A Long Post

Five Months
I can’t believe I have been here five months already. It has gone by so fast and so slow at the same time. Don’t ask me how that happens. I have really enjoyed my time here for the most part. It’s not without its frustrations and problems but I really feel that God is using me here. I love living with a bunch of kids all around me – and for the most part I love living with five other women. I don’t know how long I will be at this orphanage but I am grateful to have been here this long especially since my brothers were here for four out of the five months. I am so thankful to everyone who has supported me in prayer and donations.

Lookin’ For Love
Tonight at dinner one of the nannies asked me to find her an American boyfriend. This has inspired me to write about each of them…and attach a photo – it can’t hurt.
Tesfanesh is 38 years old and has been working in a couple different orphanages for about 6 years now. She is a very sweet lady who always puts others before her. She is about 5’4” and super petite (She can fit into a child’s size 10 pants).

Zoudie is 28 and has been working in this orphanage for about 6 months now. She loves the babies that she is looking after so much and they love her. She is a super hard worker too. She is about 5’ and is very tiny.

Meseret is 26 and she has been working here at the orphanage for about 6 months as the cook. She is a really good cook too. She really loves the children and takes really good care of them meal wise. She cooks something special for a couple of the kids who need extra high protein diets. She is about 5’6” and average weight.

Hiwot is 25 and has been working here for over a year now. She went to school to become an electrician but couldn’t find a job because she is a woman. She works constantly and loves her kids so much. She is a very persistent woman. She is about 5’7” and is very thin.

Missaye is 23 and has only been working here for 3 ½ months. She loves to laugh and joke around with everyone. Although she is the youngest she works very hard. I had to show her how to use Desitin when she first got here…she thought it was lotion. She is about 5’7” and average.

So there are the five women I live with.

Out To Dry
Today I had to do my own laundry. I know that that sounds very spoiled. The washing machine is about as unpredictable as the water. I was using it when it worked but as of now it won’t drain so it is out of commission since I don’t know how to fix it. The last couple of times I have tried to do laundry Selam (the laundry lady) has physically removed me from doing it. They say that I don’t know how to do it since I am white or that I don’t have the right skin. So I have just paid her to do it. Today I ran out of clean clothes and Selam didn’t come to work today…I think she is sick. So after Tesfanesh left to buy groceries I took my clothes downstairs and started. Missaye tried to help but I told her not to touch my clothes since she had a load to do of herself. When Tesfanesh came back and saw that I was doing my own laundry she told me to stop and that she would do it. Of course I didn’t listen to her. It took me about 3 hours but I did two loads of laundry. My hands hurt so badly from scrubbing and wringing but I’m glad that I showed them that I could do it. My knuckles are rubbed raw and sting. I wore shorts today and got a small sunburn on my legs which freaks everyone out. The kids like to push on it and watch it turn from red to white and back to red again. Luckily I have enough clothes to last me a couple weeks so I won’t have to do this anytime soon.

10:52pm
I was just about to turn the light off when my phone rang. I thought it was someone from home but when I looked at the caller ID I saw that it was Sue. She was calling to tell us that a five-day-old baby was being dropped off in 45 minutes. He was found on the side of the road and had nowhere else. So I rushed to find Tesfanesh before she fell asleep. I found her in the kitchen cleaning the stove. Alazar and his friend showed up a little more than a half hour later with a completely naked baby only wrapped in a blanket. He had peed on Alazar’s friend too. Tesfa took him upstairs while I locked the gate for the night. When I went upstairs he was screaming so loud. Tesfa had put him down to go heat up water for a bath. I uncovered him and was immediately taken aback by his smell. He stunk so badly. Whoa I was not expecting that. It looked and smelled like he hadn’t had a bath in all his five days of life. His umbilical cord was so long which means he probably wasn’t born in a hospital. He had black poop all over his back so I quickly went to Hiwot’s room and grabbed two bottles from her and made one. He hated it when I uncovered him and cleaned him up but he loved the bottle that I gave him after it was finished. I didn’t want to dirty a blanket by just him being wrapped in it so I grabbed a cloth diaper and sort of wrapped him in it until Tesfa came back with warm water. He did not like the bath at all but he soon settled down when we got him dry and clothed. Tonight was probably his first time in a bath and in clothes. I told Tesfa that we would have to clean his umbilical cord for a while until it fell off. She had no idea what it was – I didn’t want to explain. So he is sleeping in Tesfa’s room with Muna and Little Eyob. It is 12:30 am and I am really tired. Good night.

Here Comes The Sun…
The water came on from the street last night around 7pm so I told the ladies that if we still have water tomorrow that I would like to have a water fight with the kids. Only Tesfanesh knew what I was talking about. Hiwot, Zoudie and Missaye have never been in a water fight so then we explained to them what we were going to do. Zoudie really liked the idea and so did Hiwot but Missaye didn’t want to participate. So today while we were eating our bread and drinking our tea it got dark all of the sudden. Of course a huge dark cloud would come right before I wanted to start the fight. So I waited a little while and enjoyed my breakfast and then the sun came back. We all hurried and got ready then we found out that the water was slowly going because there wasn’t enough pressure to push it through the hose. So we grabbed buckets and water pitchers and had the kids undress all the way to their undies. As soon as Matthewos and Helina got wet they started screaming so they were out right away. Zoudie soon came out and she started to get me. The water was cold but surprisingly refreshing. Of course I had to retaliate. After we were both soaked we started getting the kids again. The sun disappeared again and it was cold. Hiwot then came outside with out a bucket or anything so Zoudie and I drenched her. She put up a pretty good fight though. After ten minutes of ganging up on Hiwot I called time out and we got the kids again. They were visibly shaking so we called it quits after two minutes. I grabbed a towel and started drying them one at a time but the wind was so cold it didn’t matter. Finally the sun came out for good… of course after we had finished our fight.

Dance Dance Revolution
Today thirty minutes before lunch it got really cold outside so I brought all the kids inside and told them that we were going to watch a movie. I brought down my computer - which had music on. Once they heard the music they all got up and started dancing. I turned it up and had Big Eyob get my camera and Sentayhu get Missaye and Hiwot. I looked over and Hannah was dancing her traditional dance. Her hands were on her hips and she was shakin’ it. Then I noticed the most surprising thing. Kanesa, the shyest kids here, is dancing some sort of traditional dance. He is bobbing his head and shaking his shoulders. It was so funny to watch Hannah and Kanesa dance. I got tons of video of them and the other kids dancing.

Names Names Names
Here are two of the names I answer too:
Zoudie calls me Eminy (Em-in-knee).
Selam calls me Elmy (L-me).
The other ladies make fun of them all the time but I think it’s kind of cute.

Happy Birthday
Happy 18th birthday Jake! I am sorry I am not there celebrating with you. I love you.

Fit Right In
I have converted the nannies to become The Office lovers. They don’t understand all of the humor but they enjoy watching it. I know they would fit right in with most Americans if they came to the U.S.

Oprah
Oprah has the biggest book club in America…I think. I am going to start a smaller one. Here is a list of book that I have read while I have been here. I was fortunately able to borrow some from SIM headquarters.
‘The Hospital by the River’ by Dr. Catherine Hamlin. This is about the fistula hospital in Addis and the life story of the husband and wife team who started it.
‘English Ivy’ by Something Palmer (I can’t remember). This is a Christian romance novel.
‘Remember Me?’ by Sophie Kinsella. This is a secular romance novel about a woman who looses her memory after a car accident and her struggle to remember. (It was good but not great).
‘The Invisible Wall’ by Harry Bernstein. This is about the childhood of an English Jew and his struggle living next to discriminate Christians and being very very poor.
‘Slinky Malinki’ by Lynley Dodd. This is my favorite book to read to the kids. They love it so much that they ask for it at nap and bedtime. I have read it so much that I have memorized it. At various times each day you can hear a child quoting it.

Change of Heart
After lunch some of the ladies and I moved some bunk beds from downstairs to the new kids room because we were told that more kids from Kamashi were coming today. So as we were moving the beds Missaye changed from jeans and a sweater to a skirt and nice dress shirt. I didn’t realize it at the time but she changed because Yafet was going to be coming to the house to drop the kids off. It suddenly dawned on me around 7pm as to why she changed. I asked her through Tesfanesh and she just smiled and laughed and said that was the reason why she had changed and she thinks he is ‘ba-tom con-joe’ or very beautiful. We told the ladies at dinner and everyone had a really long laugh over this. So then I asked each of the ladies who they thought was cute. As soon as Missaye found out that Yafet is Orthodox she switched to Alazar (a driver we use all the time). He didn’t end up coming today because there was a problem with the van I think…but he is coming tomorrow!
So around five o’clock today Missaye came in and I asked her what she was going to wear tonight since Yafet was coming. She didn’t know. So I went and got all my clothes for her to try on and pick through. She found a very nice black dress/tunic to wear with jeans. When the van pulled up Tesfa went downstairs and I called Missaye to hurry. Tesfa opened the gate but there was no Yafet. Apparently they dropped him off on the way. Poor Missaye.

Seven New Faces
There are five new kids. They have been here for a couple days now and seem to be adjusting well. The two older girls are shy around me but they are slowly opening up. The younger girl and the two boys are much more interactive. I painted all the girls fingers today and I think they really enjoyed that (thank you Laura and Lindsey for the awesome finger nail polish).
We got a new cook! Well kind of. She cooks every other day. Her name is Senait (pronounced Sin-ide). She and Meseret take turns cooking and washing the baby’s clothes. She is a super hard worker and goes the extra mile to take care of me.
Zoudie took the week off so Dereje hired another nanny to take care of her kids while she is gone. Her name is Bellatu and she is super quiet…which is fine because the kids she is watching are super loud.

Homesick…I’ll just call it what it is
Today Hiwot and I took Hannah to her parents. My mom had sent her mom some stuff for me letters, clothes (thank you…I am getting sick of my clothes), photos, a copy of my sister’s blog, movies, cookies…that kind of stuff. After getting back to the house and eating lunch I have locked myself in my room to read everything. I loved getting a copy of my sister’s blog. I have missed it so much (blogspot doesn’t work here for some reason). I read through the entire thing and loved it. Then I looked at the photo album. There was a sticky note from my mom on there. It said, “Autumn & I put this together for you so you don’t feel like you’re missing out.” At that I started crying. How did she know? I missed the “firsts” of Elias, Alemu and Israel being home. It hit me that I am alone here. I don’t have the boys with me. I’ve only been to church twice since they left…it’s just not the same. I haven’t gotten homesick often since I’ve been here (only around Christmas), but I really miss my family. Then I read the letters from my sister and dad. I came undone at this point. Most of the time I forget that I am in Africa and I just go about my day like nothing’s different. But today I realize that I am two continents and an ocean away from my family. I can’t jump on an airplane or call them whenever (they are 10 hours behind me). Today I have a headache. Tomorrow I will be fine.

Small Rains
So in Ethiopia there are two times when it rains. They call them the ‘small’ (it will only last for a couple weeks) and the ‘big’ (it will last for two to three months) rains. Today we are experiencing the small rains…it started to pour around 6pm. So I hiked up my pants and took my flip-flops off and ran outside to put the toys away. I don’t know how we did it this week but we were out of water within 4 days – which is terrifying because we won’t have water from the streets for another 4-7 days…you just never know here. So I took all the buckets that were outside and laid them out to collect water. Tesfanesh thought I was crazy but I really enjoyed it. There was thunder and lighting and huge black clouds…it reminds me of Hood River. The only problem is that our doorbell – which sounds like birds chirping – is on the fritz and will just go at anytime. The craftsmanship of everything here is very poor. I just hope that the chirping doorbell won’t keep anyone awake tonight.
It chirped every four seconds…I could barely hear it in my room so I slept just fine.

Waste Management
I mean time management. I’m not the most organized person on earth I will give you that but I am much more organized than most people here. It’s probably a good thing that my sister and mom don’t live here at the house…they are organized on a whole new level. With the new change in policy it has thrown a kink in the operation of adoptions. Last week was one of the most frustrating weeks I have ever had. I had to take Hannah and Bruke every day but one out to get them all cleared before their parent’s came/come. I had to explain to Dereje countless time what the next step was and what we needed in order to get it right the first time. On Thursday I told him that he needed to go to the special clinic and get the paperwork for seven children ready and the money because I was going to take them on Monday to IOM. So Monday rolls around and we get there and the social worker is there. He hands me a stack of papers and says he has to leave. I ask about the money and he says he doesn’t have any. Great. So we get inside and I call Dereje and tell him that he forgot the money. After I hang up I go to the receptionist and I tell her why we are there and she says that they have enforced a new policy (in five days) and that we have to have the passports before we can start the process. So then I look at the paperwork that the social worker gave me and we are missing two children and have three different ones. I call Dereje hoping to catch him before he leaves and I told him that he needed to bring the money and the right papers. So then seven children and I sit and wait for 45 minutes for him to show up. He talks to the director and the whole passport thing is confirmed. That’s just wonderful. So then Dereje totes us around town to the clinic to talk to them and then back to his office. After we dropped him off I stopped at a shop and bought uniforms for the cooks and cleaner. You would have thought that they won the visa lottery and were on their way to America. I had looked for a long time trying to find uniforms but I couldn’t ever find a shop that made them. Other than finding the uniforms it was a complete waste of time.

One Month and Twelve Days
In mid-January I went to see a carpenter about having a bookcase made for Zoudie. She had been keeping all of her clothes and the babies’ clothes in plastic bags. So I have him a deposit of $300 birr and he said it would be ready in a week. Well a week passes and I can’t get a hold of him. Then two weeks pass and someone else answers his phone and says to call another man. So we try to get a hold of him for another week. Then Tesfanesh, Alazar and I go to his shop but no one is there. So we tell the people who own the shop next door to tell the man that we no longer want to have the shelves anymore and that we would like the $300 birr deposit back. That same day we go see another carpenter who says he can do it in two weeks. So I say ok and he started the project four days later when I gave him a deposit. Then the first carpenter calls back and says that they are ready to pick up. Tesfa told him that we didn’t want them anymore but that we wanted the money back. He says to come to his shop. She took Buze with her for back up but when they arrived no one was there. She was livid. So he called again a couple days later and told her that she could come pick up the money that day. When she arrived he tried to talk her into giving him the rest of the money and taking the bookshelf. And that was the last that we heard of him. But the second one prevailed! Zoudie finally got her long awaited bookshelf one month and twelve days later! She was so happy that she stayed up until mid-night filling the shelves.