After 28 hours of traveling we arrived at Bole airport in Addis Abeba at 10 pm local time. Our adoption agency, Holt International, had a driver waiting for us and he wisked us off to the hotel where we are staying. The staff are very friendly, the accommodations are modern and we promptly went to bed, slept 9 hours, got up for breakfast, went back to bed and slept another 7 hours. Now it’s 5 pm and we’re just “hangin’ out.” The hotel is close to the airport but fairly sequestered with a guard, gate, high walls and razor wire. We’ve been told to only go out with an “approved” car and driver, which we had scheduled for 2 pm today, but slept through. Ah well.
From what we can see, Addis Abeba is lovely surrounded by mountains and with a clear blue sky above. The Ethiopians we have encountered in the airport and our hotel are beautiful people with warm smiles and calm demeanors.
Tomorrow morning we will leave at 6:30 am with a group of adoptive parents to Durame, the village with the orphanage where our kids are. We will have an opportunity to spend several hours with the kids, but our understanding is that we’ll be introduced as “visitors” since the adoption isn’t finalized. We’ll have to take the lead from our professionals at the adoption agency on how we conduct ourselves because it seems like it will be awkward. Of course, we’ll want to stretch our arms around them and hug and kiss them, but that is likely not allowed and would probably be terrifying for them given that they don’t know who we are and we are probably amongst only a handful of white people they have ever seen. In any event, we are so excited and overwhelmed and thrilled to be here in this moment, this turning point of our (and their) lives.
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