Day #1 - Love at first sight!

After traveling for nearly 30 hours we arrived in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia at 6:30 AM.  We saw a breath taking sun rise from the airplane, bright red, orange, and yellow.   It was a beautiful welcome to African.  Our fellow passengers all clapped hands and cheered as the plane's wheels made first contact with the runway.  Everyone was happy to be safely on the ground again.

My husband and I were ready to hit the ground running!  Our arrangements were to visit the orphanage in the afternoon, but we were biting at the bit to meet our girls and the orphanage director graciously let us come right away.  So, after a short but kinda crazy drive to our guest house, we dropped off our stuff and freshened up while one of the lovely hostesses roasted coffee beans and gave us a traditional Ethiopian welcome with a coffee ceremony and sweetened popcorn!  We took our coffee break and met our translator/tour guild/picture and video man/awesome driver and the amazing staff at the guest house and were ready to go! 

We took another crazy but quick drive to the orphanage (our driver said "This is why it is called the "horn" of Africa beep, beeeeep!").  When I spotted the "Le Toukoul" sign my heart jumped!  We turned down an alleyway and I could see the famous blue gate that is in all of the Toukoul videos of adoptive families and my face began to hurt from prolonged smiling!

The guard opened the blue gate and our driver parked the van.  We hopped out and began scanning the buildings and parking lot in search of someone to bring our girls out to meet us.  We were shortly greeted by the director and shown to a room with two sofas, a coffee table, and a few shelves.  I was too excited to sit down so I unpacked the stuffed animals, photo albums, and two lollipops for the girls then began to pace back and forth around the room until I could hear little footsteps and crying!  That was the first sound I ever heard from my biological children so why should this first meeting be any different I suppose :)  I quickly stepped toward the door and feasted my eyes on them! 

Here is a picture of our first visit with the twins:

 

 

"S" walked right into the room, looked up at me and reach her little arms out for me to hold her!  It was better than I could have ever hoped for.  I said "Yen nay konjo lij!  Lay ah zesh?" which means -You are my beautiful baby!  Can I hold you?  Of course I had already begun to pick her up as I said this and then immediately began hugging and kissing her.  "M" was not sure about what was happening and did not like being in a room that she had never been in before.  We stepped outside and she was much happier, but still did not feel very comfortable so one of the care givers took her to the open window in her nursery which was about 4 feet from the ground.  There she happily stood on the other side began to say "Nay Ababa" -  Come Daddy and gave him a kiss, and then "Nay Momma" and gave me a kiss.  "S" joined in on the kissing and we repeat this over and over again.  Best kissing game ever!

Right before noon the care givers took the girls so they could have lunch and a nap, but the orphanage director said we could come back after 3:30pm to visit them again if we would like.  We said we would like that very much! 

We left the orphanage and our driver took us to exchanged some US dollars into Birr and then to a restaurant for some Ethiopian food.  After that we picked up a calling card, bought a pair of sunglasses, and went to the "post office" (not an actual post office, but several open stall stores) to do a little shopping.  I found some fun treasures there.  We bought some handmade bookmarks, drums, a traditional celebration horn, a metal cross with paintings on it, a traditional dress for me, and an embroidered shirt for my husband.  Our awesome driver negotiated prices for us.

Here is a picture of us near the "Post Office":

After lunch and shopping we took a short break at a coffee shop (Ethiopia has truly wonderful coffee!).  And then headed back to the orphanage to be with our girls again.
 
Here are a few pictures of our second visit:

 

    

 

 

It was a great visit and I learned "M" loves to sing and be sung to.  I sang Jesus Loves Me, Rise and Shine, Baby Mine, and Deep and Wide to her and she hummed along with me.  It was a beautiful moment for me.  "S" was happy to explore the van and would say over and over again "mekina, beep, beep" - mekina means motor vehicle.  On each visit "S" whined a little bit when it was time for us to go, my heart  whined a little bit too.

 

Keep in mind that our heads had not touched a pillow in over 48 hours at this point and we were ready to crash!  So, we left the orphanage at about 5pm and melted into bed before 6 that day.  It had been a beautiful day -  Konjo Qan!

 
I plan to post about our other 5 days in Ethiopia soon :)