> There are a few things I’ve been meaning to mention, so before I forget, I’ll put them up now.

>Yes, there is a man on the engine of that plane. And so goes the story of our travel to Addis.

Ok, I know, how tardy am I? Very. Get used to it. We now say we are “seven kids late.” We used to say “we are six kids late.” Works every time. Try it.

But anyhow, I figured I should give you the rundown of the actual trip, with a few travel tips embedded. That way those of you compulsive types will read the whole thing and the rest of you…well, you probably wouldn’t care to be bored but of course read along if you like! But for those of you still in process and eagerly anticipating that long flight – here ya go.
This is us, waiting for something like six hours, waiting for our plane to be either cancelled or fly. In our hometown airport. With no other flights out to D.C. that day, on any airliner. Most of the passengers stood in line forever and got other flights. This was it for us. We passed the time watching the mechanics crawl all over the engines. It was fun. Comforting. ha. So we stress snacked. I know, it’s another picture of the same plane. Looks a lot like the first picture doesn’t it? Try watching it for six hours as your departure time for your Addis flight looms closer. This is just to get you the feel of it….the ‘you were there’ factor.

As you know, I ended up posting and begging for prayers to make that flight. And I hate little planes. But I didn’t care, if this one was cleared for takeoff, I was gonna be on it! Thanks for the prayers, of course, they worked.

After we got to D.C. we tried to make Mass in the chapel in the airport, knowing we’d be flying all day Sunday. We missed that too. But we sure tried, we went as fast as Booboo’s braced leg would walk! So we said a few quick prayers and read the Mass readings and then hoofed it to the other concourse which meant taking multiple escalators up and down and down and up and then waiting for the shuttle to load us up and spit us out again. By this time I was a stressed maniac, wanting to sprint to the gate. We were cutting it super close, and had conflicting info on when you had to check in at the gate. One woman told us an hour, one told us 45 mins.
Travel Tip: Don’t do this:
on your way to the Ethiopian Airlines Gate. I know. It’s tempting. However, it might cause the mom person to almost stroke and it just causes general discord. Wait until you’ve checked in. There is another one of these photo ops not far from the Addis gate, really like 30 yards or so.
Travel Tip: CHECK IN MUST BE AT LEAST ONE HOUR BEFORE DEPARTURE. MINIMUM!

No kidding. We got there, ok, me first, as I can move in a speed walk and I shamelessly belted it to get there faster than my boy could walk. I know, bad mom, he’ll need therapy later, we’ll add it to his list. But the desk guy was calling us by name as I approached, being the last white family, and family period, not checked in. That is never a good sign. Then he shuffled our papers a bit as the others caught up behind me and had a bit of discussion with his co-desk buddy. As I caught my breath (I told you, it’s a long walk and we were going as fast as possible) he finally handed me our passes and said “you guys are really lucky today.” “Huh?” “You almost didn’t make it. We are boarding now, he’s in a good mood.” Yikes!!! So, they are serious about that check in time and don’t push it. ONE HOUR BEFORE DEPARTURE, MINIMUM, NO KIDDING. That’s the most important travel tip of my entire journey. You can stop reading now if you like, you’re good to go.

We boarded immediately. Well, as we got in line to be boarding (and it was moving) my husband was buying sandwiches from the shop across from the gate. Expensive but decent and better than the food you’ll have for the next 18 hours. Think about that too. That’s travel tip number two.
Next travel tip: Not much room for carry-on or even largish purses/totes on Ethiopian Airlines. Travel light and sparingly. Also, they are serious when you are in an exit row (where we were moved) and you cannot keep your purse and such with you, it has to go up, so get your book and Ipod before you stow it in the hold above you. The stewards and stewardesses (do they still call them that?) were very helpful and very kind, the whole flight. You get two crews so they aren’t burnt out and exhausted and they are nothing but helpful and patient with a bunch of sleepy tired travelers.

Next tip, it’s a long flight, so settle in and sleep as much as you can. Even though it will be full and cramped, be flexible and patient as there is nothing to do but wait for it to be over. It’s a long haul and everyone just waits it out, but really, very patiently and nicely, considering.
Booboo studied for finals. BuddyBug and Bananas played a looong game of squares {yes on a motion sickness bag, you use what you got folks!}.Finally, after two hours on tarmac in Rome for refueling (no you don’t get off, you try to sleep some more), and another 6 in the air, we were in Ethiopia. I must say, it was exciting to be flying over Africa and see the desert and then start seeing Addis coming into view. What a thrill for us all!
And then, after landing, you wait again, for what seems like far too long (but I think that is typical of every international flight I’ve ever been on as everybody is just twitching to get off that plane). And you are there. In Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. I swear my daughter and I were bouncing with excitement. I know, dorky tourists, but it’s not like we could pretend we were locals so we threw cool to the wind. We were all excited! We had arrived in Africa!!!
To finally BE there after all the reading and thinking and dreaming of it. After almost NOT making it and making our flights, we were just all SO thankful and grateful to be in Addis Ababa at last! It was a little surreal, our bodies didn’t know what time it was but we were ready to GO!

More to come…..

>Ok, I’m almost never wordless, as you have surely figured out by now. But this picture also cracks me up. It’s during that long flight to Addis from DC. I have much more to post on this trip, the actual travel of it. It’s just that the overwhelming emotions and tsunami of impressions and feelings have been first, of course. But I will be posting travel tips and experiences only because I know I was greedy for them before I went. So this, this not-at-all-wordless Wednesday picture is to let you know, there is more coming, as soon as I get a few more spare minutes! In the meantime, both for Addis and Egypt, Booboo will hold the promise for more.

>
Notes from Addis:

How do you describe the indescribable?

You don’t.
Not well anyhow.

You can’t, of course. I guess it’s like being pregnant, you can read about it, hear others talk about it, ad nauseum (pun intended), and yet, you cannot fathom it, or begin to “get” it until you are yourself. That’s what it’s like coming to Addis to adopt a child. Indescribable.

So, all I can offer are moments of what I saw, here and there.

So many people. So many different people. All over. All over the streets, the alleys, everywhere. Rich people, poor people, suffering disabled people, happy laughing people, socializing people,
working people. Babies on their mother’s backs in scarves, children by their side, men walking arm in arm, women alone or laughing with a girlfriend, old people, young, strong and quick,
feeble. But always worth seeing people, real
people.

Kolfe.
Kechene.
Kebebetsehay.

The children. Big and small.

Dust. Construction, everywhere, from small shops to large skyscrapers to modern apartments to luxurious homes. Construction. With wooden scaffolding that boggled the American mind on how it held. Construction behind the scaffolding of cement stories; donkeys and burros with wooden saddles to hold cement for the building. Aluminum sides of homes and shops and roofs. Doors that opened for the day in shops by being taken off and leaned against the front wall.

Things for sale. ANYTHING for sale. Everywhere. Seems like almost anything available. clothing, shoes, electronics, music, goats, lamb, trinkets, pots, pans, flowers, cokes, juice, food, gum, maps, hats, balls, wood, rebar, tires, gum…..it’s all there. And if you need or want it, your driver will help you get it.

Gardens, lush gardens and gorgeous flowers. Color, everywhere so much color a feast. NOT a colorless dry land. A city and land FULL of color. From the sky and plants and flowers to the brightly colored tin shops to the beautiful colored scarves on the women. Color. Everywhere.

The poor. It is a city full of visible poverty. Seems like much much more than the U.S., but then again we tend to hide our poor (unsightly). Here it just is. Yet, there is great wealth here and it’s also side by side with the poor. It all just slips by together. It is a city of constant juxtaposition, which can make your head spin, almost literally. I suppose you get used to it some if you live here for a long time. Maybe.

The countryside. Beautiful. Breathtaking. As far as the eye can see: hills, trees, browns and greens, rolling terrain. YOu can see why people who grow here would never leave. Lakes outside the city, made from old craters; gorgeous views. Belay said he would like to retire here, I can see why.

Cars. Cars and trucks and cars. Everywhere. Honks and beeps. Buses filled with people, standing room only. Taxis filled to overflowing. Cars careening around streets with no lanes, swerving and braking and swerving again. And yet, no crashes. Roads that are fine and sided by gardens. Roads that are bumps and broken rock and patchy asphalt. Solomon, our driver, stopping for pedestrians who need a minute more to cross, the blind, the old. Solomon, shouting away men too pushy to sell through the window but buying gum from the boy with the big smile as he laughs. The dust of pollution and exhaust held in the valley of Addis downtown, a layer blanketing the city. The fresh air of the hilltops as you rise out of the city and open the window.

The traffic police at all the roundabouts that are spotted throughout the city. The armed guards at the Hilton Hotel entrance. The parking meter ladies who have turf from one light pole to the next and have baseball caps on over their scarf covered hair, writing on their tiny notepads and in their dayglo green plastic vests. The stark naked man standing bolt upright, holding a plastic shopping bag on a main thoroughfare, waiting to cross the road or something else. Hard to guess on that one.

The leper colony and rehabilitation center. Seeing them take tufts of cotton wool and then spin it and weave it on large looms and then decorate it into the beautiful textiles that are for sale, to support their center. Buying bunches of linens from them because they are beautiful and they are truly handmade and well, that’s a good spot to spend some money.

Haggling with street vendors, selling the same things in shop after shop. Or my son haggling with the man carrying the handful of fake sunglasses, being thrilled with the ultimate bargain.

The food. Terrific Italian food and pastas. Fantastic pizza’s from woodburning ovens. Italian pastries and french crepes and croissants. The Ethiopian cultural dinner with injera and chickpeas and music filling the room, eating from a basket woven table called a mesob. The beef tibs in a small black iron pot, like Ethiopian fajitas, to be rolled up in injera.

The coffee! The best coffee I’ve ever had. Fresh roasted in front of you, served in espresso cups and with a bit of crystal sugar. Smoother than espresso, richer without a bite. Fantastic. Served with popcorn, that somehow works.

The call to prayer. Morning and sometimes evening the call to prayer calling me from a sleep, just before it calls to wake my new son. Listening to it being broadcast, the sound of the words unknown to me, it becoming a cascading river of sounds in the background. The extra long, multiple hours, long call to prayer on Sunday. And seeing all the people dressed in white on Sunday as I too was called to prayer at Mass.

The bark of guard dogs. The creaking hinges of the iron gates at all the homes. The wraithlike men who sit all night next to or in a small tin hut by the gates to each road in the neighborhood, keeping ones who don’t belong there out and letting the drivers who do, in. A long lonely job.

The power outages. Most nights in a restaurant the power goes out one, two, three times, then comes right back up. Rolling blackouts throughout the city. People live around it. Power out often in the guest house, we use a small lantern or some candles and plan our showers for later if we can. Not a big deal, surprisingly. Quiet.

Safety. I never felt unsafe. Not once. Granted I had a sheltered pampered life while here. I am no fool. But even so, as an ignorant American, I suspected I might feel unsafe some of the time. I did not. Not once.

So many impressions. Even remembering conjures more. It will take a long time to process it all, if it is even possible. Ethiopia. It’s a big place, in so many ways…even the smallest ways are a universe of thought. This trip changes you, if only on the most superficial level to make you so grateful for the simple practical abundance in your daily life.

Images seared into my brain and heart. We have 1600 photos. We cannot post the most electric ones, the ones that grip my heart. The Ethiopian government won’t allow it. But they are indescribable. And without a doubt, indelible.

>
Notes from Addis:

“My Hero”: Solomon.

Solomon is (was) our driver. He carts us around, patiently, in a red toyota van. He has been trying to woo Tariku since we met….and he is winning. Tariku now reaches for him and plays with him. Solomon will help cheer Tariku if he is cranky. Solomon will ignore us if we are cranky.

He patiently answers our surely stupid questions that are the same ones he’s been asked hundreds of times before. He is a whiz driver, expertly maneuvering between trucks and buses and cows, coming within inches of all, and squeezing by. Even with the careening traffic in Addis, Solomon stops to let any person who might need a bit more time across the road – he hangs out the window and tells them something akin to “Hey, it’s ok, go now, I’ll wait for you.” He has done this with elderly, lame, blind.

He is such a gentleman. My husband and big kids left for a few days in Egypt, and I am alone with Tariku here for three days and nights. He has been like a big brother taking care of me {even as I am quite a bit older than him}. He has helped me find a bathroom where none would be found and waited a short distance away to escort me safely back. Last night, as we returned from a late dinner, he dropped off the Lake family. As I started to get out of the van to head to our guest house, Solomon blocked the door. I said “Solomon, the house is right there! We can walk!” And he laughed and said, “Oh no, it’s dark” and slammed the door shut and drove me the thirty yards to our gate. Today he earned my undying devotion: he stopped and bought me a coke, wouldn’t let me pay, just because I had asked about Coke’s in the market. That coke was much needed as I was flagging in the afternoon….and it tasted so extra good. So I told him, “Solomon, you are my hero today! Thank you!!”

Anyone who travels and is lucky enough to find Solomon as their driver: be very happy and tell him we all send our best!