Visiting the birth family

We had an amazing, grueling adventure to visit Abera's birth family -- his uncle, his uncle's wife and Abera's four siblings.

We arrived safely and in reasonably good spirits on Saturday night. We had some luggage snafus (it also appears that some luggage was rifled through) and finally made it to the Guest House around midnight.

We went to immediately see Abera. The nanny woke him up -- insisted on it. He started smiling right off the bat -- not the reaction that I expected. We could only spend a few minutes with him because we learned that we were leaving at 7 the next morning to go to Awassa, the main town in the area where Abera is from.

Our traveling companiions were Veda, who is adopting Terefech (a 10 month old girl), and her mom, Sondra. We got a wee bit of a late start and all packed into a small version of a Toyota Landcruiser. There was a seat in the back; Veda sat there so she could stretch her legs. Sondra and I sat in the back, and Steve sat up front.

The drive was over 5 hours. We started off on a reasonably well-paved two-lane highway; the road quality deteriorated significantly the further south we went. We had a nice lunch at a restaurant that served faranji (foreign) food, and picked up Girma, the social worker for the area.

Girma is a wiry, energetic, optimistic man who apparently chews khat, given the state of his teeth. Girma traveled with us to meet Abera's family. After about 5 hours and dodging goats, cows, horses, carts, stray dogs, chickens, potholes and every other manner of road obstacle, we made our way to the turn-off for the village where Abera's family lives.

I can't even begin to properly describe the road. It is the worst road, if you can call it that, that I have EVER been on. It had ruts, potholes, washboards and rocks. We bumped along this road for what seemed like forever, but Girma said it was only 10 km to the village. We had to stop for a bathroom break for me-my first squatty potty of the trip-FUN! But I figured it was better than the alternative in Abera's family's village (smart decision on my part). The scenery was very familiar, like Ecuador -- green, lush, small farm plots and mud huts.

We arrived at the village and we were clearly the local celebrities. All of the kids wanted to hold our hands and touch us. Steve said later that he thought all of those photos with Angelina Jolie swarmed by children were staged, but now he knows better. We had been stared at the entire trip, but this was a new level.

We trekked down a small path in the red mud to Abera's uncle's mud hut. It was on a nice plot of land, surrounded by coffee trees (are they trees? or bushes?). They brought out a long bench and a couple of chairs for us to sit in on the lawn. The uncle hugged us and was so happy, gracious, humble and sweet. He thanked us over and over. We talked about sponsoring the four siblings and he was overwhelmed. Our birth family letter was read to him first in Amharic, then translated in Sidamese, the local language.

We asked him some questions about Abera's parents. His father was a farmer, they loved each other very much and they were Protestant. Then because it was getting so late, we had to leave so Veda could visit her daugher's birth family.

That's Part 1. Part 2 will have to wait until after dinner or maybe tomorrow, because it is already 7 p.m. here and I have been up since 5. Did I mention I am jetlagged? Nevertheless, this is an exhilirating experience. Abera is a delight, and I can't wait for you all to meet him.