A “Bizzy” Day

Our driver showed up on time today!  Well, an hour earlier than the scheduled time (they, um, heard it from me at the front “desk” and have been much better about being here at the assigned time J), but not our guide.  Oh, woops!  You needed a guide?  Oh yeah.  Uh.  Sure.  No problem.  10 minutes.  And this time it really was okay because we had scheduled an hour to get where it only takes 15 minutes to get to.  So it was no problem!  I’m figuring out how to circumvent the system around here.

Bizzy, our guide

And the guide turned out to be a huge blessing to us.  He grew up in the “countryside” about 2 hours outside of Addis.  I realized when I asked later in the day that countryside really means a village – like the kind with grass huts and loin cloths and bare feet.  Yep – and we decided on the fly that we’re going to go with him to see it on Friday, after our last visit with Kate.  We’ll get out of the city and into the “countryside” which I’m very excited about!  There are also some famous sites near there that we would have missed otherwise.  We learned all of these amazing things about “Bizzy” and his life on our way to see Kate this morning.  Needless to say, we’ve already befriended him on Facebook! 

We went directly into the office upon arrival at Toukoul and they immediately ushered us into a room before we could even sit down.  Except that this time, it was a different room!  Hmmm.  One other couple was in there that we had met yesterday and they are adopting virtual twins, a boy and a girl.  So it was just us 2 couples and our kids hanging out for almost 2 hours.  Very pleasant.  We were able to encourage them about twins since they are new parents and will have quite a ride ahead of them, as we know!

Kate is generally good-natured as far as we can tell from spending, oh, about a grand total of 3 hours with her thus far!  When we first met her yesterday, she was happy as a clam, very content to just sit in our laps, grab earrings, hold a rattling cube, suck her thumb, then sit on her own and crawl to get to a toy.  All normal 9 month old stuff.  But she had no crying, no fussing (except when we put her on this rickety, wobbly scale that was brought in so all the parents could see how much their babies weigh - she was 18 lbs). 

Today they handed her to Eric so I could videotape him and she was her same happy self.  But about 20 minutes into the visit, she started getting a little cranky.  She dropped a toy and started to cry.  At one point, she almost fell backward and started to cry as she was startled.  And I was actually glad to see her cry.  Orphanage babies can sometimes learn to cope with their abandonment and lack of care by not crying…they just give up because no one is going to come…no one ever comes.  So they learn to just stop crying.  This is a devastating way to shape a little person and just one of many possible “hangovers” from life in an orphanage.  This is one I haven’t seen in Kate thus far. 

Also, I want to know everything about her.  I want to see and hear how she cries.  Typically, a mother knows everything about their baby, spending every waking hour with them for months and months feeding, changing, holding, comforting, giggling, all of these things.  But I have hours to soak it all up…all the past 9 months I must study and learn and engage and know her.   I want to know her cries.

It turns out that ‘lil Miss Kate was tired.  She needed a nap and she fell asleep in my arms.  Preciousness to the max.  And too soon for us, our allotted time was up.  Basically they walk in and take her away, just like that.  Not in a pejorative way, just in a matter-of-fact way. But still, that’s a pretty sad moment.

So we needed some lunch and I needed some shopping therapy after our visit.  And lunch and shop we did!  Our guide knew of a great Italian place…well, it’s Ethiopian Italian, with a menu in English, nice restaurant, etc.  We visited Alert Hospital, which is a leper colony.  Yep, we did.  Pretty awesome.  And bought out their gift shop, to boot!  Then we headed to the Post Office to buy some commemorative stamps (got frisked outside by armed guards before going – have never been frisked upon entering a post office before)!  There were rows and rows and rows and rows and rows and rows of PO Boxes.  I realized it’s because no one has mailboxes outside their house, er shack with tin roof.  Interesting.  

We then hit the shops, er, shacks with tin roofs with lots of stuff.  This is just like shopping I’ve experienced in Mexico, Jamaica, Haiti, etc.  It’s a lot of the same trinkets over and over but occasionally you discover a gem.  And we got some great finds!  Bizzy handled the negotiating for us which was sublime.  Once they see “foreigners” coming the prices immediately quadruple, so he brings them back to very reasonable and did a great job for us.

There are a group of adopting families from our agency all staying at another hotel (that’s the group of observers in “the room” yesterday) . They’ve been very helpful at giving us information about out itinerary which we’ve had a tough time getting from our agency here –that’s a whole other story.  They kindly invited us to their hotel which was hosting a traditional Ethiopian meal with some traditional dancing afterward.  I even got up and danced and it wasn’t pretty!  It was a Bizzy day and we were glad to get back to our hotel so we could post and get to bed.

After all, we see a judge in the morning about a very special baby girl!