Ethiopia - Day 2

We all showered and ate a waffle breakfast. The girls really didn't like it though. Rediet's cough was still bothering her. One of the guests here with us is a pediatrician and recommended a cough medicine that could be purchased at the local pharmacy a short walk away. It cost 25 birr, that's about $2.50.

At 10:00 we headed to the HOH to go over our Visa paperwork (we were supposed to leave at 9:00 a.m.). Our Visa appointment has been pushed forward to Wednesday, so the scheduled has changed a bit.

The air is pretty clear today. The smog in Addis can be horrible. Our Guest House is a fair distance away from the city center and across from a fairly large river valley. The valley is quite lush from all the rain received this year. Apparently, this has been a "good" year in terms of rainfall. We are lucky in that the rainy season has just ended. In the river valley you can see a number of apartment buildings under construction. These apartment buildings are a part of an aggressive subsidised housing project for the extremely poor of Addis Ababa that the government has embarked on.

When we arrived at the HOH, several staff were there that we didn't see yesterday. One woman saw us arrive and pulled Rediet aside to say good bye and give her a big hug. She was crying. Later I saw her sitting in the courtyard looking very blue. I went to her, thanked her and gave her a hug. I think Rediet, being older, was probably very helpful to the nanny's and also perhaps offered a different level of interaction then the rest of the children there.

The paperwork review process was the last step before the Visa appointment. There were three forms we were to fill out and present to the Embassy. There was a fair amount of confusion about those forms and not just with us. As we were reviewing the forms with the assistant administrator at the HOH, he pulled one set out and said it wasn't needed. This was not the case with other families that we compared "notes" with. I'm sure everything will be fine???

With the paperwork review done, it was back to the Guest House for lunch; fried chicken and rice. It was excellent. Mihret wolfed it down. Rediet just picked at it. She must be starving. But, maybe her cold is effecting her appetite.

After lunch we visited the National Museum. We were broken up into two groups of 5 families. The other group of 5 did the museum in the morning and the paperwork in the afternoon. Lucy, as it turns out, wasn't there. Only a cast. The "real" Lucy was on loan, some where in the U.S., I think. Leading us through the museum was the assistant director. He is very knowledgeable and did an excellent job fielding our questions. The girls seemed bored, but the rest of us enjoyed it.

At 6:30 p.m. we came back to the Guest House and dinner was ready for us. This time it was my and Steph's turn to pick at it. It was a traditional meal consisting of spicy beans and a wet spongy bread. The girls powered that down. The bread is called injera. Follow the link to Wikipedia to learn more...http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Injera

Now it's 7:30 p.m. here and time for Mihret to hit the hay. Once we get her tucked in, Rediet and I will come down to the family room area and read a bible study book one of the staff at HOH had given her.