Day #2 - Ethiopian Restaurant

We all went to the authentic Ethiopian restaurant earlier tonight (Monday-Day #2)...what a wonderful evening! Although I still have not acquired a true love of Ethiopian food...boy, do I love watching and listening to the dancers and musicians perform dances in costumes to music all from each region of Ethiopia! Some of our group members even got up and danced with the dancers! (I took plenty of pictures and video to use as blackmail to help pay for our next adoption!) I believe everyone had a great time and we were all much more relaxed now that our Embassy appointments were done!

The performances are great...however, we did all decide to leave before all of the regions had been covered (exhausted parents you know?)...we didn't get to see the Oromo region dance which is where our little Mesfin (Giovanni) is from. I did get to see it last year when I was here and it is quite amazing! The men wear lion-like head-dresses and the women twirl their heads around so fast and in such extreme circles you are absolutely certain they will end up with self-inflicted shaken baby syndrome! I will have to see if any families who have traveled before have any good pictures of that particular dance as I would love to add them to Mesfin's (Giovanni's) album!

We will spend tomorrow morning and early afternoon at HH2 with Mesfin (Giovanni) and the other older kids. We brought a little mini Canon Selphy photo printer with us so I have printed out some photos of the older kids to bring to them tomorrow as they love looking at themselves!! Then we are going to try to do a little shopping in the afternoon while they nap. We are going to have Yonas (the driver) take us to a good place to try to find Mesfin (Giovanni) a traditional white gauze shirt with the beautiful embroidery around the neck to wear at the coffee ceremony on Friday. I remember seeing them last year so hopefully we'll have luck finding one today!

Thursday we drive to Asela for our birth family visit. I have the photo album ready, the letter to his birth mother ready, and I am having the list of questions emailed to me that I left on my computer back home. You know how WHFC says to pick out like 5 questions that you REALLY want to have answer to...okay, I am at about 52 and counting!! I just keep thinking of little things that we all talk about as a family and would love for Mesfin (Giovanni) to know the answers to those same questions. I believe that all of the families traveling in our group have really appreciated the birth family visits - however, I got the impression that for a couple they left with few answers to their questions. Wish me luck!!

Will keep you all posted!