meet B’s siblings, he said that they were in school. He also couldn’t really tell us a lot about his mom. No details on them meeting – he said they met when he asked her to marry him – or their life together. Also, no stories that we will be able to pass on to B about his growing up. You know, nothing to explain the scars, or stories about him as a baby. Kind of sad. But not his dad’s fault.

The meeting was fairly short, maybe a half an hour. One thing that we noticed is that his father was very good looking. I’ve noticed that many people look much older than their actual age. His dad was one of the first people living out in the rural areas that actually looked younger than his recorded age. You could see Boko in him, but not through any specific traits, unless you count their hair. It’s difficult to explain but it was there.

- Side note: I’ve been going through pictures from the trip with Boko, and he does not seem to recognize him. In the pictures of us sitting with his dad, he only points at Cory as daddy and me as mommy. Nice for the recognition but kind of sad that the memory is already gone.

We got back in the car immediately after the meeting and started back to Awassa. WHFC had made reservations at a hotel there for us. One fun part was when we pulled over on the way out, because everyone had to use the restroom, and it was completely dark, so we are all wandering out into the bushes looking for a place to use the facilities as they were, and I of course stepped in a big fresh steaming pile of shit. Nice!! I assume it was cow, but who knows. Given the fear that Boko has of snakes I’m glad that no one warned me of anything like that either.

We got to the hotel, around 8 pm I think, checked into our rooms – 400 birr, about $40 a night., and then went down to the restaurant. We sat with the WHFC employees for a bit and talked to them about the day. We ordered beers – St. George which according to them is the first beer in Ethiopia. After they left we met another one of the adoptive parents who had come to Ethiopia early. He is a film maker and was donating his time to do film on the humanitarian work done by WHFC. It was really interesting to hear about what he had seen and what WHFC does outside of adoption. They definitely do not promote that side well enough on their website. Which is obviously where he came in. While we were waiting for our dinner, the power went out – pretty typical for most of Ethiopia and we ended up eating by candlelight. So romantic if I didn’t have remnants of unidentified poo on my shoe. I did have some awesome doro wat here though.

When we went up to get ready for bed we realized that we only had one towel. No phone in the room so Cory ran down to get one. They had to deliver it, and while Cory was in the bathroom they showed up. I have a point to this, I really don’t just go into this much detail for no good reason. I answered the door for the towel, and had just taken my shoes off. The man who brought the towel was very concerned that I had not put on the slippers, and came in, pulled them out from the night stand – they were very flimsy slippers – and put them on my feet for me, my stinky feet with dirty socks still on. It was just kind of bizarre that he was so concerned about this.
The room was clean and comfortable, and although no phone, there was a tv with a lot of English channels. Kind of surprised, Ethiopia has things like CNN and CBS instead of Sky TV. Only two issues with the room. 1.) Fred Flinstone is pissed because his bed is in that room. Seriously, I had to look under the sheet to be sure that I was not laying on a rock slab. If I hadn’t been soooo incredibly tired I think that it would have been more of a problem. However, since this was my first full nights sleep in like 4 days, I slept like a baby. 2.) Individual water heaters in the bathroom which need to be plugged in and turned on. Want to do that early not after you’ve finally drug your ass out of bed after hitting snooze five times!!

The breakfast buffet was included in the price of the room and it was really good. Crazy! FYI – no pork in Ethiopia. I did not see one pig with all of that livestock roaming around and your choices were typically turkey ham, chicken sausage, beef bacon or veal sausage. All of which were really good. Wish we had all those options here. Beef bacon is much better than turkey bacon, just not as greasy as pork.
Well, I think that this is already an insanely long post so I will wrap it up and try to do another one soon on the next day. And don’t feel bad if you can’t make it through the whole post. I’m not sure that I could!!

Oh one thing that I did forget though is the blanket type covering s that all the men were wearing in Sidama. While we were in Arbegona we tried to find one in the same colors as the one his dad was wearing but we could not find any that were close. So we got a very purple one with blue details. It is called a Fasha and I did not see them anywhere in Addis, so if you are going to Sidama, and want something from your child’s area it is something to consider. With negotiating I think that it ended up being $15 US.










Pictures on the drive toward the village and house where B is from and pictures of some of the random kids who came up to hang out with us while we waited for him. One other thing I forgot to mention - I know the mind reels that their could be more. While we were waiting, Cory took out the photo album we had for his dad, which included lots of pictures of B, and he was showing it to the kids - they were pointing at the pictures and saying Boko. They remembered him. And Boko has pointed out some of the kids in these pictures and said their names. Too bad I can't always understand his pronunciation well. I would love to try and write their names down for him later.

Found IT!!!!

I’m writing this post off line right now, I’ll have to cut and paste it in later, because our power is out. I just got someone to bed, folded some laundry and sat down with a piece of potica, all ready to do a post – a good one, and of course, the power goes out. Hope it comes back on soon, or it is going to be a very cold night.
Anyway, my thought was to try and document on a day by day basis, our trip to Ethiopia, but we’ll have to see how that works out, since a fair amount of time has passed. Also, there are some stories that I want to share, but only with certain people. I have to see if my blog template allows for password protected posts, I’m not sure, and obviously cannot check right now. Otherwise, I will have to do those by email or something. You know, protect the innocent, or not so innocent as the case may be.

So in my earlier posts, I think that I have covered up to about Amsterdam going over. Of course my cold was still bugging me the whole way over so I was not in the best of moods. Then in Amsterdam, Cory went to plug my laptop in for me and fried the adapter – the new one we had bought to replace the one that didn’t make it out of Prague alive. And here I thought it was just an Eastern block thing. Or maybe it was the converter. Anyway, I don’t claim to be proficient in the area of hardware. He had to go back out into the airport – we were in the KLM Crown room, and go to the massive electronics store to find something to replace it… Actually, looking back I’m pretty sure he fried both because he could only find one and not the other, but it all worked out in the end. I was in a Nyquil induced fog at the time. Give me a break. While he was off looking for this I was napping in the chair I was sitting in. Didn’t even care if anyone took our stuff. I wake up and Cory is up at this counter, which obviously had better outlets than the ones provided in the lamp bases by the chairs and he is charging up the computer. He comes over to tell me that he would like to go out into the airport to find something to eat. For those of you who know me, you will see how sick I was by my response – but I already ate here in the Crown Room. Yes, for our 4.5 hour layover I was perfectly willing to just have two pieces of turkey cold cuts and a small roll. As we’re discussing our dining options and old man goes over to the counter, which is obviously being used by people with their own laptops and starts trying to use mine. Cory had logged out so he couldn’t, but he kept trying to enter a password, even when Cory went over and explained it was our computer. The guys STILL kept trying to enter a password, probably the one they give you to access the internet. He just did not believe him! Nuts.

Well, wandered out, got a breakfast I was not wholly into, and then realized we had to reorganize all of our liquids again because Amsterdam is one of those awesome airports where you have to go through a separate screening to get to your gate. Can I just say how much I hate those? You have to get to the gate at least an hour before your flight, you can’t leave again to get anything, like a magazine or snack, because then you have to go through the ridiculous security again. It’s such a pain in the ass. Cory ran down to get our Ziploc bags, and of course, it was a one bag per person minimum and their required bags are smaller than the ones at the US airport. Nyquil wearing off, Stacy getting very cranky.

We get to the gate, go through security and before getting on the plane Cory goes up to the counter and asks the woman how much it would be to upgrade to business for this third leg of our trip. I can’t remember what she said exactly, but it was not horribly unreasonable and we were considering it before she said, “But the flight is not fully booked so you’ll have plenty of room in Coach. I wouldn’t do it”. Okay, thanks helpful flight attendant…. Actually you evil, evil, cruel woman. Maybe before you make a promise like this you should look at the seats the people are in. Walking through the first half of the plane we’re thinking yah, this flight isn’t full, it’ll be fine, until you get to the third part of the plane, the very back, which is so packed full of people already, that their combined body heat already makes the place feel like a sweat lodge. And I’m sorry, I don’t mean to be judgmental or cruel, but with this crew, I was looking for the chickens, seriously. The woman sitting in front of us had her shoes off, and she must have had them off for the last 3 years they were so black and it was so thick. Seriously, it looked like she was doing clean up for the Valdeez (sp?) with her shoes off. And she was just putting her feet all over the seat, all over everything. I spent the entire flight just making sure that they didn’t happen to come backwards under her seat and touch my purse. I HATE feet as it is. Even the clean feet that come out after a pedicure. Keep them the hell away from me. So now I am freaked out about every airline seat I come in contact with. God knows who’s feet have been on them. And her kids. Oh don’t even get me started. Loud, obnoxious, the person behind me kept kicking me, and that was an adult. A few other men were just so excited to be on a plane that they kept getting up and running back and forth to each other – maybe pinching themselves to make sure it was real. I don’t know, but I was in what I thought was the 6th circle of hell, little did I know there was a time later in the trip when I would look back on these moments with fondness.

This group and a lot of other people in our area got off in Sudan during our refueling stop. After they all gave a round of applause when the plane touched down on the ground. Not like the pilots could even hear them back in the ass end of the plane. I could still just slap that woman at the desk…..

The next group that got on in Sudan was better. Same situation in front of us, family with small kids but these kids were so well behaved and their mom did not concern me with her feet, but the poor thing had to sit on that seat that swamp thing had been in…. Makes me cringe.

Another hour and a half to Addis Ababa and we were done. Went through customs got our luggage and out into the main area. Mulat was waiting for us to tell us what time we had to be ready for the birth family visit the next day. I felt so bad that he had to come out there at that time of night – almost 11 pm by the time we got to where he was, just to tell what we pretty much already knew. No wonder it took him most of the rest of the time we were there to warm up to us. After talking to Mulat we went over to the Sheraton area to let them know we were ready for our shuttle. I went to the bathroom while waiting and had my first experience with no TP. So glad I brought those Charmin travel rolls. Went back to where we were waiting for the shuttle. I hurried because they said 10-15 minutes. First experience with EST – Ethiopian Standard Time. 10-15 is very fuzzy. Could be 10-15 from anything. Not necessarily that moment. For us it was 10-15 minutes from 20-25 minutes from now. It was odd though how the hotels all had little booths almost carved out for themselves. All looking nicer than the airport which is fairly sparse. But the Sheraton’s was the nicest. Wood paneling all enclosed in its own little space with a 6 foot Christmas tree decorated and their poor desk guy in a suit. Leather couches and a coffee table. Just a lot different than the others. We ended up on the shuttle with two idiots from Europe. One was German and the other was Dutch. They talked during the whole drive and they had just met each other. Each one was trying to outdo the other with how much he had to travel. I can’t remember all the details now, but it was just wonderful entertainment.

Next we get to the Sheraton and it is pretty impressive when you drive up. It is its own little oasis in the city. I have heard a lot of people refer to it as a compound, but it’s just a nice hotel in the middle of Addis, which is unfortunately pretty much synonymous with extreme poverty. And after hearing that there was a bombing a few years back at the Hilton, I am happy that both hotels now have guards out front with the little mirrors on rollers to check under the car and that they make drivers open their trunks before coming in. Didn’t bother me a bit. Neither did the scanner and metal detector going in the front door. Oh well, it was always quick and safety is not a bad thing.

Well, this place was decked out for Christmas. That is one thing I noticed, that we were totally mislead on, that the kids there will have no concept of Christmas. That is total BS. There are Christmas decorations everywhere, EVERYWHERE and there is even a section of the Mercato dedicated to Christmas decorations. The Sheraton was decorated like you would expect most nice hotels. Big tree in the lobby, lights all over the grounds, Santas everywhere. Difference was, all the Santas were saxophone playing Santas, except for the ones climbing up ladders on the building, which gave me the creepy feeling of an elf invasion. Every Santa we saw in this country had a saxophone in his hands. And the ones out front around the fountain, had their legs removed so they were just torsos, heads,, arms and saxophones. Different. Every day up to Christmas they also had a real Santa in the main lobby that people would bring their kids to see. Kind of like the mall here.

Anyway, this is our introduction to Addis. We checked in, they had us in the wrong room. I pointed this out because the reservation sheet he gave me said 217, and he tried to put us in 1 something. When I asked if it was non-smoking he needed a few minutes to get us a different room. Guess which one that was, 217. The room was nice. The bed was a little uncomfortable, but overall it was good, with a huge patio. I mean the patio was at least the size of our room, although we really didn’t spend much time out there. Looking back on things, I wish that we would have spent a bit more time at the hotel. I don’t think that Boko would have been scarred for life if mommy and daddy had taken an afternoon to lie around the pool. But at the time we just thought we should keep going to see him as much as possible. Probably guilt over the fact that we were the only parents who could not take custody at any point because we were staying at a hotel…..

Sorry on a tangent. We got to bed around 12:30, probably a little closer to 1 and sent our alarms for 4. We had to be up and ready to go at 5 am the next day to be picked up by our driver and then go to the guest house to pick up the other couple that we would be traveling with.. And that is the end of our first night I guess in Ethiopia. I realize that it is painfully detailed, but hey, the power is out and I have nothing else to do right now. Brrrrr. It’s starting to get cold in here too.


The back of the hotel.



Still trying to organize all the pictures. I don't have Cory's on here either.

Not meant to be

So last night, our power went out. I had the intention to sit down and start blogging about our trip. So I just went ahead and typed up my entry in Word. And it was long and I even started on the second day. Well I saved it, multiple times. Save save save..... Well when I went to put it on the blog this morning, I had to restart the computer because it was not finding the internet connection. Log back in, go to retrieve the file - and its gone!!!!! WTF!!!!! Seriously. I mean it was thousands of words. I'm supposed to do that again.

Well here you go.

We got an airplane, then another then another. We got off in Ethiopia. It was dark

The End.

Where To Start

Well, I'm starting to feel a bit better, and actually staying up a little past B. Still don't think I have a full post in me, but I'mm going to try and start picking back up soon. I want to write about each day we were in Ethiopia before I completely forget about everything. That said, maybe a couple of pictures....




Not too far from where B is from.



Some of the kids Boko grew up with. A lot of them could recognize him from his picture.




The bizarrely random gnome village at the Sheraton.... No clue.