November 15th- Off to the Embassy
Day two with Miriam followed a rather long night with her waking about once every hour.
We got up around 7 Am with her and dressed and prepared for the day.
Between 8 and 9 each day there is sun, the nannies take all the babies outside into the early morning sunlight. So before breakfast is served each morning we new parents have to take the babies outside for this ritual. We find a sunny spot and sit down. We slowly take off pieces of clothing... shoes and socks, unsnap legs... then off come the bottoms, onsie are pulled up high on the chest and the backs of tops are opened. When the nannies are doing the sunbathes, they remove the diapers but they don’ t ask us to do this. While sitting in the sun, we are given lotion to rub into the babies’ skin. After about 15-20 minutes, we are allowed to redress the babies and come inside. It was never made clear to me why we were doing the sunbathe. Perhaps for vitamin D or more likely it originated as a way to prevent diaper rash.
After breakfast we where told that we would be going to the embassy to file the visa paperwork for the children at 1:30. We spent the morning at the care center getting to know Miriam better and taking with the other families.
After lunch we all piled into the van (5 sets of parents, 7 children, 1 nannie with another child who was being escorted, an agency representative, and the driver). The drive to the embassy was about 30 minutes. Our driver did such a good job getting us through the crazy traffic. There were people, vehicles, and animals everywhere. This was our first real look at the city, and I am happy to report that at least the part we saw on this trip looked nicer then I remember from 1997. An effort had been made to clean up the streets a bit and keep trees or bushes growing in the median. We saw a ton of new construction going on, mostly new apartments. The US Embassy is located up on a high hill in the city so we were treated to beautiful view of the whole city. Addis is a large sprawling city spread over a high mountain plateau with hills spread between.
The US Embassy was heavily guarded and we had to go through a security check to get into the embassy. Since we were bringing the babies we had to enter the same entrance as other Ethiopians do. After waiting for what seemed like forever in a small stuffy hot little waiting area, we were called to a window, asked a few questions, and we were done! As with most government things the wait was much longer then the actually process. It was late afternoon when we returned to the care center.
We had gotten special permission to take Miriam and visit with Scot and Julie Oggletree, our missionary friends stationed in Addis, for supper. Scot and Julie came and picked us up around 6 pm. We were able to spend a relaxing evening with them and 2 other families eating pizza!! Brian was so excited to get something like American food. We were all very tired and slept much better this night.
