End of July - Reflection

This evening we ended a wonderful family day and an said goodbye to a busy month with dinner at Fasika.

It's the end of July-and what a crazy month it has been. I can't help but feel like June was a year ago- not a month ago.  Was June really only 31 days ago???

We've celebrated birthdays, traveled as a family for a week, daddy's been away for a couple of weeks for work,  family has visited from California and Norway.  The kids have been so good through all of this mayhem- sure we've had behavioral challenges and mommy and daddy are both burnt out a bit.  I just re-read some of my blog entries from last year and noticed that I don't feel nearly as exhausted and overwhelmed as it seems I did then. 


Next month has an equal share of adventures for us:

• Tomorrow I am presenting on Ethiopia at 10am in the morning -tonight I'm cramming for the presentation. 
• Debritu begins attending pre-school on Tuesday (summer program for starters)
• Mommy gets some regular alone time as Habtamu also goes back to school and will officially begin her job hunt. It's official- the kids are in school now and I'm going back to work.  What a long strange trip it's been-laugh. 
• We received our Fresh Air assignment and will be hosting a young boy for a week (can't wait)
• Mommy will be preparing to leave for Ethiopia again on September 5th (eeeekkkkkkk).
• Daddy will be travelling and bringing home some of the countries best cheddar I hope from one of his trips :-) (grin)
• and family will be here..

Hopefully this warm weather holds out and I'll chalk this year up to one of the best summers yet: 

 

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Ahhh..the family taxi..yup that's me

Ahhh... home again-things are back to "normal"... Denis flying out this week for work- his family flying in-bringing my mom to work a few times this week, attending playgroups with our little friends and celebrating birthdays-Habtamu is playing sports....Debritu getting ready for preschool- and me- I guess I'm the taxi for it all... Laugh!!!


Wow-my my how my version of "normal" has changed....

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Vermont vacation at Smuggs:-)

www.smuggs.com

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September or November in Addis...

I have to make a choice as to when to fly to Ethiopia-fellow bloggers- help me. When would you go?
September:
Pros:

• There to celebrate the new year
• There for school starting
• rains will have just stopped- should be beautiful
• little "host" brother likely to be in town

Cons:

• family will be busy with school starting
• rains will have recently stopped-travelling outside of Addis a bit more challenging but beautiful I'm sure
• will miss Debritu's first day of preschool-although she'll have started the summer program. 

November:

Pros:

• friends from the local adoptive community will also be in town
• Family will be less busy with their personal schedules
• roads will be more "travel" friendly outside of addis

Cons:

• will have to take a break from my "newly" started job  (with any luck)
• no holidays
• close to our holidays
• host brother will not be there

Either way, I'm nervous about my trip this year because I have "nothing" of helping Ethiopia to show for my time here at home.  I hope everyone will understand that this was the first year I brought my kids home and that it was a lot harder to bring them into our lives than I had anticipated. I'm sure they will but I'm still anxious. I'm also broke-and with a gift culture - i'm a bit nervous because the gifts I'll be bringing will also be limited..after all-somebody else has gifted me my plane ticket to make it possible for me to even be there this year. (that's an amazing story all of it's own and I'm so grateful to be able to keep my word and still go to ethiopia yearly even though it looked like it wasn't going to happen this year. Miracles do happen!!).

What are your thoughts?  September or November???

Ethiopia-the whole picture- A MUST SEE!

Thank you Peter Haskell!!! Thank you-
This video has been circulating facebook and other Ethiopian interest sites for the past week or so.
I finally got a moment to peek at it- and HOLY COW...
Finally a video that shows the glory, diversity and wealth of the Ethiopian landscape! Love it!!!!
If you have not seen this video yet- it's a must see!

Ethiopia: The Whole Picture from Paul Hassell on Vimeo.

Peter has another one I really like as it reminds me of the joys of teaching in Ethiopia:
It's called "A song and a prayer" http://vimeo.com/11676034

Ethiopian Roads

I'm in the middle of writing a presentation for the Ethiopian culture camp.  As a result I am going through the photos from my 5 road trips in Ethiopia. Humored, I thought I would share some of my on the road adventures with you today... Everything from Fog, to mud, wild animals, domesticated animals and car problems.  There are many-I couldn't decide...

The other side of Ethiopia

The inevitable delema of being white and living in Ethiopia for any time is mentally balancing the disparity between wealth and poverty .  When you live like a resident in Ethiopia you will eventually find that you gravitate toward people who speak English well. And often this means -that you will rub elbows with the "richer" echelon of society.  No matter how much you try to make friends with the common population your experience will be jaded in it's depth due to your lack of ability to carry on a deep and meaningful conversation.

As a white person with local friends-you are often invited to the most amazing locations-and when weekends role around-it is sometimes difficult to balance the rich experiences with the more poorer main populace experiences.   Although there is much poverty in Ethiopia- one of the overlooked items is that there is also much wealth.  So if you are going to live there for any length of time- you best bring some nice clothes along with your comfortable walking shoes.

As an example, I was most humbly invited to a delightful and intimate party at the following location.
(I chose not to use my personal photos here because they have lots of people in them -and this blog is public).

The second location many of you will recognize.

Bead up my nose... Oh my...

As I have almost completed my first "elaborate" hairstyle on Debritu - knowing it's 4th of July this weekend and Ethiopian Culture camp next weekend- I decided to go with an Ethio-American theme.

When I'm nearing our 5th hour of working on her hair... I hear- mama -bead nose- hurts... Hmmm.  What could this mean? I've been really careful with the beads.  Are you sure Debritu? I look up her nose, touch her nose- nothing.  Then puzzled -step away for moment- looking for tweezers just in case and thinking "what am I to do??".  She starts screaming hysterically when I step away.  Hmmm-bead up her nose. Seriously? But I was right there, doing her hair- and she's watching TV,  is it possible?  Well-she's almost 3- anything in possible-laugh.  So- I turn up the lights- man handle her down to the floor and spread open her nostrils as calmly as I can- while struggling to get her to stay still so I can "look".

There it is.... Yup- she has a red bead stuck up her nose.  Now I Panic .. grab shoes - jump in the car and call hubby- what hospital do I go to? All the while I'm driving "fast" to the hospital- with my hazard lights on... Now, If you know me, I drive pretty fast to start with...I have calmed down immensely in my "parentage".. but I learned- some things come back very naturally-laugh.

So quickly down the highway we fly- I kept thinking- what if she gets this past the point of seeing it- what will they have to do? After all it's right at the point where is she pushes it even a bit- it might "disappear".  Hmmmm.  Denis calls the nurse and she calls me.  The nurse asks-"can you see it??, Yes, I can but it's high.  She says, okay-come into the office anyway?  There is one thing we can try- if it doesn't work we'll move her to the emergency room".  All the while I'm calming now and have a constant case of nervous laughter.


So, arriving at the office (one floor up from Emergency) they usher us right into a room-all the while D is screaming.

Here is what you do if your Daughter or Son gets a bead up there nose and you can see it!

• A nurse held her down 
• The doctor plugged the clear nostril.   
• Then I blew as hard as I could into her mouth.  

The bead came flying out- along with some buggers onto my face...Ewwww.but totally awesome!.
So- if your daughter ever gets a bead stuck up her nose- try the little trick described above. 

The doctor then giggles and says to "me", now you know the trick.  

The doctor then explains... they see this a lot.

15 minutes later, the delighted Debritu and I head to the hospital cafeteria for a chocolate milk and some change for the valet guy.  The picture above is her hair still half beaded this morning..