African Time

You know when your agency is trying to prepare you for what your trip will be like one of the first things they tell you is things move slower there, it is African time not the US. Well we experienced this every day we were there. When we filled out our form on things we wanted to do we noted we wanted to go to the Mercato, Blue Gorge and Meki. Well I guess one out of 3 ain't bad.

The 2nd day we were there we had plans to go to the Hilton early in the am so everyone could email and then go to the Mercato before we went to Toukoul. I so wanted to go and experience the Mercato even if I didn't buy anything. The Mercato is one of the largest out door markets in all of Africa. Well we never made it. We were waiting for the driver to come that knew the Mercato better than Moulouko (spelling probably way off). Wendi shows up and we thought he was going to be our driver, no he was just dropping us off at the Hilton and then taking the van to be serviced and the new driver was coming to pick us up with a different car.

Long story short, we never got there it was time to go to Toukoul. Of course I was disappointed but spending time with Haven and Alec was more important.

Day two at Toukoul was easier, we knew what to expect. They brought Alec into us first and then I heard the screams. It was Haven, She was screaming bloody murder, she didn't want to come be with us. I wanted Naing to take her so I could hold Alec. When Naing went to go get her she was crying and clinging to the Nanny. The Nanny turned away from Naing and said Mommy and gave her to me. I was upset the Nanny was perpetuating her non-interest in Naing. We took them back to the guest house/hotel for the day. Got to spend time with them, feed them, play with them. Taking them back at the end of the day was hard and once again there was screaming from Haven. Alec was all smiles, but Haven was screaming and grabbing on to me this time. I just wanted to check her out then and there, but the next day was the meeting with the Dr from Toukoul and I wanted to know about her medical history before we checked her out. But I decided I would take her out on Wed so she didn't have to keep going back and forth and give her time to bond with us.

Our embassy date had been changed. Originally we were scheduled for Thursday, but because of some embassy training we were moved up to Wed am. So no travels for Wed either, embassy in the morning, Dr in the afternoon.
Wednesday morning we picked the children up at Toukoul and were headed to the embassy after the driver swung by to pick up our lawyer. We were all asking were he was going, because we hadn't been told we would picking up Sinti...poor Moulkoul, his English was limited and he had a hard time explaining his answers some times. Of course none of us spoke Amharic so we did the best we could.
Driving to the embassy was very interesting. As you get closer to the embassy area of town you saw soldiers/police with AK47 standing out on the street. The area is patrolled and guarded.
We had to park and walk a block or so to the embassy. That was very interesting. Here is Naing and I with our two children, the Garcias with their two children and Sinti leading the way. People in the shops and on the streets are staring at us. Once you get to the embassy you have to wait until you are called to go inside. They have benches set up outside with a covering to protect you from the rain. Since our embassy date was changed, there were other families from a different agency there for their court dates. We sat outside and chatted with everyone and found out where they were from. Then we got called into the embassy and went through security and the metal detectors. Now it was time to wait again until our family was called to the window upstairs. When we were sitting down, a lovely Ethiopian woman who lives in Seattle was asking me how we adopted and how long of a process it was. She was interesting in adopting. (Small world that it is, she was our flight attendant on the Ethiopian Air flight to DC. She recognized Haven and me.)
At the embassy the children were being very good for the long wait that we had. Once we got called to the window, I made the fatal mistake of putting Haven on the counter to sit so I could speak at the window. She started to cry and didn't stop. Cried all through the questions. Cried the whole ride back to Toukoul. She was crying so much, Sinti had Moulkoul stop at the store and by some crackers for her, thinking she was hungry. She wasn't. She was mad and got herself so worked up nothing would calm her now but sleep. He asked me when we were seeing the Dr. and I told him in the afternoon, he said "good, find out why she cries so much".
Our meeting with the Dr. was different then what we expected since she brought all three families in at once and told us about our children's history in front of each other.
She told us Haven had gotten over an ear infection, even though she was still pulling at her ears. I put her on Alec's antibiotics just in case, since we were getting on a plane in a few days.
We found out Alec has "asthma" or as she put it hyperactive bronchi. When we asked if we could check him out that day, she wanted him to stay since he was still sick so they could monitor him.
So we left him to stay another night and took Haven out to be with us.
Back to African time, sorry I got off track. We wanted to go to Meki and see where our children came from and take pictures of the area to show them. We wanted to go on Thurs.......did not happen. Aster promised it would happen on Friday. We thought it was all planned out when we went to bed that night. But in the morning the drivers knew nothing about taking us to Meki and there were many phone calls to Aster trying to get it all arranged and get a different car to take us. Naing was getting worked up because it was now after 10 am and it was a 2 hour drive there and back. After many false starts, we got on the road to Meki. More on Meki later.