Our 3rd day in country was Wednesday, June 1st. It was by far our busiest day, so I'll warn you now that the photo slideshow is a long one! :)
After a terrible night's sleep filled with rock-hard mattresses and gunshots, we woke up to our alarm and headed down for breakfast. The hotel had a buffet, and although it had a good bit of "interesting" items, we found plenty to eat-potatoes, eggs, crepes, and we tried some of the other things without success. We saw the eye clinic volunteers at breakfast, and learned we would be heading to the clinic for our first stop of the day.
We packed up and headed to Dehra, about 30 minutes away from Nazareth. As we drove, we saw people waiting on the side of the road with big yellow containers for water. Woudneh told us that they had probably been waiting since sunrise, and that they may have to wait until midnight for water to arrive. This was one of the hardest things we saw the whole week, and we saw it over and over. The fact that people have to wait for hours, or even days, for something that is NEEDED to survive, and we can just turn on our faucet and watch it flow...it's not fair. The first time I took the boys to the pool after we came back, I just watched all the kids wasting water (including my own), and had trouble reconciling what we have here with what I saw there. It's heart breaking.
We arrived at the community center where the eye clinic was being held, we saw a huge group of people pushing up at a gate, and realized they were all trying to be allowed in. Inside was a huge line as well, and then there were more people waiting near the rooms where things were set up. At one point they opened the gate to let a van with supplies inside, and people began pushing and shoving to try to get in. The people in charge tore a branch off a tree and began beating people back...yikes! I couldn't believe how many people had come...word spread quickly! Chad, KC, and I were quickly put to work matching people's prescriptions with the hundreds of donated pairs of glasses, then helping them try them on and test them out. It was an amazing experience! My eyes are terrible (like legally blind), so I think I especially appreciated the difference these glasses would make for them. There were 5 of us in a hot, small room, and we quickly got sweaty, but it was such an amazing experience. After a while I really had to go to the bathroom, so Chad helped me find the hole in the ground out back...always an adventure!
After a couple of hours there, Woudneh came in and told us it was time to move on to our next stop. I was so glad we had the opportunity to help with the clinic. Out of everything we did while we were there, it was my favorite experience (next to being with Gabby of course!!). We headed from there to Woudneh's parent's home a short drive away. We were invited to stay for some food, and wonderfully cold bottled Cokes :) I was amazed at how many people were in the house-parents, children, aunts, uncles, nephews and nieces, cousins...lots of people! Their home was very nice, and they were very gracious hosts. We passed out some of the candy I had brought along to the kids on the street, who came running when they saw white people with goodies!
From there we stopped and got some bananas, then made a stop at a resort where we got to feed wild monkeys. Chad and I had done that in Thailand, with very aggressive monkeys, so we were a little nervous this time. But these monkeys were much more mellow, and although I still refused to feed them, Chad, KC, and JW had a blast (I took pictures!).
On our way to our next stop, we stopped on the street to see a young boy who had caught a wild chicken. He was so proud of himself, and Woudneh told us he would probably get 40 birr (about $2.50 US) for it. Finally we made the stop Chad and I had been hoping for-we went to Gabby's original orphanage. It was very surreal to walk through the gates and know that our sweet baby girl had been brought here several months before. It was really neat to see how self-sufficient they were. They had cows, chickens, coffee trees, banana trees. Then we had a chance to meet with the director of the orphanage and hear some of Gabby's story, which was a wonderful surprise and blessing. After talking with her, a woman came out to do a coffee ceremony for us. This was one of my biggest fears! I HATE coffee, but I didn't want to offend anyone by not drinking it. I finally took a few sips, then slipped my mostly full cup to Chad and he traded me for his mostly empty one! While we drank the coffee and ate popcorn, some of the older kids came out and sang for us. We toured the orphanage, then passed out candy and left them a soccer ball before leaving.
We headed back toward Addis, and stopped for dinner along the way at a beautiful resort. We sat at an outside patio on a lake, and enjoyed some good pasta (after finding out they were out of the first things we ordered-same thing happened with our desserts!). Salads were included with our meals, but we had been told not to eat raw fruits and veggies we didn't peel ourselves, so we weren't going to eat them. But they sounded SO good, so we all broke down and ate them. We also all had stomach issues later in the week...not sure if that's why! JW, KC, and I tried to get massages or pedicures at the attached spa, but they were all booked up. Chad did get to go kayaking, which he enjoyed, even though he got soaked.
We weren't too upset that we couldn't get spa treatments, since we thought we'd get back early enough to see the babies. However, literally as we pulled up to the gate surrounding the guest house around 7:30 pm, the power went out everywhere. Boo! The house was pitch black, but luckily we had a small, hand-crank flashlight to try to see while we got ready for bed. I was miserable and cranky, but go-with-the-flow Chad just took it all in stride (which of course made me crankier!). I debated taking a sleeping pill, but decided that after sleeping on the rock mattress the night before and being up half the night, I was surely so tired I wouldn't need it (can you sense the foreshadowing?!).
