Some pics from this morning:
We spent most of today at Kechene, an orphanage that houses around 190 girls, ages 9-19. We worked here back in 2015, so I was interested to see if some of the same girls we befriended 3 years ago were still here. We took them totes of donations, and met with the director before going out to play with the girls. Shana brought some rocket balloons, so that kept some of them entertained for awhile. Again, since it is a government facility, we were not allowed to take photos.
I recognized some of the girls I had met 3 years ago, and after meeting them, they remembered us, too. They got so excited when they realized it was our team who had painted one of their buildings and allowed them to dip their hands in paint and put their handprints on the walls. A group of about 8-10 girls (Muni, Birtukan, Meskerem, Hiwot, Aden, History, and Jerus to name a few) gathered around me, telling me their names, ages, and grades, and asking me all about America and my kids. They told me what they wanted to be when they grew up, and then took me on a tour of the compound, showing me each of their beds, their individual handprints on the wall that we had helped them with 3 years ago, the kitchen, garden, library, clinic, cows, etc. It was so much fun to be with these beautiful girls! They even braided Shana's hair:
We went to Lucy's for lunch. Lucy's is the restaurant at the National Museum, home of Lucy, the world's most well-known fossil.
Our awesome friend, Wass:
While we waited for our food, Jalen gave us a demonstration on the art of napkin-folding. :)
Shana, trying hard to imitate Lucy's expression:
After lunch, we went back to Kechene, where we installed 2 basketball hoops we had bought. We also purchased 2 basketballs and a volleyball, so the girls had fun playing with them for awhile. They made friendship bracelets for us, too.
When we left the orphanage, we drove through crazy traffic. We stopped at some leather shops, where we purchased duffel bags and shoes. Upon discovering that the van had a flat tire when it was time to leave, Wass quickly changed it and then drove to a tire repair shop. We also purchased 3 jebenas from a lady along the street. She only saw Wass at first, so she gave him the habesha (Ethiopian) price. When she saw that it was Chris who wanted them, she tried to give us the ferengi price, but Wass told her she had to stick with her original price. :)
We ate dinner at Kaldi's before heading back to Ordinary Hero for the night.
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