Schimke Ethiopian Adoption: Sponsor visit #2

Well, today started out a bit differently than I had hoped. I woke up with one of my bad headaches, and if I don't do something fast it gets bad really quickly! I took an advil on an empty stomach, which is never a good idea for me, but I wanted to get over it before we left at 7:30. It got super bad, and then I got super nauseous, and then it was time to go.

What a miserable first hour of driving! We were stuck in a crazy traffic jam in Addis, breathing in diesel fuel, starting and stopping for what seemed like forever and I was wishing I had stayed back. I had come to the point where I was going to have the van stop in Debre Zeit and would find a hotel and stay there in misery until they came back and got me.

Thankfully, the headache pain went away as the advil kicked in, and eventually the nausea subsided and I felt good as new. I am sooo thankful that I am healthy again and that we all survived the food we ate yesterday! :-)

Today we drove about 2.5 hours to Adama (Nazret). It was a much more pleasant drive than yesterday, as we actually had paved roads the whole way. Either the road has gotten a bit safer, or there wasn't as much traffic, or I just got used to it, but I didn't find that we had as many near-head on collisions as we have had on that road in the past.

We finally arrived in Adama - it is quite a nice city and looked to be a bit nicer to me than Addis. We again got a tour of the CCFC offices (these are much nicer) and then drove to go see our first sponsor child of the day, Hanna. We ended up driving to a market, and parked right in the middle of it. We weren't sure if our hosts were going to buy something there, or why we stopped, but they came around and opened up the door. It turns out that each of the little stalls has a home behind it - who knew?

Hanna and her mother greeted us and treated us to a coffee ceremony with popcorn. She told us that we were in her uncle's house as hers was too small. Her uncle's house was basically one "big" room with a curtain in the middle to separate the bed from the rest of the room. Interestingly enough, the living area had a small fridge and a TV and a nice dresser. We had a nice question and answer period with them and were thrilled to know that Hanna liked football (soccer), knowing that we had put one in her backpack.

She was excited to open her backpack and it was fun to show everything to her. She is in Grade 6 and the same age as G but looks at least 3 or 4 years older. At the end of our visit we were able to see her home, right next to her uncle's home. I was very shocked - her home is a tiny square hole in a wall, with a single sized mattress and dresser that filled the entire space, and you couldn't even stand in there. I will show pictures below - their "home" was smaller than any closet in our house, and the communal kitchen was tiny as well.

Other than the shock of that, it was interesting to see that Hanna was like a typical teenager. Her mom struggled to get her to do chores, and Hanna just wanted to hang out with her friends and have fun. That sounds so familiar! :-) Of the 3 sponsor kids we visited, Hanna had the least and seemed to have it the hardest as she had access to the TV at her uncle's and knew what else was out there.

OK, I'll see if I can post some pictures before I move on to the next sponsor visit.

E presenting Hanna with her backpack

Excitedly looking through the backpack. You can see the TV and fridge behind and the curtain which divides the bed area from the living area (this is her uncle's house)