The other three families in our travel group arrive late morning; we meet up with everyone in the lobby at 2:00 p.m. to return to Hannah’s Hope to complete final Embassy paperwork. Four of the families in our group are adopting children under one year old; one family has been blessed with three siblings, ages (4?) to (7?).
At Hannah’s Hope, we have a lot of downtime to mingle with the kids who are waiting. One little girl around five or six years old who lives with HIV gives me the biggest hugs. She is still waiting to find a forever family; while she waits, she sees friends go home with new parents. One family in our travel group is taking away her current best friend. My heart breaks for her, yet she continues to smile and emanate joy.
Jon spends time with a boy who captures his heart. If he could, Jon would bring him home with us.
We complete the paperwork for our Embassy appointment. Almaz stresses the importance of answering all of their questions truthfully, to the best of our knowledge and belief.
We receive a few more details about the circumstances that led to Isabella coming into care. Not details that are different than what we knew, but details that enhance our understanding of her situation.
Isabella says goodbye to her special mothers. She lights up and smiles for them, and looks concerned when she comes back to us.
We get one more photo with Almaz, and a photo walking out of the gate at Hannah's Hope:
We are picked up at 7:40 a.m. and set out on the 30 minute drive to the U.S. Embassy on the other side of town. The Embassy is one of the nicest buildings that we have seen in Addis Ababa; a new addition that is being built even has heavy equipment in use, a rare sight.
We show our passports and hand over cameras and cell phones as we go through security: no photo ops here. Inside, it is nothing like I expected. It is a very large waiting room with rows of chairs, seating over 100 people facing a wall of people sitting behind (presumably bullet proof) glass, with little pass-through trays, and digital numbers on the wall above each window signaling the next in line.
As we enter, we are each assigned a number, and wait for our turn. We quickly realize that numbers are not coming up in order. One minute we hear “number 127, please come to window 15…,” the next minute, “number 451, please come to window 2,” and then "number 233..." We are number four hundred and something, but whether that means a fifteen minute wait or a five hour wait is anybody’s guess.
There is a TV mounted on the wall at the end of the room, broadcasting U.S. government programming. Senators give brief holiday messages, or so we guess; the volume is muted. There is also a plastic play structure at the back of the room, where the toddlers can play. Several families in the room are obviously there for adoptions through other agencies, but most of the people waiting appear to be Ethiopian nationals. Someone mentions an immigration lottery that is held every year. I am reminded how thankful I am to have been born in the U.S., by the grace of God.
Isabella chooses this inopportune time to become un-constipated. I guess she is just that bored, like the rest of us. Many intense sounds, tears, and three diapers later, she feels better and I am up to speed on the logistics of changing messy diapers.
When our number comes up, maybe an hour later, our appointment with the gentleman behind the glass lasts all of three minutes. He checks our passports, has us raise our right hand and swear to tell the truth, then asks a few questions – is this the child you expected to adopt? What do you know about her birth mom? Did you both meet her before court? No – then you’ll need to complete a re-adoption and file for citizenship. (I want to say ACTUALLY everyone should complete a re-adoption, regardless of whether they need to do so for citizenship, but I bite my tongue.) Do you have any concerns about the adoption process? Done. Your agency can pick up her visa at 10 a.m. on Wednesday.
We are relieved to have this step completed and know that we will be bringing Isabella home at the end of the week, barring civil war or Acts of God. On the drive back to the hotel, we experience what has become the usual sights and sounds of Addis Ababa… with one very funny exception.
As we come to a stop at an intersection, an aging, unmarked truck pulls up next to the bus. Sitting in the truck bed is a civilian, as well as a soldier with an automatic weapon casually resting on his knee. With the vehicles stopped side-by-side, the gun is pointed straight at Jon. Jon nervously jokes that he hopes the safety is ‘on.’ We assure him that the gun probably doesn’t even have a safety. I start to take a photo and then think better of it. We are probably not in the best position to annoy the guy with the gun.
Monday night, the moms stay at the Riviera with the kids, while the dads and other family members are picked up by Wass and taken to Yod Absynnia restaurant for the cultural dinner. Jon has fun, and even samples the honey wine. Isabella and I are happy to stay in the room and sleep.
Tuesday, January 4: Almaz invites those of us without birth family meetings to come back to Hannah’s Hope with the families who do have meetings. This is highly unusual, but we welcome the chance to go back to take more photos of the children who are waiting, to give to their families. It should be a relatively short visit – we will be picked up at 10 a.m. and come back around noon.
You have to be stinkin' cute to pull off a bow like that!
We arrive at Hannah’s Hope to discover that the best made plans can always be disrupted by surprise government audits, regardless of what country you are in. The audits are routine, and last anywhere from minutes to hours. The audit today, of course, turns into one of the longer ones, complete with staff interviews. The good news is that these audits are just one of the many processes in Ethiopia that help ensure that adoption continues to be open and ethical; the bad news is that the audit came on today of all days.
Today, when two different special mothers, at two different times, try to hold Isabella, she cries until they hand her back to me. I think we are starting to bond, just a little. It makes the special mothers sad, but I am secretly pleased.
The day is especially warm, probably in the mid- to high-70's, and humid. We take off Isabella's sweater to reveal the adorable onesie underneath.
At the hotel, us moms get off the bus with our children, and send the dads out to shop. Each dad, including Jon, is a bit overwhelmed with the shopping lists that they have been given.
Meanwhile, Isabella and I go back to our room and take a nice long nap together. By now, we have learned so many things about her: she likes to sleep on her side. She loves skin-to-skin (cheek-to-cheek) contact. She cries when she’s hungry, tired, or (infrequently) frustrated. When she is tired, just swaddle her up, put your cheek against her forehead, and do the mommy dance while shushing her – works like a charm. She is also eating a lot more, going from 4 ounces every 4 hours at Hannah’s Hope, to 6 – 8 ounces every 3 – 4 hours in our arms. Better than that, she is hardly spitting up at all – either the Enfamil AR (with rice) formula is working, or she is outgrowing her GERD.
We wake up two hours later, just as Jon gets back from shopping.
Jon lucks out. For some inexplicable reason, he decides that the second shop that he will go in will be the one down the way and across the road in the little shopping complex. The shop itself was almost empty, but the gals in the shop are super helpful. They invite Jon to sit on a stool and enjoy coffee (Jon never turns down coffee!) while they run around to different shops and gather the items on his list. Not only does he get everything on my list from the comfort of a stool, sipping coffee, but he gets most items at better prices than I was able to negotiate last month. So much for a tough afternoon!
Purchases include a set of china coffee cups decorated with Ethiopian art (500 birr), a traditional clay coffee pot (100 birr), two medium-sized traditional stools carved out of a single piece of wood (300 birr), a carved Nativity (220 birr), carved coasters (220 birr), and wood/leather drums (100 birr).
Wednesday, January 5: Jet lag is an odd thing. I am wide awake at 2 a.m. Because I am desperate to get home, I decide to shower and go to the 24-hour Ethiopian Airlines ticket counter at the airport to see if I can talk our way onto a flight tonight, rather than wait to leave on the flight tomorrow night that we are booked on. Why not, I have nothing better to do. Jon and Isabella are both sleeping like babies; I rouse Jon enough to tell him that I am taking his passport, the credit card, and all of our cash, and will be back in a few hours. He mumbles something that sounds like "okay," so off I go, chuckling to myself "You may not miss me when I'm gone... but you'll certainly miss me if I do not return with your passport, cash and credit card!"
The staff at the front desk either do not understand my request, think I am crazy, or both. They finally explain that there are no taxi cabs available at that time of the morning, but they will call the Riviera van driver to come get me, no problem. I watch TV in the lobby for about twenty minutes, wondering if I am making the poor driver come in early. There is a decent thriller on; like most shows on TV, it is an American movie broadcast in English, with Amharic subtitles. Unfortunately, I’ll never know how it ends; I did not recognize the film or the actors.
The relatively short (about 15 km) drive to the airport is interesting. Until now, I have only seen Addis bustling with people, shops, and animals everywhere you look, even as late as 9 p.m. At 3:30 a.m., however, it is eerily quiet. Where dozens of people swarm during the day, it is empty - we see no one walking or sitting alongside the road, and the shops are all closed up tight. There are very few cars on the road at this hour; the one that we pass flashes his lights at us, apparently the universal sign for “dim your lights!”
At the airport, it is quieter but there is still some minimal activity. The driver drops me off and waits. I run up the stairs – I am starting to adjust to the altitude – and find my way into the airport. Without a ticket, I have to convince the guard at the door that I am not there to get into any trouble. Once through security – you get scanned going into the airport itself – I wander around trying to find the ticket counter. Finally, I break down, embrace my ignorance, and ask a group of soldiers who look half my age where the ticket counter is. One speaks good English, and directs me around a seemingly empty corner, where the ticket counter is tucked away and hiding without lines of people leading up to it.
There is no one in line. The ticket agent, once he understands my request, explains that the Wednesday night flight is overbooked. There is no chance of getting on. At least I know that I tried.
I make my way back out to the Riviera van, where I wake the driver up from a nap. The drive back to the hotel is equally void of cars and people, save for the newer model, high end truck that has hit the guardrail and rolled over. A single vehicle accident, with a half dozen people standing around looking at the truck. The Riviera driver shakes his head and says “too much drinking while driving.”
Another relaxing morning in the hotel, with an early lunch downstairs. I order lasagna, as do two of the others in our group. One hour later, all three of us are in desperate need of Cipro and Imodium AD. The pills do the trick, and we all decide not to order the lasagna again. At noon, we are picked up and taken back to Hannah’s Hope to meet with Almaz, review final paperwork, pick up our children’s Ethiopian passports with U.S. visas, and hear some parting words of wisdom from Almaz.
Almaz is an incredible woman. Born in northern Ethiopia, she moved across the border into Sudan before immigrating to the U.S., where she earned a college degree and lived for fifteen years before moving back to Ethiopia to work with our agency to set up an orphan care program, including the Hannah’s Hope transition home and adoption program.
The adoption program is just one of many ways that our agency serves families and children in Ethiopia; worldwide, they assist over sixty children in numerous ways for every one child that is adopted, with adoption being the last option for only the most vulnerable children. This is one of many reasons that we chose our agency, and we will continue to support the other work that they do in Ethiopia. As Almaz explains far more eloquently than I can, adoption is not ideal, but it is the best option for these children, who need to be held now and cannot wait for the circumstances in Ethiopia to improve.
One family in our group must rush back to the U.S. Embassy with Almaz. Their daughter’s passport has her correct photo, but the U.S. Embassy made a mistake and included a different child’s photo on her visa. We learn later that the situation, while stressful, is resolved in time for them to make their flight that night.
We return to the Riviera. This time, Jon stays at the hotel with Isabella while I go out with another dad in our travel group and his mother-in-law. We return to the shopping center for a few last minute purchases, including a cross in the style of the southern region, where Isabella was born.
The cab is a rickety old car, driven by Solomon, a driver recommended by many adoptive families.
One family in our travel group has brought Solomon’s family Christmas gifts.
On the drive back to the hotel, we stop at Kaldi’s, a coffee chain that is an obvious knock-off of Starbucks. Unlike Starbucks, however, they do not sell anything but baked goods, ice cream and drinks – no shelves full of coffee mugs, bagged coffee, or other tempting goods to purchase.
We have noticed a lot of missed capitalist opportunities like this. Luggage carts at the airport are free. The Yod Absynnia cultural restaurant does not have a gift shop or non-perishable goods of any kind for sale. They could make a mint off of their tourist crowd by selling DVDs of the performance and related trinkets.
Across the street from Kaldi’s is a bustling goat market.
Addis Ababa is fascinating in so many ways. On the one hand, everyone insists "No crime! Perfectly safe!" It definitely feels safe during the day, in a group or accompanied by a local - safer than some parts of many U.S. cities. Yet all of the houses are behind high fences with barbed wire at the top, referred to as "compounds;" there are often several family homes or buildings within a single compound, as with the Hannah's Hope complex.
At the hotel, there are two guards at the front door at all times. Everyone who is not a guest is patted down before entering, including people like Hannah's Hope staff that they see every day. Before a guest may leave in a taxicab, the driver's information is noted by the hotel staff and a photocopy of his driver's license is kept on file, to ensure your safe return. The police are heavily armed, and soldiers are everywhere as well. It is tough to tell if all of this security is really necessary, or just remnants of tougher times that are hard to forget...
This trip, we are in Room 111, overlooking the courtyard in one direction, and in the other direction, an Ethiopian Orthodox church peaking over the hill.
Although the view is different, the furniture in the room is the same as Room 407. If you bump the headboard at all, it in turn bumps a light switch inexplicably mounted on the wall midway down behind the headboard, turning the lights in the room off. I cannot tell you how many times I hurt my hand reaching down behind that *$@! headboard to flip the switch back on.
Isabella looks especially tiny in the middle of that big, wildly uncomfortable bed:
We never could get the lamp on the left side to turn on.
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