Last night, Dundee and his friends took us to a traditional Ethiopian restaurant for dinner. It was quite the experience! There was music, dancing, and yummy food (obviously). We had two giant things of food that everybody ate from...all kinds of stuff on top of injera. I actually have no clue what I ate. But I'm alive and well today, so it couldn't have been bad! And it was certainly tasty. The music was fun, and the dancing was...I don't really know how to describe it...you should just see these people move. It's crazy, I don't know how they do it. The good news is you can all laugh at me when I get home because the guys we were eating with made us go up and dance, and I have a video of it. Too bad the internet isn't good enough for me to upload it now, I know you're all dying to see me busting some Ethiopian dance moves :) There were four guys and four girls dancing, and every once and awhile they go out and invite people to come dance with them. Of course, they invited us...perhaps because all the guys eating with us kept pointing us out to them. Even though I'm sure I looked like a total fool, it was fun!
Staying out late partying it up at the Ethiopian restaurant meant two very sleepy girls this morning! After all, we were out til like 10pm. That's like two hours past our bedtime. Since we have quite the commute to the orphanage (it takes about an hour, maybe more, by minibus), we got up early and got going. It's pretty easy to get ready in the morning, seeing as we still have no running water. In cases like this, there's only so much you can do to make yourself look decent. Anyways, I spent my morning with the 6-12 month babies. There are nine of them, and every single one is adorable. They were cuddling with me and climbing all over me all morning. Love it. It's a messy job though, being with those babies...good thing I have a fantastic person to do my laundry every day (I know, so spoiled!), cause my clothes are a mess! I have mashed up food, drool, and...possibly baby pee all over me.
That's one of the problems at the orphanage. They use cloth diapers, which takes some getting used to. But they leak a lot, and the nannies that work there don't change them all that often. It results in holding wet babies fairly often. This is a bummer for us, and I imagine the babies as well. It can't be comfortable sitting around in wet clothes, poor little guys. Another thing that confuses us is the fact that the babies all stay in their little room all day, every day (at least all day every day that we've been there...so even if they get out, it's not often). They don't get to go outside, or even into another room in the building. It's the same with the other infants and the toddlers. We don't know why they don't get to go outside and get some fresh air, or at least a change of scenery. It's sad, because the babies have barely anything to look at or play with. Combine that with the fact that they don't leave their tiny room? It can't be the best. Kendra and I are planning on asking if we can take one or two out for like an hour at a time while we're there. Let the toddlers run around, give the babies something to see...
We've finished at the orphanage for today, and are hanging out at Lime Tree (our very favorite wifi cafe). We kind of live here. It's like our home away from our Ethiopian home. While we were munching on our Tomato Fir Fir, we met a really nice couple who had two girls with them that they had just adopted. Fun! We also ran into someone we know, which is funny because we are on the other side of Addis Ababa right now. Really though, we're pretty popular out here. We run into people we know all the time. We see friends at Kaldi's, on random streets 20 minutes away from our house, at Lime Tree across the city...everywhere! You'd think we knew tons of people out here already! What can I say, we're pretty awesome.
Staying out late partying it up at the Ethiopian restaurant meant two very sleepy girls this morning! After all, we were out til like 10pm. That's like two hours past our bedtime. Since we have quite the commute to the orphanage (it takes about an hour, maybe more, by minibus), we got up early and got going. It's pretty easy to get ready in the morning, seeing as we still have no running water. In cases like this, there's only so much you can do to make yourself look decent. Anyways, I spent my morning with the 6-12 month babies. There are nine of them, and every single one is adorable. They were cuddling with me and climbing all over me all morning. Love it. It's a messy job though, being with those babies...good thing I have a fantastic person to do my laundry every day (I know, so spoiled!), cause my clothes are a mess! I have mashed up food, drool, and...possibly baby pee all over me.
That's one of the problems at the orphanage. They use cloth diapers, which takes some getting used to. But they leak a lot, and the nannies that work there don't change them all that often. It results in holding wet babies fairly often. This is a bummer for us, and I imagine the babies as well. It can't be comfortable sitting around in wet clothes, poor little guys. Another thing that confuses us is the fact that the babies all stay in their little room all day, every day (at least all day every day that we've been there...so even if they get out, it's not often). They don't get to go outside, or even into another room in the building. It's the same with the other infants and the toddlers. We don't know why they don't get to go outside and get some fresh air, or at least a change of scenery. It's sad, because the babies have barely anything to look at or play with. Combine that with the fact that they don't leave their tiny room? It can't be the best. Kendra and I are planning on asking if we can take one or two out for like an hour at a time while we're there. Let the toddlers run around, give the babies something to see...
We've finished at the orphanage for today, and are hanging out at Lime Tree (our very favorite wifi cafe). We kind of live here. It's like our home away from our Ethiopian home. While we were munching on our Tomato Fir Fir, we met a really nice couple who had two girls with them that they had just adopted. Fun! We also ran into someone we know, which is funny because we are on the other side of Addis Ababa right now. Really though, we're pretty popular out here. We run into people we know all the time. We see friends at Kaldi's, on random streets 20 minutes away from our house, at Lime Tree across the city...everywhere! You'd think we knew tons of people out here already! What can I say, we're pretty awesome.
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