Yep, another "travel story" installment

(I am bound and determined to finish sharing our travel story. Unfortunately with three kids I just don't have the time to blog very much!)

So where was I? Okay Friday we'd gone to the Hilton and AHOPE, and Saturday we had no plans. We hoped to find out about the birth mom that day and get to meet her.

After many unsuccessful attempts of trying to get ahold of the social worker at Layla House (who was supposedly working on it), Kevin called Gail (orphanage director), who didn't know what was going on and offered to find out herself. We ended up waiting around pretty much all day hoping to get word about either traveling to Nazret where the boys are from or the mother coming to Addis (which wouldn't come until the next morning, when we found out that due to some staff change--presumably at the government office in Nazret--the mother would be difficult to track down. Translated: someone dropped the ball and our hope of meeting the mother fell through the cracks. On her relinquishment paperwork she filled out, she had listed her whereabouts. AAI's drivers were spread thin that week, the social worker had had to go out of town for something, and I think we payed the price. In hindsight we would have fought harder to meet the mom. But supposedly they were working the details out. We're so devastated about it, but do hope to make contact through the agency. The frustrating thing is that on one of the days, Jemal made a trip to Nazret to pick up some more babies. Why couldn't we have just tagged along with him?)

We spent the day basically hanging around the guesthouse. During the boys' nap we were hungry for lunch, so Kevin went just down the driveway to a little Ethiopian restaurant called Merry Fam, to get some food "to go." He returned with something that looked quite unappetizing. It is called Tibbs, though I've heard it pronounced "Tepps." It is basically beef served on injera. This particular version of tibbs tasted pretty bad...so I think I just ended up eating a yogurt from the fridge.

Later that afternoon we spent a lot of time with the family and family friend that was also staying there and adopting Yerusalem and Messele. The dad taught us how to juggle, Messele showed off his breakdancing skills, and Kevin played some soccer with the kids. Below is a picture of Scott (family friend of the couple adopting Yerusalem and Messele) holding Biniam (they became fast friends), Messele breakdancing, and Yosef swaggering around.

That evening we all went to a fancy Italian restaurant called Arcobaleno. I got lasagna (which was really yummy!), Kevin got some different types of pasta, and we even ordered some Ethiopian beer! It's called Meta. It was pretty good, especially considering that neither of us likes beer very much.

As we were leaving the restaurant (about a ten minute walk from the guesthouse) there were cars and taxis lined up all the way down the street. The manager of the restaurant told us that there had been a car accident (which we saw as we passed by) and also that police had just randomly started searching vehicles, which was causing a big traffic jam. Good reminder of the political instability/governmental abuse of power in Ethiopia (which sadly, could be a post or entire blog of its own.)