Friday, July 12, 2013
We are in Istanbul! Due to a woman in front of me wailing in her sleep and a little boy sitting behind me that kept kicking my seat, I got very little sleep. We left Chicago last night at 10:15, and now it is 5:45 pm Turkish time. So the night flew by! These last 2 days have really blended into one because of the travel.
Now we're waiting to board our flight into Addis, and there are so many beautiful Ethiopian people waiting with us. This still doesn't seem real.....I am missing the kids, and wish I could send a message home. But I have no internet.
__________________________________________________
Boarding our 2nd flight:
Istanbul is a beautiful city...I would love the chance to explore it sometime.
Ethiopia!
All of our luggage and donations made it! Yay!
Thankful that we didn't have to come back later to look through the huge area of mountains of lost luggage:
Bole!
We had another long, uneventful flight into Addis. Upon arrival, ahhh, yes....there it was - the smell of Ethiopia pervading my senses. We skipped the visa line (although there was no one in it) this time since we had purchased our visas beforehand, went through customs, collected our bags, and went through security. We couldn't find Danny anywhere, so we asked an airport official if we could use her phone to call Almaz. I hated that we were waking her up at 1:00 in the morning, but we didn't know what else to do. Almaz told us that the drivers are no longer allowed inside the airport, and that Danny was probably waiting for us outside. This was definitely a change since last time, but we found Danny and Tomea waiting for us outside. They gave us great big hugs...it was so good to see them again! We drove through the dark, dirty streets to Hannah's Hope, another change from last time. 2 years ago, we stayed at the Riviera Hotel, but since then one of the buildings at HH has been converted to a guest house. I was secretly hoping that we would get to sleep in Jalen and Jordan's old room!
Wass! came out to meet us when we arrived at about 1:30 am. He hugged us tight, and Shana told him she brought more candy for him. He laughed and said that he always thinks of her when he eats a candy. She gave him TONS last time she was here, and has sent him some since. Wass told her that he loves Uno, too, and was so glad that she taught him to play 2 years ago. We asked him why he was still awake, and he said that he was leaving in a couple of hours to take our supplies for the week to Gambella.
Wass showed us the kitchen, the computer where we could send a quick email home, and our room, which just happens to be the same room that the twins used to sleep in! Crazy! It has been repainted, but I could still picture their bunk beds along the wall where our queen bed now stood.
We unloaded our luggage, unpacked a few things, sent a quick email, rounded up some safe water, and headed to bed. It was so good to be back, but we had some fast sleeping to do!
No comments:
Post a Comment