Time spent at the transition home/orphanage and time spent at Hanna's orphan home was precious to me, but I am so glad I got to get out of Addis Ababa and travel into the Ethiopian countryside. It was here that we saw how beautiful the country really is.
We traveled down a smooth, winding road north of the city through several small towns to our destination. We traveled past donkeys laden with eucalyptus branches being driven into the city. We passed by "neat as a pin" farms with round houses with thatched roofs. We drove through small towns with locals playing Foosball at roadside establishments.
When we reached the small orphanage about 2 hours from Addis, we were greeted by 6 children. These children spoke only Omoro, the language of this area and it was a bit harder to communicate with them. I have picked up a few Amharic phrases and words from M. and they did me no good with these little children. But, the children were happy to receive beanie babies we had brought them. And, later they really warmed up when we started playing games with them like London Bridges and Duck, Duck, Goose. They caught on really fast and I smiled when some whispered their first English word, "duck".
Most of our team got busy painting the interior of the 3 room orphanage. It didn't take them long to discover that the building was built with the traditional straw and mud walls. They reported chunks of the wall coming off as they painted. I saw the finished product and they did a good job.
This was the day that I got to go pick up the baby I wrote about in an earlier post, so I missed some of the excitement of painting.
When we returned with the baby, we were able to eat lunch (injera, wat, and vegetables and delicious dabo-yeast bread) One of the ladies working at the orphanage even made fresh ground coffee for us. I didn't get any coffee, because if was my and Tina's turn to ride in the cart and buggy. They really wanted all of us to get a ride. I guess you can imagine the spectacle we were riding through the town. I felt like we were in a parade. I am sure we were a hilarious sight for all the locals.
This is only part of the story of this amazing day....more to come and pictures I promise.
