Gotcha Day!

We awoke to the smell of something burning...only to find out it was Ethiopian coffee (Robera). At first, I didn't like the smell of it at all, but by the middle of the week, it was comforting to know that these loving women were hand roasting and making our special coffee for each meal of the day. Robera tastes like SUPER strong American coffee. I usually added some water to mine as well as some powdered creamer and sugar to sweeten it up a bit.


The women at our guest house (Lalese and Abynish) made us three meals a day, plus, room delivery of either homeade chips or homeade french fries for an afternoon snack, each day. We felt like we were royalty!! In addition, they babysat for Amelia anytime we wanted to go sightseeing, as it was not acceptable to bring her out in public until our embassy date on Thursday. Two of the guest house workers, Abynish and Girba (the gatekeeper and bodygaurd), lives in a little shack behind our guesthouse. The other worker, Lalese, lives in an apartment with her brother (our case worker in ET) Korsa. When guests are in, Lalese stays at the guest house with them, to cook, clean, and care for the baby.

After our breakfast of pancakes (more like crepes), fresh mango juice and robera coffee, we met with Korsa and the director of Better Futures (ET) to discuss our plans for the week. Then, we were off to get our little Amelia. After driving through the gates, we were met by lots of little ones, running up to meet us. They all wanted to hold our hands and get attention from us. We were first taken on a tour of all of the rooms in the orphanage and then, all of a sudden, one of the nannies brought Amelia to us. We brought some items to donate that Noah gave to the orphanage director and then he got to hand out suckers to all the kids. The director said that there are 40 kids in the orphanage righ now. It is heartbreaking to see all those little ones who don't have forever families yet.



After we got Amelia, we went back to the guest house for the day. We spent the afternoon playing and getting to know her. Lalese brought us our first afternoon snack of homeade potato chips and braided Amelia's hair for us and fed her. She even slept with her the first night so that she would be more comfortable and we could get a good night of sleep.