After leaving our son in a teary mess (Can I just praise the Lord for a moment right here for the fact that our son was too young to know the difference!! It would have been SO MUCH HARDER to leave a toddler and try to explain to them that we were their mommy and daddy, leaving them, but that we would be back. Praise the Lord for that. Kansas City, I don't know how you did it.), we walked out the gates and were met by a few adorable kiddos. I was a bit disoriented, as you can imagine. We just left the confines of the beautiful care center grounds, VERY emotional, some of our biggest lifetime highs and lows, and now we are outside the gates, on a dusty dirt road, and there are children with smiling beautiful faces looking for something...anything...we could offer. I smiled when I remembered the silly bands I still had left in my bag and began to place them on their wrists. A beautiful moment. That is until the 3-4 kids turned into 10-20 kids. I didn't mind. It could have been 100 kids (I probably had enough silly bands to go around)...I was just happy for the distraction and happy to make them happy. Unfortunately, the "crowd control" was worried that it was too much and started pushing the kids back, rather convincingly, with a little switch of sorts. I felt horrible that I had created a situation in which these beautiful, innocent children were now being reprimanded. I handed the gentleman the bag of silly bands and asked him to please distribute the rest of them. Seriously, people, this was a mob of children over brightly colored rubberbands. They had NO IDEA what they were. They were just so happy to receive. What a lesson this should be for all of us.
I don't remember anything from our drive to Awassa. I don't remember how long it took. I don't remember anything that I saw. Nothing. I am wracking my brain trying to come up with something, but I've got nothing. Apparently, my mind was elsewhere. (Daddy tells me that it was on this short trip that we had a herd of camels cross the road in front of us. I don't remember exactly when this occurred, but I remember being blown away by it. We actually had to stop so that these camels could cross. Crazy.)
There is a security guard at every major establishment in Ethiopia (at least the areas we visited). Tourist-grade hotels, restaurants, etc. There are young men, in plain clothes, holding machine guns in front of the banks. So, it was no surprise when we pulled up to the Lewi Hotel and found a guard in front of the hotel that we had to pass before entering the parking lot - the dirt, pothole-filled parking lot. The hotel was very nice, and all I remember is walking into the lobby and the Holt worker handing us a key (yes, a key...not a card). We found our way up to our room, making arrangements with the rest of the group to meet downstairs for dinner a little while. Our room was very nice, but it didn't matter. We collapsed into each other's arms, crying our hearts out.
 |
| The Lewi Hotel in Awassa |
 |
| The streets of Awassa. |
Once we pulled ourselves together, we headed downstairs to meet up with the rest of our travel group for dinner. The restaurant had a beautiful patio and we were all seated under a canopy, which is a good thing because it started raining toward the end of the dinner. The menu was interesting - a mix of American and Ethiopian - Doro wat, Shiro wat, beef stroganoff, fish and chips, etc. A few people ordered the fish and chips, but apparently by fish and chips they meant just fish. I ordered french fries, because, well, I still wasn't eating. By the time my fries arrived, most everyone else was done anyway. The weather was beautiful, the air was clean, the service was as good as it could be, and overall the food got a thumbs up. Like I said, just as we were finishing, it started
No comments:
Post a Comment