Day 4

We finally arrived in Ethiopia EARLY Monday morning. We had to wait in a super slow line to get our visas and then went to get our luggage. Well, remember that our flights were changed and our luggage "should" have been on the same flight we were. WRONG! No luggage for the Suttons. They said we wouldn't get our luggage until LATE Tuesday night. We were not surprised--nothing on this trip had gone as we had planned so far--but we were a little discouraged. Regardless, we found our ride outside the gates and walked outside into the wonderfully comfortable air of a perfect Ethiopian night!

This is a picture of the airport.

We stayed at the Grace Guesthouse and when we got there, we went straight to bed. We ended up staying in a small room that was not the room we reserved with a promise that they would move us first thing in the morning to a bigger room with a crib and its own bathroom. By this time, we really didn't care. We were so so so very tired. We climbed into bed and tried to sleep on these horribly HUGE pillows (both of us prefer a flatter pillow). We finally gave up and used our neck pillows from the plane ride. I was super discouraged and had already decided that I did not like Ethiopia. I tried to combat these feelings by reminding myself that I was exhausted and nothing seems "good" if you're tired! I prayed that God would help my attitude and that I would wake up refreshed and ready to enjoy all that God had in store for us in Ethiopia!

This is the view from our first room. The red flowers in the corner were so pretty! And what a gorgeous day! (Oh wait! Everyday in Ethiopia is gorgeous!) :)
Tired, but excited about getting to meet our son!
The front yard and driveway of the guesthouse.
The gate to the guesthouse. All homes are fenced all the way around and have some sort of gate at the entrance. Even the poorer homes have fences and gates in the city. When we arrived in the car, they would beep a few times and someone would come open the gates for us. Strange to me, but normal to them!
My cutie husband! Couldn't ask for a better travel companion!
The crib where Joel would sleep.
Waiting on our ride to go get Joel!
The mountains in Ethiopia! And I don't know how I managed to get these cars in the picture, but they are not the norm... They are nicer than the majority of the cars. Most people drive old little Toyota cars because the gas milage is so much better. Gas is very expensive for them. One dollar for one liter--doesn't seem too terribly bad to us, but for an Ethiopian family it is VERY expensive!
More scenery.

This is the transition house where Joel has been living for the past 4 months! We were so excited to meet him!
We walked in and were taken upstairs to a room where some older children were watching Sponge Bob (in English) and were asked to wait for a minute. The kids in the room LOVED Tony! They all came over to give him high fives and wanted to talk to him. BIG smiles all over the place! We enjoyed the children, but were really just super anxious to meet our son! (Two of the children we met ended up staying with their mom at the grace guesthouse so we got to see them again the next day!)

Finally, they were ready for us to meet Joel! Tony and I had already decided that he should be the first to hold Joel. I was holding the video camera. We didn't know what to expect. We were taken into a small room and there was Joel on a changing table with a nanny putting his clothes on him. He looked exactly like all the pictures we had been staring at for the past months! He was beautiful and handsome and perfect!!! The nanny handed him to Tony and immediately was asking when we would be back with him (I think she was sad that he was going with us for a few days!). We talked to the nanny for a few minutes and then headed on our way with our son in our arms!

We got in the car to go back and I held Joel in my arms in the back seat (no car seats in Ethiopia). I just kept staring at him! He is perfect! And he has two teeth and they look so pretty against his pretty brown skin!!! After a while, he fell asleep in my arms and I just LOVED it! :)

We finally made it back to the guesthouse and up to our room and were hardly there 5 seconds before two other moms came to the door with arms full of supplies for us! Remember how we had no luggage... Well, that meant we had NOTHING for Joel! I was so worried that we were going to have to buy a bunch of stuff and where do you buy things like that in Ethiopia?! But God TOTALLY provided, as He always does. Our friend Ashton brought a couple of outfits and a bottle and a passi and some formula. Our friend Kristy came with LOTS of diapers and wipes. And then we had everything we needed! All of my meticulous planning in packing was for naught. Again, God had other plans! He provided in HIS way, without any help from me! :)

The next few hours was spent getting to know Joel and loving on him! I think he was a little overwhelmed, but he was such a good baby! And he sure was hard to get a smile out of... but that didn't stop us from trying! :)

Later that afternoon, Ashton (she had been in Ethiopia for a few weeks) took us to this place called Friendship Mall. We wanted to skype with Patti and Eliah and she knew of a place for us to go do that. We hopped in a taxi (40 birr for a ride from our place to the mall--or about $2.50) and went out for our first experience out on the town! Immediately upon getting out of the car, people swarmed around us. Most of them were trying to sell us stuff and a few of them were just asking for money. One little boy followed us around with his hand stuck out for a while. We just said "no, thank you" and kept walking. It was totally overwhelming!!!

We first went to a coffee shop and chatted with Ashton. I had a carmel macchiato for 10birr (about 60 cents) and Tony had some very yummy fries! Joel was such a trooper. He really just slept in my arms the whole time! :) After we were done with our coffee, we walked around the mall until it was time for us to skype. We went to an internet cafe, but we couldn't remember our user name and password for skype! So we didn't get to see Eliah, but we were able to email really quickly and also found a place where we could plug in our laptop so we use it the next time. Little man was waking up and he was hungry, so we got a taxi back to our place and rested for a while.

Later that evening, we went out to dinner with our new friends, Ashton and Adiyah, Kristy and Lucy and Kristy's mom, Carolyn. We went back near the Friendship Mall to a place called The Lime Tree. They had pretty americanized food. I had the pasta with parsley sauce, Tony had a hamburger and fries (he said the hamburger tasted like it might have other things mixed in, like the liver!) and Joel had a bottle. :) We enjoyed our company and our night on the town.

When we got back to the guesthouse, it was about 8:00 and Joel was ready for bed and so were we! We got him fed and he went right to sleep! He slept for about 5 hours and woke up to be fed and went right back to sleep for another 5 hours! This was pretty wonderful, except Tony and I both had a hard time going back to sleep after we woke up the first time. The dogs are so annoyingly loud there! Tony said the next time we'll have to bring a slingshot or b-b gun! I ended up reading for a few hours and Tony did some homework... And that was the end of the day that we met our son for the first time!!!

**(You'll notice no pictures of Joel in this post... More on that later.)