Day Three in Ethiopia (Monday)

Day 3 – The night went better than expected. Tibebu slept well but woke up every 2-3 hours to eat. They feed the babies on demand at the orphanage so they eat all the time He woke up at 5 ready to play. He doesn’t seem scared of us anymore and takes comfort in seeing us when he wakes up. We got ready, skyped with Emma and Yaya and Pappy and Meemaw and Papa, ate breakfast, and then were off to the embassy.

The ride to the embassy took about 45 minutes. We drove through the city of Addis Ababa to get there. You can tell the people take pride in their city as the streets are well paved and clean. The smog is very thick. I didn’t realize how lucky we were to live with clean air until driving through this city.

We got to the US Embassy and they started calling the names in our travel group. There are 8 other families traveling with us. Three others picking up babies, two families picking up toddlers, and three families picking up older children.

They called our name and we went upstairs to a window. She asked us a couple of questions regarding the adoption such as did you know the mother beforehand? Is this the child that was referred to you? She then ended our meeting by telling us that this adoption was final and there were no “give-backs”. Really? You mean this isn’t just a trial run? She informed us that we could pick up his Visa in the next couple of days and we went back downstairs to be with our group. That was it. That was the last official thing we had to do while in Ethiopia.

Tibebu did well on the trip to the embassy. He doesn’t seem overwhelmed by new sights and sounds which is good because he is going to be bombarded with them in a few days. Our travel group finished and we headed back to the hotel. They dropped us off, we had lunch and went back up to our hotel room hoping Tibebu would take a nap.

The food: John and I are normally pretty easy going when it comes to food. We like being adventurous and trying new things. The food at our hotel has been very difficult for us to eat. There is a spice that goes in Ethiopian food that they put in all of their entrees. Spagetti becomes Ethipian Spagetti, tomato soup, the same. The only thing we have found that we like is the French fries, go figure. I think the lack of food is starting to wear on us. We wish we had brought more snacks to hold us over until we returned to the states.

Monday night was a rough night. I (Sarah) started feeling sick around 6pm and got in bed early. I had a headache, stomach ache and fever. The smog on the ride to the Embassy triggered my asthma making it harder to me to breathe. We think that triggered some altitude sickness. I drank two liters of water, took some asprin and felt better in the morning. John took on the baby duties that night and Tibebu woke up every 2 hours again. We are already ready to get home.