Day 5 afternoon - Addis Abba, Ethiopia

After what seemed like forever, but I’m sure wasn’t we were on our way to lunch. Lunch was at a Mexican restaurant. Which is one thing I have discovered about major cities Ethiopia, you can find Ethiopian food but it is a lot like the US, they have all kinds of food here with Italian being the dominant one because of the Italian influence during the occupation. Elliott was very tired and disoriented.  She cried herself to sleep, and though very hard- it is expected that adopted children will go through a period of grieving.  Even asleep, she would do hiccupping sobs in her sleep. It was heartbreaking. However when she woke up she was fine, it was the oddest thing.


We finally arrived at our guest house around 1 p.m..  This is really an Ethiopian home- about 1000 sq. feet that two families sleep at and three families share. 
 

Front of the home (yes- all laundry is line dried)

Bedroom 1- 10 by 10

My Bedroom was about 6 by 6...

Our bathroom 5 by 5- you can use toliet, shower and wash your hands at the same time!

We also had a friendly roach named Bob that lived in the medicine cabinet.

The one and only common space

When we arrived, they wanted to do a traditional coffee ceremony at the Morning Coffee Guest House.  We managed to get them to wait until we had taken a shower and rested for a few minutes.  The rest of the day was honestly a blur. I remember our guesthouse did an authentic coffee ceremony for us which was nice. (If I haven’t mentioned it before, I hate coffee.) We had Ethiopian popcorn, which is really just plain popcorn with cane sugar on it. It is very good. And of course coffee. Ethiopian coffee is strong and the grounds are put directly into the coffee.

Coffee was actually invented in Ethiopia and it is an important part of their tradition. The coffee tastes nothing like the US (even the stuff that claims to be Ethiopian.). It is bitter and heavy flavored and when you add the cane sugar tastes a little fruity. You actually see people on the streets here walking with cane sugar stalks tied to their back.

We ate soup for dinner and they made a ton and couldn’t understand why the 2 of us didn’t eat it all. But it was good. We lost power around 7 p.m. and it was dark outside already. We used it as an excuse to go to bed early. This was great because since we had not slept really since leaving Paris and we were exhausted.