Schimke Ethiopian Adoption: Merry Christmas??

January 7th was Christmas in Ethiopia. I am such a Christmas girl - I was thrilled to celebrate it twice this year.

(For those of you not familiar with it, Ethiopia works by a different calendar. We are based on the Gregorian calendar, but Ethiopia is based on the Ge'ez calendar. Ethiopia has 12 months of 30 days, and one month of 5 or 6 days. Currently it is 2006-05-01 in Ethiopia so we were all 7 years younger! :-) Incidentally, Ethiopia also works by a different clock. They say that 7 am is actually 1 o'clock...essentially 6 am when the sun comes up is the start of the day. If you're trying to figure out the date or time in Ethiopia you have to be careful to make sure you're using the same reference point. Good thing I knew this, as we were told once this trip that we would be picked up at 1 am...which I knew was 7 am)

I'm not sure what I was expecting for Christmas in Ethiopia, but it was definitely different than I thought it would be. I was surprised to hear that Ethiopians get fake Christmas trees and decorate them. The trees were quite small (about 3-4 feet tall?) and the decorations were very glitzy - mostly strings of foil tinsel. As I mentioned before, I found most decorations to be extremely tacky. Businesses would display a big poster of Santa Claus with "Merry Christmas" on it. Some stores displayed trees with cotton balls on it or on the walls to symbolize snow. In some cases it came across more like a spooky Halloween decoration than Christmas. One decoration that was different than home is that Ethiopians put long grass on the floor. This is used for festive occasions as well as Christmas, and many stores and businesses had this grass on the floor and were offering coffee ceremonies.

Christmas, January 7, was our last day in Ethiopia and we spent the day packing and just enjoying not rushing anywhere. We spent a few hours out in the courtyard and enjoyed the sun and played games - it was a perfect, sunny day. We went for a last walk to Kaldi's and enjoyed coffee, fries and fresh squeezed juice. The streets were eerily quiet - there were barely any cars on the roads and even less people on the sidewalks. Normally the road by the guesthouse was so busy with traffic and so many people walk around. It was so different on this day - it actually felt a lot more like home.

After we were fully packed up we went to Habesha 2000 for a traditional supper. I was looking forward to ordering a few things I knew and being served on the large basket, or mesob, for the true experience. It ended up being a buffet so we had no idea what we were eating, but it all tasted good. They even had some rice and noodles at the end of the buffet for those in our group who weren't quite as adventurous. It was our first time at Habesha (we had been to Hebir a few times in the past) and we enjoyed it a lot. The room was divided up into various themes from cities around Ethiopia, the food was good and the live music and live dancing was very entertaining. I would have enjoyed staying longer, but it was time to head back and do final packing before leaving for the airport at 10 pm.

I don't think we ever stayed up until 10 pm on this trip until this day...and E and M actually fell asleep on the couch at the guesthouse before leaving for the airport. Once we passed through a zillion checkpoints (they scan all belongings through an x-ray machine before even entering the airport, and make you take your shoes off - the only place we were required to do so on this trip) we were able to sit down and rest a bit. This airport is actually a really nice building - the best part was that they have now added some lounge type chairs so that you can lie down before going to your gate. That was a huge treat!

We were pretty exhausted by the time we were required to go to our gate, and in true African fashion they changed gates at the last minute and had mad chaos trying to fight the people from the China flight who looked like they would form a mob at any second. Thankfully, one of the airline attendants saw that the kids were nearly dropping, ushered us to the front of the line and we were able to get on the plane. I sat with my mom and E on this part of the journey. E and I were asleep by the time the fasten seatbelt light went off, and we both slept about 5 hours.

Enjoying a rare morning of relaxation

My mom and the kids made journals before they left home - the kids did a great job of updating their journals on our trip.

E managed to lose a tooth around Christmas at home, and another one at Christmas in Ethiopia!

E, at Kaldi's. This girl is so photogenic!

A previous trip to Kaldi's - love it here!

Kaldi's coffee, drinks and fries. Yum!

Enjoying the quiet streets and sidewalks

On one of our sponsor visits we bought some sugar cane. It was really interesting to try it - you cut the outside off, suck the juice out of the inside and discard the pulp. Yum! I also loved that Coke in Ethiopia was made with actual sugar instead of HFCS. Yes, it's still evil but not as evil as at home!