Stir Crazy - Ben style

We were starting to get a little stir crazy staying the guest house. There was only one other family staying here, and they left on an overnight trip to the countryside to meet their birthmother. A new family from Louisville got in last night, and we met them this morning. We just go back from lunch with them and it seems like they're another set of instant friends (just like the crew we traveled with last time). Lunch was my best Ethiopian feast ever--featured chicken wings (pretty American, but delicious), goat kebob, some crazy orange potato soup, and the leftovers of Leigha's fish (and I mean whole fish--skin, heads, tails and all). I could have sat there all day making a pig of myself, but our new friends' little girl was ready for a nap.

We have been more or less stuck in the guest house as we are waiting for a new time to meet our birthmother. I had really hoped to find time for a trip to the countryside, but that looks fairly doubtful now as we will get a lot busier tomorrow when we will be meeting Isaac for the first time. It was such a long wait, but now that it's here it still seems so surreal that the big day is actually almost here.

We went to church this morning at a place called Internation Evangelical Church. It is where most of our adoptoin agency staff goes, so it seemed like the natural choice. We felt right at home and had a great time there. The music & sermon were both great and was very similar in style and format to our own church. The pastor was a North Carolina native, which was a surprise to us. There was a great mix of people there--about 60% Ethiopian and the rest were from all over the world. It was a great experience and I highly recommend it to any other travelling families.

The weather is cooler than it was two years ago and brief showers have blown up each afternoon, which is rare this time of year. The electricity flickered a few times during yesterday's showers, which would not surprise anyone who has looked at the electrical grid (frought with pirated electric lines going to nearly every shack along the roads and alleys). We have about 4 TV channels in the room, and there is usually something in English on 2 or 3 of them. Some of the stations switch from network to network (say from Al Jazeera to BBC or from a Suadi Arabian channel to Nickelodeon) throughout the day, so there is always hope for finding something familiar. I have been seeing commercials for 'Got Talent' for a couple of days now, so I'm hoping it's the American version so I can get my fix of the Hoff. Did I mention that we were getting stir crazy? I think it is starting to rear it's ugly head in my ramblings here, so I better quit for now...

Ben