Fiddlebugs: Ethiopia, Here We Come!

We were packed and on our way....however, our first flight, out of Milwaukee was cancelled due to weather. So, we pitched in with a few other people and got a limo to drive us to O'Hare so we could make our next flight in time. Grabbed some lunch at O'Hare and then we were off on our 2 hour flight to DC. And, finally, our 16 hour flight to Ethiopia, with an added hour for refueling, cleaning the plane and loading more meals, etc...at our stop in Rome. We couldn't, get off the plane, though, so all in all, it was 17 hours on the same plane! Yikes!! We were pooped by the time we arrived in Ethiopia! Next, we had to wait in line to get our Visas. Glad we waited to get them there, as they were only $20 (US) verses $70 (US) if we had gotten them in the US. Steve changed our money to Ethiopian Birr (1 Birr = apporximately $8) and then we found our Better Futures Sign and new friends. Got the luggage and loaded into our new vehichle for the week.
Van similar to the one we used.

Barbed wire on top of gates and fencing.

As we were riding to our new home for the week, I was thinking, "Boy, this is really a God thing....to be able to trust that these three Ethiopian men, who don't speak much Eglish, are truly employees of Better Futures, and that they really will take us to the Guest House and that we will be safe. We were the only family in our travel group (unlike when we got Emma...we had 15 other families with us). As we drove to the house, we were a bit in shock. Along the entire roadside, there were small, run down shacks with little lighting but tons of people standing around inside and in front of them....extremely run down!! We turned onto a very bumpy dirt road, which was the street to our Guest House and then the driver had to honk so that the gatekeeper could open the gate to the Guest House. All of the homes are gaurded by either a steel gates and fences with barbed wire on top of them or a gate and broken pieces of glass on top of the gate/fence to keep people out. Sort of scary looking, especially when it was dark and we were really overtired after our long flight.

Lalese, one of the workers at the Guest House, showed us to our room. We asked about a bed for Noah, as there was only a King sized bed and a crib in our room. She led us across the hall to show us where Noah could sleep....but none of us felt comfortable with that, so all three of us squished into the King sized bed and that is how we slept the rest of the time we were there! We woke to the sounds of dog fights about 3:30 a.m., followed by this strange singing that was broadcast on speakers around the city. We found out later this was Muslim prayer, which is done three times a day. By the end of the week we sort of looked forward to it. But on that first night it was pretty freaky! The dogs, we found out, were wild dogs....and they are EVERYWHERE in Addis Ababa. They just roam the city, along with sheep, cows and donkeys. On Monday we will meet the Better Futures Ethiopia Director who will take us to the orphanage to get Amelia.