Friday.
We wake up. I don't feel like breakfast again, so Chuck and Rose go up, and I repack all the luggage so we're ready to go this evening. At ten o'clock we leave for the older kids' picnic. We get to the orphanage and wonder how in the world all the travelers, nannies, and like twenty children are going to fit in this thirteen passenger van. It was a little like a clown car, but somehow it worked. We drove to the Ghion Hotel, which has a children's play area. The weirdest thing was going onto the hotel grounds and the first thing we here is the Bee Gee's "Staying Alive" coming from the Merry-Go-Round. Well, either that, or a 2Pac for Life Poster we saw in this little store with a goat outside. There are some awesome incongruities in Addis Ababa. Things you really don't expect to pair together. I really love that about this city. There will be a totally modern, glass-front building going up and there will be wood (like still identifiable as parts of trees) scaffolding.
Anyway, the picnic consisted of playing with the kids on the merry-go-round (which Rose would have no part of) and at a playground area (which Rose would also have almost no part of – she let me and a nanny hold her on our laps on a swing). But it was fun, and Rose was actually hanging out with a nanny for a bit, so I got to play with some of the other kids, who are just SO sweet! I just wanted to bring them all home with me. And they wanted me to- they each want to be the 'chosen' kids so badly! I was making plans the whole time I was there as to who I could convince to come back here and take these kids home! (All my DINK friends, watch out!)
After the picnic, which ended abruptly as it started to rain (and in the rainy season in Ethiopia, that is no joke) we got the kids in the van before it started pouring, but it was pretty frightening to drive through it. It is so hilly and the rain just sweeps down the hills and stuff, it's really amazing to see. We got the kids back to the school safely (though pretty wet going from the van inside) and went back to the guest house to have a quick lunch and make sure everything was packed and ready for later.
After lunch, we went back to the school for the "goodbye ceremony". It was so sweet and wonderful and I was totally emotionally unprepared. It was only us and one other family at the school ceremony, which was for the older kids, the rest went to a separate ceremony at the infant center. The nannies gave Rose and Meskalo (the little four year old boy from the Embassy) traditional Ethiopian outfits, then all of the children sang "I've got peace like a river" and some Ethiopian songs. Then they gave each child a card that they made. Then all of the children gathered in a circle with Rose and Meskalo and some of the caregivers in the middle, and Tsewai said a prayer in Amharic over the two children, while at intervals all of the children chimed in with "amen". It was so moving, I had tears in my eyes most of the time because I just felt so honored to be part of it all and to be entrusted with this beautiful little princess. It was obvious how deeply the children were cared for. Then Rose and Meskalo got to cut a cake that said "bon voyage" on the top. It was a different, more dense sort of cake, not very sweet, almost like a quick bread or something, but big enough for all of the kids in the school to have big pieces.
The kids sat theater-style ostensibly to watch "Pocahontas" but most of their eyes were fixed on us sitting against the wall of the room with Rose. Almost none of them watched the movie while they ate their cake, they all watched us. It was sweet. Then we left and went back to the guest house to eat dinner.
We left for the airport with a few goodbyes and little additional ceremony, there was an emergency stop as we left the guest house as someone realized they hadn't yet given us Rose's passport and the secret "do not open this until you arrive at immigration in the US" envelope.
As we drove one last pass through Addis, I tried to remember as much as I could about it so I could answer the questions I know my daughter will ask someday.
The next thing I knew, we blew past the airport checkpoint, and there was a quick exchange of money, etc, as Tesafaye paid porters to take us and our bags through to the terminal. We got through pretty easily, although the check-in guy laughed at us because we had only three bags to check and we could have checked nine. We just didn't have as much stuff on the way home because the donation bags were empty- we actually packed one suitcase inside a larger one just so we didn't have as much to wrangle in the airports.
We waitied in the business-class lounge, where Rose and I ate a bunch of free croissants and drank water, etc. I was a bit concerned about the potty situation. I had only seen her go on an actual toilet once, today at the picnic, otherwise it's been strictly potty chairs. So we made, literally, twenty-five trips back and forth to look at the toilet, then I handed her to Chuck for a little good cop/bad cop, he took her to the bathroom, then came out, gave her to me, I took her back in and she peed. Either she couldn't hold it anymore or something finally clicked.
So we hung out, then boarded our flight around 9:45 pm (their time). We got on the plane, sat down, and all of the lights went out. Apparently there was a malfunction with a machine on the ground that provides the power to parked planes. And they couldn't board any more people. So we sat there forever, quickly exhausting our fun stuff to do on planes with two-year-olds bag of goodies. Then, Rose got pretty agitated, I assumed because she was bored and super-tired, but as I felt a warm wetness on my lap I figured out pretty quickly it was because she had to pee. So I almost knocked down a flight attendant as we ran to the airplane toilet (keep in mind, we're still in the gate when this happens). And she finished up there.
And we put a pull-up on her. And now I'm peed on too (which as a parent is not something I'm totally unfamiliar with, but I haven't brought myself a full change of clothes, just a clean t-shirt, which I promptly change into.) So, 30 or so hours left to travel and I smell like pee. Excellent start.
But, the plane finally takes off, we watch a Bollywood movie (I think called "the Arrangement") which was cute and entertaining, then Rose falls asleep and I am not far behind.
you finally got me. a single tear dropped. damn good-bye ceremony!