Ethiopia Day 2

As stated in my previous post, I was up around 3:00 in the morning. I got about 6 hours of sleep and will be getting more rest throughout the day. I just felt so gross that I had to get up and get a shower. Seriously, I am roughing it right now. With the loss of our luggage – I have no shampoo, no lotion, no razor, and most importantly and disturbing – no toothpaste. I considered packing a small tube in my carryon but we are lazy and didn’t want to deal with the liquid rules.

In my carryon I always pack my toothbrush, my hairbrush, make up, and deodorant. Now if you know me there are two things I am obsessed about – brushing my teeth and putting on deodorant. Well, guess what the one thing I forgot to pack was? Yup, my deodorant. I am still in disbelief that I don’t have it. No problem though, I will improvise and use Peter’s Seriously, this is me roughing it – hardcore. We still have to wait until late tonight or tomorrow to get our luggage and I am already dying to wash my hair. Side note: Deodorant was found when we eventually got our luggage - yay!

Seriously, nothing can bother me right now though. I am in the same city as my son! I could have come with the clothes on my back and nothing else and I would deal with it because I am getting my son!

I am still very tired. I was just able to get the internet to work for a little bit so I was able to update everyone at home that we made it! I listened to the call to prayer all morning. It went on for hours and hours this morning – starting at about 5:30 AM


There are several differences to our hotel and an American hotel. By Ethiopia standards this hotel is very very nice. In America, this hotel wouldn’t be a very nice hotel. I will not complain, because I feel very fortunate to be here and to have such amazing accommodations.

Our room is very big. We have a couch and a huge king size bed, which is very nice. I believe they will deliver up a crib tomorrow. Now Hannah’s Hope moved in January and there is one nice difference to this hotel that I am grateful for that the old hotel they stayed at did not have. This one you are allowed and able to flush toilet paper!

The only real drawbacks we have found are that smoking is allowed in the rooms, so there is a smoky smell in the air. We have also found a few little cockroaches crawling around in the bathroom at night, so I wear my shoes. The only other thing is that the walls are not very insulated so it can be difficult to rest during the day.

Another interesting difference is that 3 times a day a hotel staff member knocks on our door to check on us. That is part of their security process.

Peter was finally able to connect with someone from our agency about our missing luggage. He tried calling all of our staff contacts this morning and no one would answer the phone. Finally, right after we fell asleep for a nap Yohanne’s called us and he was in the hotel lobby. We have no idea how he knew or found out unless he saw someone from the hotel called him and he called the front desk to find out. He and Peter will drive over to the airport tomorrow morning at 8 and get our missing luggage.

Today has been very low key. I woke Peter up at 6:00. Breakfast starts at 6:30 and I have heard it is best to be there right away in the morning because the food is all hot and because once something is gone, they don’t restock it. Up to this point, we didn’t have any bottled water because we were too lazy to get it last night. So we were very thirsty. We ate some toast with peanut butter and a few pieces of french toast with jelly. They offered us some Ethiopian coffee, but since we wanted to sleep today Peter denied.

We were the only white people in the hotel this morning. The restaurant was full of Ethiopian people who were speaking Amharic. We definitely stand out and feel like outsiders. We agreed it will be very nice when our travel group arrives and we won’t feel so isolated. Everyone has been very kind to us, although we definitely have no idea what we are doing.

Today we slept a lot. We fell asleep around 10 AM and just made ourselves get up around 3 PM. If we were at home that would have been midnight to 5AM so it makes sense that we were tired. It was hard to sleep through all the noise in the halls. While we were napping the thunder storms and rain started and they are still going strong now. I am not a fan of thunder storms, but I am handling it pretty well. When it rains – it pours for hours!

We were able to connect with our friends – the Jackson’s tonight. They are adopting a 6 month old baby boy who has traveled this entire journey with our little guy.They came over and we visited for about an hour and then went to dinner together. At dinner we visited a lot and of course ate. It is a little stressful trying to find something to eat, especially given my current situation. I ordered lasagna and french fries in case the lasagna was no good. Peter ordered a ham and cheese sandwich with french fries. That was so much food! Seriously, I got a huge lasagna and a heaping plate of french fries. My food was all very good and I think it cost about 5 bucks including a coke! It was seriously so much food.

Peter’s food was pretty gross. It was some sort of weird spam like meat with huge pieces of cheese and veggies (which he removed because we have been told not to eat the veggies)We had a really fun evening with some great people! It is so nice to have a connection with someone here. The last day has been really boring and isolating. It will be really nice to have some support here while we get to know Malachi in the next few days.

At dinner we also met the other two couples here. One couple is adopting a 4 month old baby girl and the other couple is adopting 5 and 7 year old girls. We spent a lot of time visiting with the families. They have missionary friends here and they are getting a taxi to go to a church service tomorrow morning. We would be willing to go, but I am not sure if we will be able to go as we have to go get our luggage and finally get cleaned up and settled. If we went to church we wouldn’t have enough time to get cleaned up and unpacked before getting Malachi, but at the same time going to a local church would be such a great cultural experience. But I feel so yucky right now and really need a shower. Decisions, decisions.

Now we are just relaxing and preparing for tomorrow. Since we aren’t exactly sure how much time we will have tomorrow to get ready I am packing the diaper bag tonight and then we will probably get to bed soon.

It is unreal to think that Malachi will be with us in 24 hours. Tomorrow morning we will go get our luggage and then kill some time before heading off to Hannah’s Hope. I seriously cannot believe that tomorrow is our Gotcha Day! Tomorrow is the day I finally get to hold my son in my arms and kiss his cheeks. I hope he likes us :)