Monday!

Monday--more details... The generator is still running the electricity here, but all seems well...

For breakfast we had some type of pastry, sorta like flat sopapillas, pineapple juice, cakes of different sorts, and eggs. T and our other guide, Robel, and David picked us up at the guest house about 9:30, and drove us to the Hilton, a luxury hotel. We did the adoption paperwork out on the patio. It is beautiful weather here. The altitude is about 6000 or 7000 feet, but we are pretty close to the equator, and the combination makes for great year round weather. There are palm trees and cactus. It feels breezy, cool with sunshine, tropical "Monterrey, CA" terrific! Lunch was nice, and the sparrows landed very nearby to pick up our crumbs. Then, baby time!

We went to the AWAA Transition Home. It is where kids come when they are being adopted through AWAA to American families. They come there from different Ethiopian government -run orphanages. Keeping in mind that it is an institution caring for up to 90 orphans in a 3rd world country, the home is actually very nice and the nannies very loving toward the children. The children are generally pretty healthy and fat and clean and well cared for. That is how we found Micah and the other two children being adopted in our group. There is a nice porch where we just hung out with the babies and the parents started bonding. Micah is so sweet, calm, and mild. He never fussed till he got hungry, and he sucked down a hot bottle very quickly. It was hard to say bye, but we did for one more night.

They dropped us ladies off at a Spa--very nice. The guys came back and hung out at the guest house. The massages and pedicures were very nice, and amazingly cheap. We then picked up the guys and went to dinner. We ate a traditional dinner where we all sat around tiny basket based tables. They served fajita like meat and different sauces and veggies on top of this flat spongy bread. You use the bread in place of silverware. Pretty tasty, and different from anything I've ever had. We had honey wine too, served in what looked like science class beakers. Yum! There were incredible dancers and singers there too. They had such joy on their faces as they danced--they were truly having a great time!