Day 4 or something like that

I can't even remember what day it is, much less how long we have been here. I think it is Wednesday. I tried and tried to get us home earlier, but it would cost more than $2,000 to come home two days earlier, so it just doesn't seem worth it.

Where did I leave off? After we left Abera's uncle's house, we went to Veda's daughter's aunt's house in a village closer to Awassa. Their visit seemed briefer than ours. The aunt has Terefech's (Veda's daughter) four sisters, and the aunt is so young. She didn't look more than 18. What a burden. It was a similar scene. The entire village turned out to see us -- we are quite the attraction wherever we go.

It was close to 6 p.m. by the time we got back to the hotel, South Spring Hotel in Awassa. It was very basic, but clean and no bugs -- really all I could ask for. Veda and her Mom were thrilled with the menu offerings in the hotel restaurant, but I had tilapia again and he had pepper steak, which seemed to be steak with an indescribable brown sauce on it. We slept under mosquito nets (the first time!)

The next morning we had to be on the road at 6 a.m. in order to make it back to Addis for our US embassy appointment. We had no coffee, no breakfast, nothing but the few granola bars I had packed. We preservered. At this point, I don't think I had slept more than three hours at a stretch with the jetlag and all of the travel.

Solomon, our driver, drove like a madman, dodging goats, donkeys, horse carts, dogs, kids, chickens. It was like playing Frogger. We had a flat tire that we had to have repaired, so that delayed us. On the outskirts of Addis, we ran into a traffic jam. There are no police, no traffic lights, no AAA to help out if there is an accident or a broken-down car. We never did find out what happened. We detoured, and then we ran out of gas. Solomon kept insisting that our being stuck in the middle of the highway had nothing to do with running out of gas but as soon as he jerry-rigged something underneath the car, we headed for a Shell station to gas up.

We were so relieved to be back at the Guest House. We had a nice lunch, reunited with Abera and then headed for the US embassy. We went in as a group and then were called up to the window as individual families. The US embassy worker asked us a bunch of background questions about Abera -- how many siblings, ages of siblings, where was he born, etc. Then she asked some really dumb questions: does he get along with others, does he have a history of mental illness, does he have a problem with authority? I wanted to make jokes about all of it but it is such a serious process that I didn't dare! All of the families were processed within a half hour-very efficient!!

We went back to the Guest House and hung out for awhile with some of the other families adopting. Dinner is at 7 at the Guest House. It was good: a fruit salad, chicken and rice, beets (YUCK!) and Coca-Cola in glass bottles, which is perhaps one of the greatest things about traveling in a developing country.