During the night, Malia woke up several times with extremely painful leg cramps. We think it was because she hadn't been drinking enough and was dehydrated. In the morning, we got ready, met Angela from AGCI who came in late last night, sorted through donations, ate breakfast, amd met Angelyn, who just got in from London this morning. Our team has 2 Angelas and an Angelyn this year! We then got to meet Ephrim again after 8 years, along with his daughter Nuhami, whom I held as a one-month-old on our first trip to Ethiopia in 2011. We met Ephrim and Yeshi's 2 sons as well.
2011:
2019:
After breakfast, we did devotions and talked about what to expect for the week before heading to the AGCI office to meet with the staff for a bit. It was good to see Azeb, Haile, and Welde again, and we also briefly met Wass's wife Mimi.
Just your average traffic jam...
Our next stop was Kibebe Tsehay orphanage, where we met with the director and gave some of our donations. Since it is a government facility where there are lots of orphans, no photography was allowed. The director told us that there are currently 180 children living there, and a lot of the babies are found in ditches, bushes, or toilets. :( The police bring them to the orphanage. We then toured some of the baby rooms...so many tiny, tiny, babies! Several of the children broke my heart. One was a tiny little baby with hydrocephalus, and another was a little girl about one year old. She stood there staring at us with eyes that have seen way too much. She honestly looked like an old woman, and had that completely dead stare that Jordan had when he first came home.
Then we went to Kechene, the all-girls orphanage. Again, no photos were allowed, but I was excited that I was going to get to see the teenage girls with whom I've been keeping in contact. Again, we met with the director and gave her the donations we had brought. As we were walking out of the office, girls surrounded us and held our hands. Then I saw Hiwet. We hugged, and she held onto me the rest of our short stay, leading me around the campus. Unfortunately, I did not get to see Tarikua, Hana, or Muna, and I was so disappointed. They were away at some type of training. They had just asked me last week what day I was coming to see them, but we missed them completely. I honestly think they've been waiting for this since last year. :( I was so bummed. One girl told me that all Hiwet ever talks about is, "Erica, Erica, Erica." Hiwet asked when she would see me again, and seemed very disappointed when I told her it would probably be another year. She cried when we left. Our time there was way too short.
We ate lunch at Lucy's Restaurant, at the National Museum.
After lunch, we visited 2 homes of children sponsored through AGCI before heading back to the guest house in late afternoon.
We rested/visited for a bit, and then Wass picked us up for dinner. We ate at Dimma Cultural Restaurant, and Wass danced on stage for us after much begging from the girls.
Back at Wellspring, we packed for our trip to Mekele tomorrow and went to bed.
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