Sorry for the delay.

I will attempt to fill in the blanks a bit during the time we were in Africa. As some of you may know, we decided to finally go on our honeymoon and to do a safari in Africa. We were to leave from Nairobi and spend two glorious weeks in Kenya and Tanzania living it up and hanging with the wildlife (more on that later). When we decided to adopt, I couldn't pass up the opportunity to spend a few days in Ethiopia as it is only a two hour flight from Nairobi. I did not go there with the intention to find our baby but I figured I could check out the scene, bring some donations, talk to folks and help out our adoption agency with taking pix and gathering information on older waiting kids. I could only spare three full days but how full those three days were.

I put out the call for donations and was inundated. I managed to get permission to bring an extra piece of luggage so I had my bag plus two fifty-pound boxes filled with all kinds of clothes, medicines, toys, etc... and I still have more stuff for the next trip. I had one box earmarked for AHOPE, an orphanage for HIV+ kids and the other I planned to give to my adoption agency which funds several orphanages and was in the process of setting up a transition house where I knew our baby would be staying until we could bring her/him home. I am also tasked with trying to get photos, weights and measurements of the matched children waiting to come home to the US.

So I had just about the longest series of flights ever. Here is my routing:

SFO-London: 11 hours
8 hour layover in London
London-Nairobi: 9 hours
10 hour layover in Nairobi
Nairobi-Addis Ababa: 2.5 hours

Now before you feel too sorry for me, I will tell you that I exchanged something like ten years worth of frequent flyer miles so that Matt and I could fly Virgin Upper Class. So my on-board experience looked something like this and my eight hour layover in London was here. I tell you, once you go business class, it is hard to go back.

So two or three days later, I arrive in Addis and head to the New Flower Guesthouse which is run by an Ethiopian-American woman who is quite active in the adoption community and started the guesthouse primarily for adoptive families. When I arrived, I am greeted in the communal lounge by all these foreign white women holding little Ethiopian babies. It was really kind of strange and I had to think "that will be me soon".

The next day, I am met by my driver Genanew who turns out to be my adoption agency director's brother. From there it was a whirlwind tour as I spend time visiting eight or so orphanages. But first a bit on Addis Ababa...

Now I have traveled to something like eighty countries and have spent lots of time in poor communities and third-world nations. But Addis has to be one of the poorest capital cities I have been too. They're even too poor to have a McDonald's if you can believe that one. Usually even in a poor country, you can see pockets of really ritzy neighborhoods where the "haves" live in posh houses. I went through the city several times and the only place I saw that looked remotely ritzy was the Sheraton Hotel. I would say it is akin to a nice four star hotel but for Addis, it is considered WAY over the top. It's like an oasis island in the middle of a tin roofed ocean, complete with armed guards to keep the riff raff out.

Speaking of guards, lots of houses had them and almost every house had a tall surround wall with sharp object such as broken bottles or razor wire at the top. You drive up to the gate, honk softly and some older male eventually opens to gate once he makes sure you are on the level. He probably gets paid a dollar a day which is more than twice the national average.

The streets of Addis are enough to shock 99.99% of Americans. It is really, really hard to describe but imagine cars going in every direction sharing the main road with scads of people, fully laden donkeys, cows, flocks of sheep and homeless people actually sleeping ON the road next to the middle median. OK, I have changed my mind, I think that 100% of Americans will be shocked. I was taking it all in stride until I realized a slight accidental veer to the left by about a foot would crush the skull of a sleeping man and you probably wouldn't even get in trouble for it. Yet in all this mayhem there are very few accidents and people don't get hit. The protocol is to gently honk at every opportunity which actually causes humans, cars and beasts to veer out of your way. So whatever the unspoken yield/go etiquette, it seems to work.

Ok, so here are some stats:

Life Expectancy: 48 years (Ethiopia), 78 years (US)
Gross National Income (per capita): $160 (Ethiopia), $43740 (US)
Percent of population living on <$1/day: 23% (Ethiopia), 0% (US) % of population w/ improved drinking water: 22% (Ethiopia), 100% (US) % of population w/ adequate sanitation: 13% (Ethiopia), 100% (US) Child Labor (5-14 years): 47% (Ethiopia) Female genital mutilation: 74% (Ethiopia)

COMING SOON: my visit to the orphanages.