Ethiopia Day Two

So I woke up at 3 a.m. that morning. Our room door was partially made out of glass and the light of the hallway was bright, shining through that glass door.
I got out of bed to look out the window. It was peaceful and quiet. Occasionally I heard an airplane leave or land.
I wondered what news our driver and guide may have for us tomorrow. Will we still be able to meet Yo this day, which was a Saturday or will we have to wait until Monday, since Sunday the orphanage doesn't allow visitors.
I prepared myself for Monday and so I wasn't getting to worked up and had an easy time going back to sleep.

The alarm went off at 7, that gave us an hour to prepare and then go down to have b-fast.
We showered, or at least made an attempt to do so. The water pressure was nearly non-existing and you could chose between cold medium pressured water, or steaming hot triples. I decided to wash my hair with cold water and mix some steaming hot and freezing cold water in the bathtub to cat wash myself off that way. No way I could have showered cold that morning. Ethiopia has some really strange weather. It gets very warm (80F) during the day, but as soon as the sun sets it cools down to like 45F in about half an hour. That morning we had about 45-50F in our room (no heating system in Ethiopia) and it was freezing cold!

My hair looked horrible after the cold wash and it reminded me a lot of Tina Turner's wig style in the 80's. What a shame, I really didn't want to leave the room with this horrible hairstyle, lol. Have I mentioned I forgot my conditioner and hairspray, ugh!!

I managed to put my hair up somewhat to look halfway presentable.
While I struggled with hair I heard hubby taking a COLD shower - hahaha, he screamed like he fell into an ice hole.

We had breakfast that morning. Nothing fancy. Two slices of toast each, butter that swam in a bowl of water and a small bowl of jelly.

We headed back to the room to get our drivers number, so we coult get in touch with him to find out what our agenda will be for the next several days, and if there were news about the baby.

We found to our surprise that our driver was already waiting for us at the reception. I asked him what the plan were and he said we can be at the orphanage at 9.

AT 9???????

At 9 today?? 9 a.m.? This is in like 15 minutes???!!!!

I was totally unprepared for that. I ran back upstairs to get a few toys, her outfit and a picture album we brought for her.

Oh my gosh in 15 minutes we will meet our baby............how can they leave us so unprepared...

The drive to the orphanage was short and bumpy. We saw a lot of very poor living conditions and it about broke my heart. People live in put-together cardboard boxes, people laying on the side of the street (sleeping?), unbelievable amount of trash and filth along the streets.........I was overwhelmed.

We took a very bumpy dirt road and to my left, slowly approaching, the (in)-famous blue gates to the orphanage. How many times have I seen those on other peoples blogs.............The Blue Gates - YEAH

An older man opened the gates and our driver parked in front of a little metal cabin with a sign that said "Clinic".
We got out and our guide told us to wait in the visitors room. He pointed us to the door. To our surprise we met a couple in the waiting room holding their new baby. They are with the same agency we're with, got their referral the same day we did and decided to do a pre-visit the same time we did. How neat. We briefly introduced ourselves. I started small -talking with that lady who was lovingly holding her new baby, gazing over that beautiful "gift" she has received..

"If you want to take pictures, she comes out from over there - here she comes", said our guide

"Jes, you need to take pic, I need to hold that baby", I instructed Jesse.

And here she came. They brought her out of a room, about 3 doors down from where we stood. She had a HUGE grin on her, and stuck her tongue all the way out. She wore a white/green jacket and some "home-made" shoes (yellow-red). "She's so beautiful!", I kept repeating.

I touched her cheeks and told her "hello" when her nanny said "You can take her".

What a wonderful feeling and so worth waiting for (the whole 17 months), now in my arms.

Yo didn't fuss at all and blabbered, grinned and stuck her tongue out at me.................

The (in)-famous blue gates of the orphanage

The orphanage

Flowers in the orphanage's yard

Here she comes (as many of you know, we are NOT allowed post any identifying pictures of our daughter on the net until she's legally ours and we passed court)

Holding YO for the first time

YO's little hands

Yo's little feet (she just recovered from chicken pox)

We spend quite some time studying each others face. I'm still in awe on how good God has been to us and on how He entrust us with another little precious one of His.

We were allowed to visit for 2 hours this morning and time passed way to quickly. Yo hasn't cried at all and at around 15 minutes before she was picked up by her Nanni she fell asleep in Jesse's arms.

...........It was hard to let let Nanni take her away from us, but we knew, we would be able to spend another 2 hours with her on Monday morning.

We got back to the guesthouse at around noon and the cook had prepared some lunch for us. We had spinach with potatoes (some meat for Jesse - yikes) and some Caramel Cream for desert.

That afternoon we had our driver take us to a supermarket and he gave us an extended tour (via car) through the town.

I was tempted to take pictures on how people live in other parts of the world. I wanted to show my children, but decide NOT to take any, but will keep those impressions close to my heart as a reminder on how good we Westerners have it. It put me to shame for my silly wants and needs and on the contrast have children and women walk up to our car window begging for food. I haven't seen one nice or halfway decent home touring that city (besides some governors or presidents palace). It was heartbreaking to see crippled, sick, old and malnourished people everywhere you looked.
We witnessed prostitution right there on the street in the middle of the day along with a drug deal. Nobody seemed to care.

The sun started to set and we headed back to our guesthouse for dinner. We watched a movie with, ugh, what's her name - Latisha?? something like "Beauty Salon", really crazy show, wouldn't recommend it, lol, and went to sleep.