November 27, 2009

Today certainly changed our lives forever. We ate breakfast at our hotel, which turned out to be full of adoptive families using a different adoption agency. Suddenly this whole crazy process seemed a bit more normal as we watched American moms and dads pantomime their way through breakfast with wide-eyed Ethiopian kids, and everybody seemed to be doing okay and maybe even having fun. Before we knew it, a driver from our agency was there to pick us up and take us to the orphanage along with another family from a different hotel.

We drove through Addis, passed a remarkable number of small goat herds on the busy, dusty streets and lots of festive Muslims because today was the holiday of Ararat(?). Soon enough we were pulling through a gate squeezed between two storefronts and found ourselves in a courtyard full of the delicious smell of drying spices for berbere. The next thing we knew, we were following the other family down the driveway and three little boys were being ushered out of a room. All three boys at first headed towards white family #1, until it became clear that family number #1 was all hugging the biggest boy and ignoring the others. We were still a ways down the driveway, so the two small figures just sort of stood there for a bit before Amare recognized Dave's hair and broke into a huge grin!

The next few moments were a bit of a blur of happy hugging and photographing. And then the awkward silence began. All four of us just sort of looked at each other like, now what do we do, family? Thankfully, the nannies then started singing songs with all the other kids, and we all crammed into the little playroom to sing along. After a few rounds led by the older kids and nannies, Amare's hand shot in the air and he led a few songs himself! This kid is not shy about being the center of attention!

Once the singing ended and the other family headed to the other compound to settle in, 25 bubbly kids descended on the two new people on hand (us), sharing English words they learned for all the parts of the room, showing us various toys, playing with Emily's hair tie, and marveling at Dave's funny red hair. In all honesty, it was absolutely heart-wrenching to have all these little kids crawling into our laps, kissing us, motioning to be held, and just desperate for our attention and affection. Any lingering ambivalence about adopting children from abroad evaporated in an instant -- these kids need families more than anything, wherever those families may be. Kids were practically fighting for space on our laps. Those that didn't go in for the fray just snuggled our feet while they played on the periphery. Zenebe and Amare, however, are pretty independent dudes. They were both happy to build with blocks without any interference from us.

We got the sense it was time to wrap up toy time when the nannies sent us out to get a ball to test the boys' soccer skills, by which point the other family had returned and busted out some sidewalk chalk. So we all went with the chalk, though Amare and Zenebe seemed more absorbed in the other family's game of hopscotch than in our unintelligible encouragement to draw something or other.

Shortly thereafter, it was lunch time. According to routine, we washed up and joined the rest of the kids in the playroom, where we were greeted by the most remarkable transformation -- complete and utter silence. It's simply amazing how quickly the managed chaos of play time switches over to quiet meal time as all the kids wait patiently to say grace and then dig in. Most exciting for us was the food -- pasta with berbere. We even got to sample a bit, and as soon as we tasted the spice, we knew these boys could handle some heat!

After lunch it was nap time, so I washed some clothes and we walked to the neighboring compound where the main guest house and infant orphanage are. We ate lunch there and chugged some tea and coffee to stave off the jetlag. Then we came back to our little walled compound, where kids were just starting to wake up from their naps and wander into the play room to build with blocks and zoom toy cars around. Zenebe was intent on a set of magnetic stackers and creating a giant wall of Duplo blocks. Amare kept reassembling different garage and bridge-like structures. We just sat on the floor and snuggled the kids desparate for affection while we watched our boys play.

After a bit, Amare left and came back with the photo albums we had sent the boys. We all read through them and Amare identified all of us in English, including Luna and Apollo. Still not a peep from Zenebe, just lots of big eyes and intense focus. Then it was snack time and Amare led grace, the little show-off ;) He then proceeded to give us half of his biscuit.

The rest of the afternoon we spent out in the courtyard. Thankfully the intense, intense sunshine had crossed to the other side of the compound. The sun, the elevation and the dryness are wreaking havoc on our mucous membranes and fair skin! First, we played with the sidewalk chalk again and created body outlines of our entire family on the pavement -- fun! Then Amare wrote out (and sang) the entire English alphabet (OK, with a little help, but still)! Zenebe just squatted on the driveway and focused on his purple chalk masterpiece (abstract human figures, we believe). The afternoon ended with a rousing game of soccer. Actually multiple rousing games. Amare, another older boy, the guard and Dave with one ball, and Zenebe and Emily through the middle with a small ball. Zenebe really smiled (with teeth!) as he chased the ball around the garden, and Amare took on the big kid and adults. Clearly, we need to sign these boys up for soccer teams (which will make Emily a soccer mom?!?).

We hung out on the sidelines during the dinner-washing-potty-pajamas routine (a well oiled machine of 25 little tiny people lined up for the bathroom and rotating through in shifts, with older kids giving the kids in line their strips of toilet paper, nannies wiping rows of bottoms, and other nannies putting on PJ's). We got to tuck in Zenebe and say good night to Amare before we had to leave for dinner.

So, there's our first day as a family! A total whirlwind, and we can only imagine what it must have felt like to our boys. Regardless, we are totally in love with these two tiny little people and can't wait to play with them all day tomorrow. And we're exhausted!

November 26, 2009

Day two of the new family and here's what we've learned about our sons so far:

Zenebe is highly susceptible to the TICKLE MONSTER!!!

Amare is not.

Zenebe loves soft fluffy things, especially his toy doggie.

Amare can count to ten in Sidami and English.

Zenebe likes to put plastic bags over his head (don't worry, we're working on breaking that habit).

Amare is a ladies' man with the nannies.

Zenebe likes to put things away, shut doors, sort cards.

Amare loves to be the "goose" as long as he can when playing the Amharic version of duck-duck-goose.

Zenebe has a runny nose.

Amare has chapped lips.

Zenebe loves to draw circles and spirals.

Amare will copy anything Dave draws. Even bacteria.

Zenebe runs like a duck to keep his pants and shoes in place.

Amare has the longest eyelashes ever.

Zenebe likes to play with Daddy's hair.

Amare loves to give kisses.

Both are strong enough to twist open our water bottle.

Both are wearing pants that are too long.

After a morning of play in our room, it was back to the play room for lunch and then a nap. Afterwards, Zenebe really started to open up, chatting with and yelling at (and perhaps occasionally pushing) the other kids, very much unlike the little quiet boy we saw the first day. As most of the remaining families arrived to meet their children for the first time, we whisked the boys back to our room to cut back on the chaos, where the boys had a blast with a bag of baloons and the greatest hit of all -- our only flashlight. Our quickly broken only flashlight (did we mention the power is a bit flaky?). We moved from breaking the flashlight to breaking balloons, and then both boys encountered a mirror for the first time -- another big (if initially confusing) hit. Formerly quiet, reserved Zenebe was suddenly running out into the hall hiding from Dave, and once we returned outside, continued laughingly running away, turning on the faucet he wasn't supposed to touch, and generally raising hell. Shy, withdrawn, silent little Zenebe.

Tomorrow is our long yet rushed trip to the South to meet the boys' birth family in Arbegona. Breakfast at 5:30, on the road by 6:00, a long drive, a family meeting, and another ridiculously early wake-up the next morning so we can make our embassy appointment the following afternoon. Sounds, er, fun?

November 29, 2009

We hit the road at 6:00 am, after a lovely light breakfast. None of us ate much, not knowing this was to be the only full meal of the day. Then the long but beautiful drive south to the capital of the Sidama region, Awassa. From there we kept driving to Arbegona, a long bumpy ride through the hills. Upon arriving in Arbegona around 3:00 pm, the social worker informed us that Amare and Zenebe's relatives lived another 30 km away, but our driver informed us that he would drive no further! Emily had a bit of a meltdown upon hearing this news, since she hadn't had any coffee that day, her lunch was a Luna bar and her brain had been rattled into Jello by the dirt road. Thankfully, half an hour later one of the social workers showed up with a huge bus to take us the rest of the way!

So in we hopped to drive another half hour to meet the family waiting on the side of the road. They had hiked half way already! We all then stood in a field with the social worker/translators and started giving them the photo albums we made of Amare, Zenebe, us and our house. Meanwhile, people just started appearing out of nowhere to watch these strange proceedings. Thankfully, the kind family that was stuck travelling with us started photographing the bystanders and suddenly all the kids formed a choir and started singing!!! This allowed us to have a more private and tearful meeting with the boys' family members, the details of which we shall save to share first with the boys. It will be their story to tell if they choose. As we were being told the meanings of the boys' names (Amare=beautiful and Zenebe=rain), there was thunder in the distance and a rainbow appeared! It also made the new driver nervous and we were herded back into the bus before the road turned to mud. So there remain some unanswered questions for another time…

Next we drove back through the gorgeous green hills to Arbegona to meet the relatives of the other family's adopted son. Again, throngs of bystanders assembled, so I distracted them by running around taking photos of their gorgeous faces and adorable children. Since we were obviously famished, the very nice social workers took us to a little restaurant for us to try the traditional Sidama food of false-banana tuber that is ground up, fermented and cooked with dried goat meat. Dave liked it well enough. Emily had to hide her gagging on the goat gristle by chugging a Coke. Finally, we drove two and half hours back to Awassa in the dark. Apparently we encountered a hyena on the way, but we missed it due to our exhaustion and Dramamine-induced stupors.

We might have missed the hyena, but we did see a lot of cool other things on the long drives, including:

herds of camels

an ostrich!

huge haystacks of teff grain

donkeys hauling water

horses hauling water

kids hauling water

women hauling water

men hauling water

storks with gigantic wingspans

vultures devouring a roadkill cow(?)

volcanic mountain ridges

crater lakes

termite mounds

onion farmers

potato gleaners

enormous shade-houses for roses

fussbol tables and players in every town

goats everywhere, including on the highway and on front porches

roaming packs of dogs

mosques next to churches

fragrant groves of eucalyptus

a thousand brilliant smiles of waving children

November 30, 2009

Today started with a 5:00 am breakfast of take-out goatburger and fries(?) kindly provided by the hotel, then five hours of driving back to Addis Ababa (no bathroom break). Then the driver got confused on a crazy highway interchange and we drove every possible permutation of the overpasses till we wound up pointing in the right direction. We figured something was wrong when he started banging his hand on his forehead. We emerged from the maze of off-ramps only to get stuck in gridlock traffic due to construction. Our clever driver veered off the crowded main road to drive along the nely dug roadbed/sewer line, only to find that we were cut off from all the side streets by a three-foot-high dirt wall. So using words in Amharic that were definitely not in our kid-friendly dictionary, the driver detoured his way around to finally get us back to the orphanage. We were frantic because we were told to be back by 10:00 am for our embassy appointments.

The kids were all out playing with bubbles when we arrived, and we were then told that we were meeting for our embassy appointments at 12:30. We were ready a bit early and started walking, only to run into the head nurse who informed us that there was an error in the time for our appointment and we were supposed to be at the embassy three hours prior! While Dave grabbed our bag of documents, I went to get the boys and discovered a room full of naked children and nannies frantically trying to get all of them dressed and out the door. Kids were trying to help each other by putting their shoes on the wrong feet, etc. Eventually we all made it out the door (with only one kid wearing his pants backwards) and onto the bus with all the other families.

The embassy appointment was pretty uneventful, just a bit of waiting in a lobby, answering some questions and signing some documents, and waiting in another lobby (fully equipped with an Americanized play area for the kids: TV blaring and Barbie dolls). The highlight for the boys, really, was the bus ride, and they both fought off their impending naps in order to stare out the windows at the city going by.

Emily and Dave thought they would be extra sneaky after the embassy appointment and simply slink off to the Hilton for some internet access while the kids stayed behind. After all, the kids had a big day and were half-asleep on the ride home from the visa interview, so surely they could use a break, right? Right?

So we quietly left our room, locked the door, and opened the front door at the exact moment that Zenebe was heading into the guest house with Amare close on his heels. No joke. The little guys foiled our plans to evade them, and we ended up playing with stuffed dogs, balloons, and (of course) the ever-popular flashlight, ultimately holding up the other folks who were waiting for a ride to the Hilton. But it was totally their fault -- honest.

After a dismal (and rather expensive) internet endeavor (pro tip: don't bother logging on in the late afternoon along with everyone else at the Addis Hilton, as the connection is too slow to do much of anything online), we came back to see the boys off to bed. Then all the parents headed out for an evening of authentic Ethiopian food and a professional dance exhibition. The food was predictably wonderful, but the dancing was unexpectedly amazing. Dave is still trying to break down a killer staccato chest-bump move, and a very Irish, very red-headed woman in our group ended up holding her own in a dance-off with one of the professional Ethiopian dancers at the end of the night.

December 1, 2009

Today was pretty much non-stop playtime fun, with a quick field trip for Mommy and Daddy to the natural history museum over lunchtime. Pretty much a perfect day as far as we are concerned: snuggling, soccer and science! This morning Emily led the boys and some friends in a little kiddie yoga/calisthenics. Hilarious! Em and the kids also spent a lot of time blowing bubbles, while Dave tried to sleep off an ominous sore throat. There is a LOT of snot and coughing around here, so it was bound to happen at some point.

We forgot to mention that Zenebe said his first English word while waiting for our visa appointment at the embassy yesterday: BOOK! We were such proud parents, quickly correlating this achievement with his future propensity for academics. (Nevermind that he simply repepated after Emily.) Today, however, was his first unprompted word and it was, of course: TELEVISION. Ha! We should also mention, that he did say THANK YOU when we gave him his first toy truck (from Jacob and Luke Williams!).

Play time today involved lying around on the floor running cars around table and chair legs, kicking a soccer ball, make-believe with the toy doggies (of course, we have no idea what we were pretending to do/be, since the boys were speaking to each other in Sidamic), shining the flashlight into each other's throats, and tracing our feet (so we can buy them some shoes).

Our day together ended with little Zenebe leading grace for the entire orphanage! And to think he wasn't even making noises just a few days ago. We are feeling so lucky to have such charming, smart little boys. (Of course, pretty much all the kids here are completely adorable and well-behaved, but still.)

December 2, 2009

Today started pretty smoothly with some play time both at the familiar big kids' home and an excursion to the main guest house at the infant home, where there was much excitement over play-dough, hardwood floors for racing cars, and, most popular of all, a balcony. After bringing the boys back over for lunch and their nap, we headed into the city with another family for an excellent shopping trip. We didn't actually visit the famous Mercato, an ancient market equally famous for its size and for its foreigner-friendly pickpockets. Instead, we drove through the Mercado to witness the chaos on our way to other, more subdued locations to do some shopping. Haggling was remarkably good-natured, and even though we certainly got fleeced, we had fun doing it.

On returning from our day on the town, the reality of parenting started to sink in. A vigorous game of soccer with Amare turned into a prolonged coughing fit (possibly an asthma attack?) that left him really wiped out for the first time since we got here. It was definitely a bit scary, but a bit of quiet time lying down in our bedroom seemed to do the trick, and after heading back out for snack time, he was his usual beaming, approval-seeking self. The remaining play time was remarkably uneventful considering that several families returned from birth family visits and descended on the play area to catch up with their kids.

We figured things were pretty much wrapped up at the kids' dinner time, but we lingered a bit longer to see the kids off to bed since we had a few more minutes until dinner at the guest house. But once Amare heard Mommy and Daddy were saying good night, he teared up at not getting to stay in our room. So of course we melted, and soon we had the boys in our room changing into their pajamas. No big deal, we figured, since we could just trade off on going over for dinner. Then came Zenebe's coughing fit, accompanied shortly thereafer by his dinner. In retrospect, giving the boys Tums as a little post-dinner calcium supplement may not have been the best strategy. We managed to get a little dinner in after cleaning up a bit, and the coughing seemed to subside once the boys fell asleep. It's certainly starting to feel a little more like the real deal, especially considering the 5 am wake-up call built into the little guys' schedule...

December 3, 2009

At least we don't have to feel bad about the Tums; Zenebe was up much of the night coughing and puking. If there's any silver lining to the whole orphanage experience, it has immunized Amare against noise, and he slept like a log. Not so for the new parents, and Dave was particularly worse for wear since he's had a head cold for the past couple of days. After some extra nap time for dad, Zenebe saw the doctor at lunch. Our usually passive little guy turned into a real terror when the tongue depressor came out, so doctor visits back home should be a real blast. He's got an infection in a lung and an ear, and we're just hoping the newly prescribed antibiotics work some magic before the flight back on Saturday...