A night out and a day at the Merkato!

After yesterday things are very real for Dawn and I. We can’t believe we are in Africa, but we are really enjoying Ethiopia and meeting Isaac was a life changing experience. Addis is crazy and charming all at the same time and the people are wonderful despite the poverty. It is hard to put the city into words, but we are very surprised by the amount of building underway and the efforts to keep the streets clean. One thing we have learned, and become more comfortable with, is the lack of ‘curb appeal’. The city is behind gated homes, restaurants, and store fronts, and there are high rises going up all over the city. I have counted at least 30 buildings going up in the city center and many are an effort of the government and land owner to provide housing and renew the city. However, the wooden scaffolding is mind bending when you consider some of the structures are 20-30 stories. If you look closely you will see a few guys working on this building.

 

Last night Dawn went to bed very early and I went out and sat on a patio with 100 Ethiopian men around two fires watching the premier soccer match of Chelsea vs. Liverpool on a projection TV under the stars. It was a once in a life time experience after meeting Isaac to walk the streets of Ethiopia alone through the neighbourhood of our hotel (I walked about 5 km) and spending the night on the patio watching the game.  I saw some crazy things, but felt safe the entire time. Not to mention that Isaac’s team, Liverpool, won the match much to the delight of his countrymen (Eric, you would like the Ethiopian soccer fans).
Today Dawn was feeling a little better (she is continuing the antibiotics), and was well enough to shop! Afroland lodge arranged for Markus to be our driver/guide and off to the Merkato we went. Merkato is the largest open air market in Africa, covering several square miles, and is just organized chaos - but great fun with a guide.



From there we headed to the top coffee shop in the city, in coffee’s county of origin, the best macchiato ever! And Markus was great company.



With our renewed energy the three of us drove to the top of Entoto mountain to views of Addis and a visit to a 800 year old rock hewed church. Great day, but we where so tired it was Indian take out for dinner in the hotel.

Meeting Isaac!

This day started pretty horrible for me.  I woke up at about 5am with a bad case of Montezuma’s revenge, if you don’t know what that is google it! I think the bugs that cause this are 10x worse here in Addis than at home or anywhere else. We had a big day planned, we were going to go to an International Ethiopian Evangelical church service in the english speaking zone, we had an orphanage visit planned to meet Isaac and we were invited to dinner at our Ethiopian friend’s house. Unfortunately, we had to skip on the church service and dinner at our friend’s.  There was no way I was missing the trip to visit the orphanage, I managed to pull it together and was able to go.  We had to change our pick up time to 3:30 instead of 2:30 but we went!

We arrived at Abenezer orphanage. It was about a 20min car ride and it was situated in a residential neighbourhood behind a large wrought iron gate.



There was a a large courtyard for the children to play and all the children looked happy as they were playing.  We arrived with 2 large bags of donated clothing for the orphanage.  The owner was very thankful.  Thank you to our small group and our friends in England for your generosity, it was very much appreciated.



The orphanage director took us into the nursery where there was 8 cribs and 8 babies.  There he was in the first crib staring at us with his big brown eyes.  He is the cutest little guy ever and it felt so surreal to finally see him in person. We didn’t get to hold him because he isn’t legally ours until we pass court. We got to hold his hand, and touch him.  We told him how much he is loved back in Canada, and there are many people that can’t wait to meet him. He couldn’t stop staring at us and the look of confusion in his eyes as if he was saying: “Why are you strangers acting like you know me, when I have no idea who you are?”  He strarted to cry a bit and was immediately picked up by one of the caregivers who just adores him.  It really made us feel good that he is loved and obviously had a special bond with this caregiver.  While the caregiver was holding him, he grabbed on to my hair and tried to grab James’ glasses.  He felt more relaxed and gave us some big smiles.  We got to take pictures of his crib and caregivers but unfortunately we could not take any pictures of him until we pass court. Our visit with Isaac was very memorable, and we feel at peace that he is in good hands but most importantly he is loved.



After our meeting with Isaac, the orphanage director had a traditional ethiopian coffee ceremony prepared for us.  We had a chance to talk to her and found out that she lived in Toronto for 11 years .  She moved back to Ethiopia 5 years ago to open Abenezar orphanage.  She is a wonderful lady and we really enjoyed talking to her. Overall, it was great experience and one we will remember forever.

Pool Day!

We started the day with breakfast delivered to our room (included in room rate).  We had cinnamon french toast with maple syrup and coffee and tea.  It was very good!

Today we decided just to chill out!  We went to the Sheraton for the day and lied in the sun and swam in the pool.  It is very nice there and quite reasonable to go for the day.  It was a beautiful, sunny day although there was a cool breeze which made it chilly at times.





We went to a mediterranean restaurant called Serenade for dinner. It was really good! It is very inexpensive to eat out here compared to at home.  So far we have been very impressed with the food here and there are many good restaurants to choose from.

Tomorrow we get to meet Isaac! He is currently at Abenezer orphanage in Addis Ababa.  We are being picked up at 2:30 tomorrow and we can hardly wait!! We will only get about 1/2-1 hr with him.  We have to remember to call him Munir, the last thing he needs is 2 strangers gushing over him and calling him Isaac. Don’t want to confuse the little guy too much.

Stay tuned!

We Arrived in Ethiopia!

We took the red eye from London last night on Ethiopian Air. The flight was just over 7 hrs, needless to say we didn’t get a good night’s sleep at all. We arrived in Addis at 7:10am and our ride was waiting for us. We arrived at the hotel, Afro Land Lodge, and it is nice and clean and the staff are extremely attentive.
James has a friend (Teshome) that lives in Ethiopia, he actually was James’ dad’s doctor. We gave him a call and he picked us up and took us out after we had a couple hour nap to get refreshed. We had a great afternoon/evening with him. He took us to a mall where we had lunch. We then went to the Hilton to exchange our US dollars to birr, and we had coffee by the pool. We went to the Sheraton which is the most luxurious hotel in Ethiopia, it was absolutely stunning.



Teshome took us on a short tour of the city and we stopped at a Ethiopian Coptic (Orthodox) church where evening prayer was taking place.  We ended our day at an Ethiopian restaurant called Habesha.  We had a traditional Ethiopian meal while live Ethiopian dancers and singers entertained us. Teshome’s daughter, Lydia  also joined us.  Thanks Teshome, we had a great time!

Our Last Day in London!

Today we finally feel like we’ve gotten over the jet lag.  Today was a fairly relaxing day for both of us .  James got up bright and early to go golfing with Eric, they were both in their glory.  They started with a full english breakfast at the club house and then golfed 18 holes. James would like to say he kicked Eric’s butt but that would be a lie, Eric took this one (but not by much!).  They had mutton pie for lunch, wouldn’t be my first choice.

When the guys came home, Isabelle and I went to Guilford for some shopping. The town was very quaint with lots of nice shops. We had high tea at Angel hotel which was really good.  When we got home, the guys made an attempt at making homemade fish pie for dinner.  They had some problems, but the finished product was yummy!

Tomorrow we are off to Ethiopia!  We are flying with British Midlands and it is a 7 hr flight. It’s only a few more days before we finally get to meet little Isaac, we are really looking forward to it!

Not the Pyramids.......

Today we were suppose to be flying to Cairo, good thing we aren’t. We managed to cancel our Cairo trip including our flights without losing any money. It’s actually nice that we get to spend some extra time with our friends in London.

This morning we went to Stonehenge, it’s not the pyramids but it was pretty impressive and just as old.  Again, it was very cold today and we froze our butts off. We are both suffering from jet lag so we had a lazy afternoon just hanging out and relaxing.

Our Busy Day in London!

We had a great day in London yesterday!  Eric dropped us off at the underground (subway) at 10:00 and it took about 45min to get to the city.  We met our friend Jon and started our day with the original London double decker bus tour.  We saw most of the major tourist spots such as Big Ben, Tower bridge, Buckingham Palace, Westminister Abbey and much more. It was quite cold out, not the kind of freezing cold we get in Canada but a damp cold that  chilled you to the bone.  We still had to sit on the top of the bus to get the full experience, it was freezing! I forgot to mention the bus tour was 2 hrs long.



We then went to The Rock and Sole Place for fish and chips (yes again!).  It was delicious!



We headed over to the London Eye which is a large ferris wheel with breath taking views of the city.  It took us 1/2 hr to go around, it was amazing!



We walked around the city some more before heading to Brick Lane for some authentic Indian curry, the national dish of England.  Brick Lane is a street with nothing but curry houses and the shop owners negotiate with you to get you in to the restaurant.  It’s quite the experience and we had a great dinner for a very reasonable price!

It was a great day and we were tired with the jet lag kicking in full force.  Thanks Jon for spending the day with us and showing us around!