Oasis

{March 19, 2011}

We were homesick for our kids and weary of this foreign and hard place, ready to go home.  But we had afternoon flights for the second part of our trip.  That morning we visited as internet café as the internet had not been working at our hotel for 2 days by then.  We had enough time to visit Mercato, Africa’s largest market.  Pickpockets abound here, so we stripped ourselves of everything, passports, watches, etc. and gave Bizzy our spending cash to hold on to.  There was nothing on us to steal!  Mercato was quite a sight.  A confluence of people, cars, more donkeys.  But so crowded…I mean, so crowded.  It was sort of like a swap meet on steroids, with permanent buildings housing cramped rows and rows of stuff.  We bought some gum from a little girl selling it for pennies.  Strawberry was her favorite flavor she told us so we bought some along with some others for our kids and then gave the strawberry for her to enjoy.  Enterprising as she was, I’m sure she re-sold the gum.

Bahir Dar is the region of Ethiopia where Kate was born.  By all accounts, it is the “resort” area of the country, where the upper class go to vacation.  There is Lake Tana and the waterfalls created by the Blue Nile River are a local tourist attraction.  Additionally, dozens of centuries old monasteries are in the hills and islands on the lake, many available for touring.  This side trip was highly recommended and a chance for us to put any puzzle pieces we might find together for Kate…or at the very least take some pictures of where she’s from.

From Addis Ababa, this requires a 12 hour bus ride, over that newly paved road, or a 45 minute flight.  We had considered the bus ride in order to “experience” more of Ethiopia until the Buchers, all too familiar with the vast differences of this place and our own country from their own journey there 3 years prior to rescue their son, Quint, kindly advised us against this.  I’m now very glad, not just for the time saved, but all that we saw on our 2 hour drive into the country yesterday is the same thing we would have seen for another 10 hours.  The flight was well worth it and nicely priced at only $75 USD per person.

But what we arrived to was…shocking.  We weren’t prepared for this.  The airport was hardly there – what looked like abandoned construction spread out in both directions from a central construct, which was a makeshift airport, if I ever saw one.  We deplaned and walked a far way across the tarmac into this center building.  Huts and desks advertised for various hotels and tours.  People milled about waiting for arriving passengers.  We were immediately hit up by Amharic speaking drivers, porters, tour operators.  But no one spoke English.  The hotel had promised a ride from the airport, but their nicely decorated “grass hut” desk was unmanned and dark…no one was to be found from the Kuriftu Resort & Spa.  Uh oh.  This again.  There was no baggage claim area, just an exit door at the other side, which, incidentally is also the entrance.  Everyone from our flight seemed to be waiting there, so we waited, too.

We were so lost, so foreign, so….lost.  We both wondered what in the world we had done.  Any adventurous spirit we thought we had was gone and we were left with fear.  We had totally launched ourselves into this completely foreign place with no guide.  What were we thinking?  We should have asked Bizzy to come with us.  Help us, Lord.  At least we had some Birr in our pockets this time.  We tried to look nonchalant, doing our best not to look completely scared out of our minds and as lost as we felt.  A young man approached, “Eric?” he inquired.  Yes.  “Baesel?” he confirmed.  Yes!  He was our guide from the hotel and spoke English.  Thank you, Lord!  Rescue!

At that moment, the luggage truck pulled up and everyone jammed outside onto the tarmac again to pull their own bags right off the truck.  Had never seen anything quite like that!  Eric went into the fray pulling our bags off as best as he could.  Our guide swiftly grabbed some porters who grabbed our bags and took off out of the exit.  Woah!  Eric was still back there getting bags – by this time, we had amassed 2 suitcases just of souvenirs and gifts for loved ones back home.  I ran ahead with the bags hoping I would see my husband ever again.  Outside was a tunnel “hiding” the construction on both sides leading upward to a paved road, a parking lots of sorts.  The walkway was roughed up concrete mixed with stones and dirt.  It was a mess.  Eric caught up and started rolling tape; our adventurous spirit was starting to come back, a little bit.  It would come and go again over the next few days.  This was wild.  Random chaos abounded with local villagers just hanging out watching people exit and a cluster of taxis were double parked every which way.  We got into our taxi, ready to go and then the guide left.  He ran back into the airport!  So we sat and waited for about 10 minutes.  Apparently he was doing double duty in seeing guests off on their flights, while also welcoming us.  Finally, we headed down the 2 lane road, going somewhere, we hoped. 

It was about 4:00 in the afternoon on a Saturday.  All these villagers, barefooted and wrapped with ragged drapings and carrying things on their backs or their heads or their donkeys flanked both sides of the road, person after person, group after group as we drove.  The guide said these were all villagers who were heading home, out of the city into which we were headed, after market.  They carried all their wares with them, back and forth each day.  Can you imagine carrying everything in your cubicle to and from your office each day, for miles and miles, while barefooted?  He said they preferred to be barefoot because they could grip the ground better.  We weren’t in Kansas anymore.  I kept reminding myself we were here for Kate.  All of these experiences were important for us to gather, for her.  I wanted nothing more than to not be there, but to be headed home.  But we pressed on.

Addis is the capital and by far Ethiopia’s largest city.  Bahir Dar was a bustling city, but considerably smaller, even though one of their top 4 biggest cities.  It looked like a sleepy, backwards towns that you’d drive through on Route 66.  The hotel had looked very nice on the internet and come highly recommended, but now I was worried, based on the surroundings I was seeing. 

We turned into the resort and I was instantly relieved.  It turned out to be incredible, by Africa standards, of course, but we were so okay with that.  We practically fell out of the taxi and into the open air lobby gasping for normalcy.  I felt like we had arrived in paradise, a more modern, “western” shelter from what was outside.  There wasn’t anything in particular that was awful out there, it was just…..everything.  After a lengthy check-in process with bottled waters and tranquil music and flower petals under our feet allowing our spirits to calm, we followed the hotel greeter along crunchy gravel paths surrounded by perfectly manicured “nature” to our room.  I audibly gasped as we rounded a bend in the path and a clearing opened up to the main part of the hotel.  There as an infinity pool with Lake Tana behind.  And our room looked out over both.  This was truly an oasis.  One we desperately needed to regroup and get our head back in the game.

In a turn of events, we were launched into Kate investigation mode, quicker than we had expected.  Before dinner (included with the room, along with breakfast and a daily massage AND manicure/pedicure for $220 USD per night, including tax – did I mention oasis?!?), we visited the front desk to figure out tours for Sunday knowing we had an appointment at the orphanage on Monday morning and this would be our day to sightsee.  In a bold gesture, Eric asked the attorney we had met with last week if it would be possible for us to visit the orphanage during our trip up to Bahir Dar.  He immediately got on the phone and called his friend Nebretu setting up a Monday morning appointment for us.  Wow!  It pays to ask!  Nebretu runs the orphanage facility in Bahir Dar, which is part of the same “chain” of orphanages where Kate currently resides in Addis.  They call these regional facilities “intake centers” as babies are collected there in outlying cities throughout the country, then funneled “up” to Addis and adopted out, making more room for more new orphaned children and so on and so on.  This intake center is where Kate was originally taken by the policeman who found her and was of great interest to us.  The front desk offered to confirm our Monday appointment with the orphanage and called Nebretu for us.  He answered, on a Saturday night, and they handed the phone over to Eric.  To our surprise, Nebretu said he would come to us, tomorrow morning, Sunday, at 8 AM.  We were thrilled, but didn’t know if that would mean we wouldn’t get to visit the facility after all since he wanted to come to us.  We were grateful for any point of connection we could get, knowing it was a rare gift, and looked forward to the morning.

During the complimentary cocktail reception where I was swarmed with bugs and we ate weird appetizers and drank strange drinks, we saw Anne Hathaway with a small film crew out by the pool.  We were staring at the cameras because they were using the same equipment Eric uses at work.  Then we realized it was her and tried to stop staring!  It looked like someone was interviewing her, but we were never sure what that was about and never did see her again, other than a fleet of Pathfinders heading somewhere. 

In the dining room which overlooked the Lake, two fireplaces lit up the room nicely at dinnertime, but then they starting filling the room with smoke as well…funny smelling smoke that was making my eyes and nose water.  Annoying.  Smelled like massive incense.  Turns out it was.  The kind that keeps bugs away.  Every night and every morning the hotel would pump this smoke all throughout the hotel, in the dining room, along the walking paths, out by the pool, to keep the bugs away.  It worked!  In Addis, mosquitoes are a non-issue because of the very high altitude, but here by the lake, bugs and mosquitoes abounded.  I was grateful for the lung-filling smoke that made my eyes and nose water because it really worked at keeping the biters at bay.  We returned to our room which had been fogged, literally, while we were away.  It was smelly again, but I preferred that to any giant, “flapping” mosquitoes I imagined would swarm all over me while I slept….gross!  We quickly climbed into the canopy bed with mosquito nets draped all around.  I took my friend Lisa’s advice, who spent nearly a year in Kenya on her honeymoon with Ben, and is well acquainted with the malaria carrying pests.  I pretended I was a princess and willed myself off to sleep!