Hello from Ethiopia from T, J and G2 –
Flight……grueling. Funny thing is when we did FINALLY land the Ethiopians on the plane broke into applause. Whatever the reason for the applause it was sorta a nice welcome. Truly nightmarish to think we will be boarding the return flight on Friday.
We breezed through customs, got our visas, money and baggage and were out the door in about 20 minutes. Talk about efficiency. We were met at the airport by a driver from our adoption agency. After about 10 minutes in the beat up van I started doubting his intentions. We hadn’t asked for identification and he was quiet as a mouse for the whole drive. When we turned off the main road onto a rocky, pitch black street of sorts and began to weave our way through dozens of shacks I was sure we would soon pull over and he would toss us out into the night and drive away with our luggage and money. Then we arrived at our Guest House. With a double honk the gate opened and there stood two very tall, skinny, smiling from ear to ear Ethiopian men. Our little compound, so to speak, is a walled enclosure, complete with coils of razor wire, surrounding the main Guest House and several little outbuildings (i.e. the kitchen, guard shack). We arrived at our Guest House in a blackout. They have them off and on every day and every other day the power is off from 7 a.m. till 10:00 p.m. There is also times when the water goes off. All government controlled. We have access to a computer and internet, but cannot Skype or load pictures to the blog. It is simply too slow!
So getting to the good stuff….. We were picked up this morning after 9 and driven the short distance to Layla House. We were taken directly to a small room where our little guy and all his little buddies were happily playing. Wouldn’t you know it…..he was the ONLY one who wanted nothing to do with us and cried when we got near him. So we played with the other children who were more than happy to sit on our laps. One toddler bonked her head and immediately ran over to Todd screaming and he scooped her up and she cried on his shoulder. It was really sweet. All the while little man either ignored us or clinged to the leg of his nanny. Finally, we grabbed him, screaming the whole time and found a place to sit and watch the little boys playing soccer. After a while he stopped screaming and things have been good since.
We took him back to the Guest House, took out some bribery snacks and toys and he really began to warm up and relax. After a big Spaghetti lunch full of smiles he fell fast asleep. So sweet. He woke with a huge smile and has been Mr. Love ever since. He is much smaller than his pictures make him look and sooooooooo cute!! None of the pictures do him justice. He is already displaying little tantrums where he flops over on his back and kicks his legs. When you stop paying attention he immediately stops the tantrum. Too funny.
Miss our Empress. Really miss her.
So tired now but excited for our adventure.
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