Saturday, September 11, 2010

And off to Ethiopia we go


Here we are off from Frankfurt to Addis. Getting excited to say the least.


Our first look at African soil from the airplane window. It was stunning.


A section of the Nile


A bad picture I know, but we've touched down on Ethiopian soil!! Our tiredness has turned into excitement

These are our drivers, Mesfin on the left, and Ketema on the right. I will talk more about them in a bunch of my posts I'm sure. They are like brothers to us. Amazing, amazing men.



Our flight from Frankfurt to Addis was good. It seemed to pass really quickly. I think because we were so excited to be on our last leg of the trip, one step closer to seeing Nevaeh. The flight was not full at all, so we each had our own seat row. Was nice to stretch out. Dad was great about pointing out landmarks. Just after we sat down in our seats, a lady leaned over to us and said "I'm not meaning to eavesdrop, but are you guys adopting from Ethiopia?" I of course answered yes. "Us too, we are adopting a little girl named Nyah." Get out...Nevaeh and Nyah! So once the flight took off we introduced ourselves, well Dixie and myself, he hubby was out cold! He was all nestled in with his eye mask on, and not into introductions! (sorry Jim, just couldn't help it!!) Anyhow, Dixie and I got to know each others journey and quite hit it off. She came over and sat with me for a bit when we first could see African soil, and we chatted more. She told me that her hubby was a baker. I didn't ask more right then, but a bit later I asked if he owned his own bake shop. Dixie looked at me pretty weird and said, "no, Why?" to which I replied, "Oh I just thought if he was a baker, he might own his own shop, Adam's grandpa was a baker and ......(blah blah, I babbled on about that for a bit...) "No, no, he's a Banker!" (okay, probably not funny to you, but hey, this is a log of our trip, and that was memorable!)


They were a joy to meet. We shared about our families back home that we were missing and found out we were both fellow believers. This bonded us again more intensely as we talked about our faith in God and how He had a hand in our adoptions. It turned out that they also were going to be on our returning flight, so that was so cool.


Once we landed in Addis we got our visa's and said our farewells to Jim and Dixie. We had a moment and had Dad pray for us all, and we parted ways, excited to reunite on our return.


We went from the airport to the Weygoss Inn where we were staying, and unloaded our luggage and checked in. The receptionist proceeded to tell us we were only booked in for one night.....What? She then said she felt bad that this had happened to us, so we could stay in the lobby, which had a couch and it is also the eating room, but we would have to be out by 6am every morning because people would be showing up for breakfast....ummmmmm, WHAT??


Those of you who know Adam know that he doesn't like to raise a fuss, but he turned around and had a look of.....what do we do now. He said, "are you sure you have no other rooms, or know of any other hotels we could stay at. Our agency should have booked this for us."


At that point the receptionist started to smile. We were confused at why she found this funny. I mean, sleeping in the lobby with a new baby, and she thought it was funny? I then looked at Ketema, and he was laughing hysterically. Mesfin was doubled over laughing. She then told us that Mesfin had told her to tell us this, and she had nothing to do with the idea! It was a good introduction as to how goofy Mesfin (and Ketema) really are! Mesfin came over and put his arm around Adam's shoulder and just laughed and said he wished we could have seen our faces. Mefin, how much we miss you friend! Your humor and laugh are something we will never forget.


After getting our luggage up to our room, we went out for pizza(which was so good) and retired early, as we knew the next day was the day we had been waiting for.......for a long time, and we wanted to be rested.

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11 comments:

Louise said...

oh my that is too funny!!! That is a good prank hunh!!....

Louise

Dana said...

I have goose bumps remembering touching down in Addis and driving to the hotel. Enjoy every moment!

Brendan and Mary said...

That is hilarious! The emotions when you land in Africa are almost indescribable!

Heather Blake said...

bah ha ha ha ha ha ha! They are too much. One night as I was booking breakfast, the receptionist told me no food was being served the next day, as Monday was 'fasting day'. I was stunned but told them I was glad I had food in my room....crackers and such. They busted out in laughter....the punks! Too funny. I'm just surprized they did that to you the first night....courageous!
Miss them.
Heather

Tracy said...

Those guys are nuts. Before we left to meet Mikiyas Ketema told us that actually it was going to be in the afternoon (this was like 8:30/9:-00am and we were all waiting in the lobby!). HA!! After over 3 years!!! I was trying to "go with" the new plan, but I'm thinking our faces must've given us away cause they within seconds told us they were kidding and we were going...good gracious! With all the times I heard "change of plans", it could have been completely true. That being said, they are some of the most special, gracious people we've ever met.

Anonymous said...

Those guys!!! We were over at the entrance to Cloud 9 with another couple and our babies and Ketema snuck up and pickpocketed Kristin's wallet out of his jeans pocket! Kris had a little freak out, and whipped around to see Ketema laughing hysterically, when we asked how he knew we were there, he said, "well, you're the only white people around" and then laughed and laughed.

Oh I miss them :)

Anonymous said...

That is soooo funny. Those guys are hilarious. I can still hear Ketema's laugh(wich I miss) It is so funny that whenever he laughs so do you. The drivers are so much more than drivers, they are family, brothers.
Debbie.

P.s. Hey Tracey, be thinking about you guys wondering how it's going.

Ramona said...

Oh my. That makes me laugh to read about M & K, and then almost cry because I really miss those guys. I love how they connect with everyone and treat each of us like we're their family and not just another family.

Way to go on starting your trip. 6 months later I'm thinking it's too late to blog it.

Ramona

Connie said...

Those guys! That so sounds like Mesfin! I think I would have freaked!! I'm glad they didn't pull that on us! Something to watch for the next time we go!

To Ramona, no it's not too late to blog your trip. You still should. Sometimes I feel like blogging about our trip. But that's WAY too late.

Livy said...

Hi, just came across you blog.

I spent a summer in Ethiopia two years ago and had a wonderful opportunity to visit an orphanage in Addis. Have you ever read "There is no me without you?" It is a book about that orphanage and some of the orphans who have been adopted out of there. I really enjoyed it.

I want to adopt from there in the future.

Hope everything is going well for you.

Janice said...

I love the photos from the plane and hung on every word of your description of the trip. I look forward to more. It's good to hear that your driver had such a great sense of humour.

Janice

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