Our first full day in Addis

Wow - it feels so much better when you actually sleep at night!  We all woke up feeling much better and enjoyed a delicious breakfast at our home - GT Guesthouse.  After showers we felt even more human and by 9 we were ready to meet Solomon, our contact at the orphanage.  He was kind enough to arrange a driver for us, and we used Marcos as our guide for a day of shopping.

We first went to the scarf place by Entoto and bought some nice scarves there.  Unfortunately, by the time we got there G wasn't feeling well and said she was car sick.  We walked over to the market to buy traditional clothing for M and a few people, and by then G was whiter than white and sick at the side of the road.  Thankfully, I had packed a number of "motion sickness bags" from the airplane in my purse but we were quite the spectacle.

G needed to go home so we drove all the way back to the guesthouse.  We were all so disappointed because there were a number of stores that we all wanted to go to and didn't want to have an adult and G miss out on it.  We ended up leaving my mom home with the kids and Arvid and I went to buy donations for the orphanage instead.

Wow, do I miss grocery stores.  I complain when I have to do Superstore and Costco in the same day!  We went to the market to buy a bunch of things, had to go to different stalls for different items, then drove to a different store to buy flour, a different store for sugar, and said we were done before going to a different store for meat and eggs.  We came back to the guesthouse to pick everyone up (Arvid stayed with G) and we went to see the new KVI orphanage.  This is the same orphanage where M was from, although they have since moved buildings.

We dropped off all of the donations there and had a tour of the building.  It is quite nice - about 15 older kids, 6 toddlers and 6 babies.  The babies were ADORABLE, of course.  In case any of you were wondering if we would adopt again, it's looking like Ethiopia will be shutting international adoption down or slowing it down considerably.  It's not even much of an option anymore, and KVI orphanage has been doing lots of fostering and local adoptions instead, which is great.  (So the answer is no, in case that wasn't clear enough)

Anyway, by the end of all this we were quite pooped so we just walked to a local restaurant for supper.  G was feeling good at this point so we all went, but halfway through the meal she turned white again and so I took her home.  I'm like a seasoned African now, crossing the busy street (actually more like playing frogger), walking down a dark, gravel alley at night with nothing but my tiny green-stripe tae kwon do daughter to protect me...

So that's our day...tomorrow we have planned to visit our first sponsor kid.  She is so sweet and her mother is so nice - we were able to visit her on our last trip and I would be sad to have two of us miss out on that.  I REALLY hope she is better tomorrow and that this is just from being run down.

I will hopefully post more pictures tomorrow and update on the girls' thoughts of Africa so far.  But it's nearing 8 o'clock and I think that will be my bedtime tonight!  Good night!  :-)