Ethiopia Day Three

March 27, 2012

Last night Josh and I took Nyquil/Benadryl (respectively) to help us sleep, and we slept hard!  We woke up groggily around 7:15, got ready and ate breakfast.  Wass came to pick us up a little after 9:00am.  We were so excited to see our little guy again!  When we got there the special mothers brought out the babies for us and the Bloodsworth family.  We sat with him outside for a bit (tried him in a Bumbo seat which he wasn’t a huge fan of) and then went inside for some good one on one time (or I guess two on one time).  We got some really good smiles and giggles again, which was awesome!  If he fusses, he seems to get better if he locks eyes with one of us, he gets smiley usually after that, but the immediate eye contact isn’t quite there yet so we have to help him find out eyes. We changed him into an outfit we brought that was so, so cute on him!  We went back outside to sit with the special mothers and other babies and try to get some pictures for friends.  Little man took a bottle and fell asleep in Daddy’s arms.  He does the cutest thing while he sleeps--he moves his lips like he is still sucking his bottle!  It’s adorable and I’m so glad we got to see it while we were here.  He honestly is tied with Hallie for cutest baby who ever lived!!!!!!!!! 

After sleeping in Daddy’s arms for a while, the special mothers wanted him to lie in his bed, so we let him go (hesitantly) and played with the older kids for a while.  I had brought bubbles and they loved them!  They were running through them and giggling the whole time.  We tried to teach one of the younger toddlers to blow bubbles, realizing that is quite difficult when you don’t speak the same language!  Josh played tag with two of the girls and had a blast. 

The cooks at Hannah’s Hope offered Josh some of the traditional lunch, so we tried it and it was pretty different, but okay! Wass took us back to the hotel after that, stopping for us to buy a six pack of 2 liter water bottles for us.  The six pack cost 60 birr, which is about 3 dollars in US money. We were amazed, as one 2 liter bottle would cost you more than that in the US! 

We hired Sisay again to drive us to a few more places in Addis.  He was so happy to have our business again!  We decided to go to the Imperial Palace and Museum which is located on the campus of the University of Addis Ababa. We learned a little about the university from Sisay, then toured the palace (former Emperor Haile Selaisse donated it to the university) and went to the Ethnographic Museum.  It was really neat, it had lots of information about all of Ethiopia, including art, music, customs, different tribes/regions, etc.  We then got back in with Sisay and drove to the National Museum of Ethiopia.  This is where Lucy (the bones of the first human/ape…I really don’t understand completely, but she is an important discovery) lives.  Josh was very interested in looking at all the small bones. I was more horrified by the other exhibit in the room that said “The first child has been discovered” and it was a model (they had discovered the bones and made it into this model) of a chimpanzee/toddler mix that was honestly quite frightening.  LoL!  There were some other interesting things in the museum including pottery, artwork, and Ethiopian crosses dating back into the 12^th and 13^th centuries.  We also saw so many things referring to lions because lions are a symbol of royalty and important in Ethiopian culture. Now lions are rare in Ethiopia, but they used to be in Addis back in the day to live near the palaces of the emperor.  The Ethiopian lions have black manes…very interesting. 

Next, we were on our way to the Post Office.  Well, not really a post office, but it is a market that is called the Post Office.  We wanted to do a little bit of shopping and Sisay said this is a great place for gifts actually made in Ethiopia.  He made us laugh a few times while we were driving around saying “do not buy there, Chinese products!” But we stopped somewhere first and were wondering where Sisay was going.  He ran in a store and right back out.  Well he had bought us two Ethiopian music CDs because we had complemented the music he was listening to (it was much better than the Dolly Parton CD before hand, lol).  So kind of him! 

We shopped for about forty five minutes through the shops.  You have to barter to get a good price, which is kind of hard to do. Things are really cheap so it feels weird bartering, but you’re supposed to.  I think we did okay though, usually saying, “we’ll find it at another shop” did the trick.  The market was pretty sad though because there are little kids (who look incredibly pitiful) walking around trying to sell you random things like toothbrushes or gum.  Also the most pitiful beggars come up to the window of the car (because we are obviously tourists), but we aren’t allowed to give them anything.  Many of the women have babies strapped to them and it is just overwhelmingly heartbreaking.

When we got back to the car to leave, we noticed Sisay was making a list. He gave it to us and it was a list of Amharic words and their English counterpart (he was a former math teacher so he speaks great English).  Again, so nice of him!  We spent the rest of the way back to the hotel trying to pronounce things and laughing.  We truly felt good about paying him for a job well done and helping him feed his family.

Dinner and skyping with Hallie and going through pictures the rest of the night, and we were out for the day!