Ethiopia (Part 3)

Our first night with Fikrte went well. She only woke up a few times for a bottle. I remember that one of the times that she woke up, she gave a little cry and I pick her up. She looked shocked! Like she had never been picked up unless she was really crying. She was confused but liked that she was getting held. It was kind of a moment.

That morning she was still kind of sad, but was doing a little better.

We had our first lotion time (one of thousands) and she seemed to like it as long as she could chew on the bottle.

After breakfast, we went back to Hannah's Hope and played with the kids for a few minutes. We were suppose to leave the kids with the nannies one last time so that the parents could go shopping. When Fikrte saw the nannies she let out a cry of relief and jumped out of my arms into theirs. She was so happy to be home.

Out at lunch. They took us to this great place where there were paintings for sale and we bought a really beautiful one painted by an art student in Addis.

Shopping we got to see more of Ethiopia. All of the houses are walled with broken glass on the tops so that no one climbs over. All of the other houses are one room mud/tin structures.

Donkeys walk by on huge main roads and goats wander down the streets.

I loved shopping, but there was not enough time. They only gave us a few hours and we couldn't get all of the things that we needed, but we did find some good things for Jessa Fikrte when she grows up.

One of the shops and some of the things that were sold there.

Back at Hannah's Hope, the dads unpacked all of our donations for the babies. There was wall to wall formula and it would only feed those 30 babies for a few months.

I can't put many pictures of the kids from Hannah's Hope on the Internet because they have not been adopted yet, but these pictures don't show any of the babies up close and it can give you an idea of how many there are laying all over the place.

Fikrte was standing in her crib when we went to get her. She did smile at me when I picked her up and quickly started crying when she realized that we would be taking her again. That evening was our hardest and she cried a lot. Poor thing was just so upset and confused. She slept okay, but was upset in general.

After that we decided not to take her back to the orphanage, it was just too hard for her. I stayed in the hotel with her while Clark went back to the orphanage with the other parents then on. She did much better in the days to come.