Day #4 - Exhausted - Yet Still Can't Sleep

Things are going great over here in Ethiopia and I just can't say enough good things about the WHFC staff...if there are angels walking among us - you will surely find them at Horizon House!

I don't know if we just lucked out - or if all adopting families are just amazingly friendly by nature - but, we have thoroughly enjoyed getting to know all those traveling with us. Although we all come from very diverse backgrounds we have that one common thread that has resulted in an immediate sense of community. Thank goodness for that, as this whole journey to create and/or expand our families is easily as emotionally and physically exhausting as if we had given birth to these children.

It is 5:00 a.m. here and of course I can't sleep - still too excited! I'm hoping tomorrow when we are with our Mesfin we will get to sit down with Sister Tirhas and have her translate some things to him for us - he is almost 5 years old, very smart, speaks both Oromic and Amharic fluently - but alas, no English. So, I'm hoping Sister Tirhas will be able to translate to him what is going to happen on Friday. I'm also hoping that between Sister and I we can create an effective way for him to sign certain things to us to communicate with us on our journey home.

Yonas (our wonderful driver) will pick us up at 9:30 this morning (Wednesday) and take us over to Horizon House. We'll spend the morning with Mesfin, watch him eat lunch (and say their prayers), then we'll eat lunch at the guest house again as the food and the fellowship are both terrific. Then we will do some shopping this afternoon when the big kids take their naps.

Tomorrow is our birth family visit. We are getting picked up from the hotel at 6:00 a.m. and driving to Asela to meet Mesfin's birth family. We are really looking forward to this and hope we get some information that will be important to Mesfin when he gets older. If all goes as planned (in the world of adoption...does that ever really happen?) - we hope to be able to get back to the hotel before dark tomorrow night.

Friday is the coffee ceremony. In reviewing everyone's travel plans it looks like the ceremony will be held in the mid-afternoon. I've been busy in our room preparing little gift bags for all the nannies and staff - I know I'm going to be an emotional wreck both tomorrow and Friday so I am trying to get everything done while I can today.