Day Six: At Home, Saying Goodbye and Cultural Dinner

On our sixth morning in Addis, we woke up to this sweet image:


And then I had the privilege of feeding her some oatmeal in our room. She ate the WHOLE big bowl! And downed one whole bottle.

And, after a morning that included a non-happy bath (seriously, I was worried that the workers in the Guest Home would think that I was hurting her - she screamed that loud during her bath), some play time with Garrett and Daddy, we opted for the snuggle-buggle kind of nap:

At some point we played in our room, and eventually, her favorite new toy, the plastic water bottle, fell onto the ground near Daddy and she timidly made her way down next to him!

Finally, she graced us with her precious grin:

The grin probably had something to do with her brother, Guh-Guh. From the very first time in our care, she called Garrett that. It has stuck. We all refer to him as Guh-Guh in our house.

After a day of rest, relaxation and bonding at the Guest Home, Tegist picked us up late that afternoon to go to Ellie's former Baby Home. We had planned to spend some time at the Baby Home playing with the other babies, taking pictures for their future families in the states, passing out tokens of appreciation to the workers and gifts for the older children. But, by the time we got there, it was dark and the electricity was out. We struggled to snag a few pictures of Ellie with her caregivers before it was completely dark:


I must say that in my mind, I had pictured a really beautiful time at the Baby Home. I had planned to really spend some quality time with the children and time expressing my gratitude for each of the women who cared for our sweet girl. However, things just didn't go as planned.

Ellie was VERY fussy because she could hear and see her caregivers yet Tegist didn't want us to let them hold Ellie for fear of regression. I finally gave in seeing both Ellie and her favorite caregiver, TT, wimper for one another. It broke my heart (as you can see from the picture two above).

We ate pizza by candlelight with the older boys and shared our gifts with them. Later we gave our gifts to the caregivers and enjoyed a popcorn and coffee ceremony. I say "we enjoyed" but in all honesty it was quite stressful. We could hardly see one another, and we felt like our appreciation, that probably could never be adequately expressed anyway, went with very little mention. It was not the way I wanted to say good bye. I wanted Ellie's care givers' last memories of her to be sweet, angelic and ones that were filled with her enjoying her new family.

Eventually we made our way out onto the bumpy, rock road. We all loaded up into Tegist's SUV. It was difficult for her to turn around on the road as there was a lot of construction happening on a literal road made out of rocks. Not pebbles. Rocks. Once she was able to turn around, the SUV died. Kaput. There were no street lights. No roadside assistance. Nada. I must say that I became scared at this point. Tegist began joking with us that once the locals saw the white people, they'd come after us with a gun to steal our money. She was joking. But not really. Or maybe she was. Who knows. I know SHE wasn't scared. But as I sat there in the SUV on an abandoned road with no light, I was afraid! I remember thinking, "Lord, really? Really? You took us on this crazy 16 month adoption journey, let me go through surgery only two weeks ago only to unite our family and then let it all end like this?" - you get the picture, I was scared! Dramatic, too? Maybe.

After a while it all got worked out and we made it to a really unique restaurant in Addis that serves Ethiopian food while you watch groups of dancers from all different Ethiopian tribes do their traditional dances (and wear their traditional costumes). And, one of the dancers even got Kenny to get up and try to shake his hiney. It was quite entertaining!