Ethiopia - Day 9

I've been putting off writing about our last day.  I'm sure there's some psychological reasons behind that...but somehow receiving our adoption decree this week has given me the push I needed to finish our trip on here. 

January 7th...Christmas in Ethiopia.  (Melkam Genna is what they call it.)  The morning prayers start at midnight and people spend the entire night in church celebrating the birth of Christ.  Simply amazing!

Another couple from our agency was flying in that morning (yay!) so we had a leisurely breakfast and packed up our room while we waited for them to arrive.  We wanted to get something special for the kids and Steve noticed tons of people buying cakes from the cafe downstairs so he picked up a couple to bring with us.  (Sorry kids, no goat...) Once Becca and Nick arrived we headed off to the care center.  There was a Christmas celebration going on when we got there and all the kids had beautiful traditional clothes on and were in the midst of drinking orange Fanta and eating cake (oh well, we tried!).  We hung out for awhile and saw the kids having their lunch...they definitely do not go hungry, most of them ate more than I could have!  After a couple hours Mekdes was getting sleepy so I reluctantly went and laid her down in her crib for the last time for who knows how long.  Miraculously enough, I didn't break down.  I'm not saying there weren't tears welling, but I was able to hold them back.  (Those who know what an emotional wimp I am will be very impressed!)  I think it was partly that I loved witnessing the new family meet their amazing 8(?) year old daughter for the first time and that distracted me from over-thinking things...and partly because during our time there I was able to see how much Mekdes loves her nannies and how well they take care of her.  It's no substitute for a family, but for the time being she's happy and that makes the time away bearable.

After leaving the care center, we forced the utterly exhausted Becca and Nick to come to lunch with us.  (They were troopers though!)  We went to Sishu for really good burgers and fresh cut fries and an amazing mocha.  (Starbucks will never taste the same after this trip!) It's in kind of a sketchy neighborhood, but once you go through the gate it's a whole different world.  It's in a big house with kid's play equipment downstairs.  Very relaxing environment and great food...definitely recommend!  We drove back the hotel and dropped off our new friends.  Side note:  Remember all those goats that were killed for Christmas this morning?  Now their skins were piled up on every corner to be sold for leather.  Lovely.

When we were in Lalibela we met some nice people who had recently moved to Addis for work.  They were generous enough to invite us over for Christmas dinner at their house.  It was the perfect ending to our trip.  Their house is a gem in the midst of a big city...beautiful gardens, peaceful and comfortable.  We sat outside and chatted and bbq'd (gourmet bbq, mind you...they were amazing cooks).  Then they brought us to the airport for our evening flight.  I can't thank them enough, it was a perfect transition from our crazy week to our flight home.

The flight home...ugh.  I'm trying to block out of my mind that we'll need to do it again with our baby.  We'll get through it, right?  And it'll be soooo worth it once she's finally home with us...our family of 5.

 Some of the kids at the care center in their Christmas finest.