First days with Mekdes

Monday May 2nd we started our day at our adoption agencies offices.  Ella was so incredibly excited to go pick up her sister but was impressively good about quietly playing her leapster while we were briefed for our embassy appointment the next day.

Here she is taking some pictures of the goats below, yep that's trash around them, yum

Then we got to go get our girl!

I had really looked forward to dressing her for the first time, to be able to remove her orphanage clothes and put on new ones, her clothes, to begin her new life.  During our court visit I found out that her favorite color was red so I brought a red dress, it's still her favorite outfit.

We gave Mekdes gifts to bring around to the nannies and she was able to say her goodbyes to them and to her friends. Her best friend is a girl whom she has been with since entering the orphanage a year ago.  I'm so grateful that her friends mother found me through a family we traveled with on our court trip.  Her friend will live in the carolinas but we plan to have the girls skype when they are ready.

In the van we gave her a little back pack, she was so excited to have her very own water bottle.

Once back at the guesthouse Greg gave Mekdes the cross necklace he'd bought for her.  She kept playing with his necklace during our court visit, so as soon as we found out we'd passed court and she was really going to be ours he went out and got her one of her own to match his.

Tue was Embassy day

Greg ran out last minute the night before we left to get Mekdes her own leapster, it was a good move.

our family in legos

two silly girls in a tickle fight

Weekend in Awassa

On Saturday morning I began the 5 hr journey south to the city of Awassa, where Biniyam is from and where Mekdes spent 6 months in her 1st orphanage.  Mekdes is actually from about 90 miles west of the city, rural farmland, her father was a farmer.
Our adoption agency wouldn't allow Ella to make the journey south  b/c of all the unpredictable aspects of traveling in a developing nation, so Greg stayed in Addis Ababa with her.  I had 3 other families, great company, as travel companions.
The purpose of the trip was to meet with a member of Mekdes' birth family, which I did on Sat night and I'm so grateful that I had that opportunity! It was a bit surreal to sit there with someone who is so important in my daughter life and to feel the weight of this opportunity, that being in their presence will only last a short time.  I had all my questions organized and ready, yet we were talking through two translators, both were nannies and neither one speaking much english.   I'd ask a question "what was Mekdes's father like, can you tell me about him?" and the translators and family member would talk for about 3 min. and then finally say to me "he's dead." I didn't gain much new knowledge, but each morsel I did get is like gold! (and I videotaped the meeting so hopefully I can get better translation later) The biggest, most obvious part of the meeting that I can share with Mekdes as she grows up is that she was absolutely adored by her first family.   The only thing we were allowed to give at the meeting was a photo album.  I filled it with pictures of Mekdes and a few of us and our home.   The photos album was held to the chest, and the pictures of Mekdes were kissed over and over again while saying her name.  It makes me so sad,  this world is so broken in that Mekdes had to leave her beloved family.  It reiterates to me why supporting programs like Yezelalem Minch   http://www.yezelalemminch.org/ are so important, so families can stay together.
And now that I'm all emotional I'll share some pictures from the weekend.

 stopped for lunch at Sabata resort

 The city of Awassa, notice how clean the streets and median are compared to Addis

 An orthodox church, I love all the white scarves!

 Breakfast overlooking lake Awassa

 boat ride

 Monkeys!

 this was a nice monkey I met after my encounter with the mean one so I was thinking "wow, your pretty close to my jugular"

 huge ugly birds

 The road back to Addis Ababa

We returned on Greg's birthday so I bought him a cake at Kaldi's, does it look familiar?

The day our girls met

We arrived in Ethiopia on a Thursday night and on Friday were able to go to the orphanage to spend some time with Mekdes.  So here are some pict. of April 29th the day Ella and Mekdes met....

 The girls warmed up to each other immediately they chased each other around,  kicked the ball back in forth, and picked flowers.

Mekdes in March

I have yet to download our pictures from this trip to Ethiopia, but here are a few from our court trip back in March.  

 "foofa"= balloon (she seems to use it for bubbles too)

And here's one that's been our screen saver for the past few months, taken by another traveling family.

A few side notes:
We introduced Mekdes to Summit (our dog) last night, he'd had an extended stay at my in-laws because we thought she'd be afraid of him. She isn't! It didn't take long before she was chasing him around the house and trying to ride him.

I did decide to get the rabies vaccine, I talked to the CDC last monday, then the local health department and the consensus was that although the risk of rabies transmission from a scratch is low, it is present (esp. since rabies is known to be carried by the type of monkey that scratched me and because I was feeding the monkey, therefore, we can guess he'd been licking his paws- increasing the risk) So, because I don't want to spend the next few months to a year wondering if my confusion in due to rabies or just being a mother to 3, I (with great encouragement from my mother and Greg) decided to get the series of 5 shots.  

Home

We arrived home yesterday, I'm very tired tonight but wanted to post at least one picture of our precious new daughter Mekdes.

Tidbits

We switched sleeping arrangements again last night.  Letting Ella sleep with Greg in the big bed and I slept in twin, letting Mekdes have her own space in the toddler bed.  But Mekdes didn't want to sleep in the bed by herself and crawled in with me.  I'd been wondering if we were overwhelming her with affection so it was great to see her initiating being close to me.  Bed time has been especially fun, and a little wild.  Ella and Mekdes get very silly, tickling each other and laughing as they pretend to be asleep or hide under the covers together. More and more of Mekdes's english comes out as she gets comfortable with us, last night she kept saying in english "please sleep, please sleep" and laughing. This was teasing me for the first night when she was sleeping next to me and kept playing with every pen or i -pod on the night stand.  I'd kept saying in Amharic "Mekdes, you need to sleep, please" 
after the girls finally settled down last night and all was quiet Mekdes's little voice said "ewedeshalu Ella" and Ella said "ewedeshalu Mekdes" back, starting an Ethiopian- Waldens like goodnights around the room.
 
Ella is so excited about having a little sister that she'll follow Mekdes around and get overly excited whenever Mekdes learns a new english word or washes her hands on her own after using the bathroom.  It can be a bit hard to watch Ella call
Mekdes a few times and be ignored or want Mekdes to play and Mekdes just wanders off, we're trying to explain Ella that Mekdes isn't used to all this attention or being a family (and she really is doing exceptionally well)
So yesterday afternoon it worked well that Greg and Ella went to visit our sponsor child at her home while Mekdes and I went to the Bethany offices  to get her passport, by time we got back to the guesthouse Mekdes was running inside calling for
Ella and "da-deee" (love how she says that!) and in the evening Ella played ball outside with another family as Mekdes spent a long time playing with my hair and talking/singing with Birtukan. 
 
Birtukan and Nesibu's beautiful children are now singing for us so I'm going to go enjoy the fun.
Give Bini extra hugs from me, miss him so much!  The nannies in Awassa totally remebered him, when I pointed to his picture on the wall they said "oh, Biniyam Ajullo" and when I showed them pictures of him now they got "his nanny" and she kissed the photo album and they all seemed very joyfull to see him so big. 
 
I also got scratched by a monkey in Awassa, Greg had me a bit  scared about Rabies for a bit, but I'm pretty sure I'll be fine.
 
 

Ewedeshalu

We changed sleeping arrangements tonight and all slept better, Mekdes and I slept together in the big bed with Greg and Ella sleeping in a twin and toddler bed we moved into the room.  I slept till Mekdes fell out of the bed around 5, she let me scoop her up and kiss her and then wrap my arms around her as she fell back to sleep.  I, then being awake, went into the living room area outside of our room to read my Bible.  When I came back into the room an hr later Mekdes said "mommy!" and reached out her arms so I layed next to her and she wrapped her arms around me and gave me a sweet kiss on the cheek. Ella joined us on my other side and I layed there in utter joy being snuggled by both of my girls.  I have to make sure that if I kiss one of the girls on the forehead I'd turn and kiss the other.  Trying to keep all affection evenly distributed.
 
Mid morning we were out for a walk and Mekdes looked at me and said "I love you"  in clear english and totally unsolicited. We've been saying "ewedeshalu" (I love you in Amharic) to her and occasionally she'll say it back to us.  I really don't expect her to in any way have love for us, we are still strangers to her, so all of her warmth to us bring a dose of extra joy & surprise.
 
She can be a bit cold to Greg, which is hard to see, but we know her father died of maleria when she was very little so she may not have had much exposure to men. 
We have been studying Amharic with a tutor and Ethiopian student at  WWU every other week for months.  Greg loves learning languages and done an incredible job learning Amharic, he's working on sentance structure and tenses, and can read words in the Amharic alphabet.  I've been memorizing phrases. All of this has been extreemly helpful in our comunication with her, here and during the court visit.  Greg is downstairs right now helping her use the leapster by translating game instructions. 
 
Mekdes has been looking in books and pointing to pictures saying "mommy, daddy, Mekdes, Ella, Biniyam" as she points to either people or animals in the pictures.  I love how she is seing us a unit/family.  This led to lots of laughter last night between her and Greg.  Greg would say "Mekdes is a cat" and she'd laugh and say "daddy is a table" back and forth, very cute. 
 
Time for lunch, Birtukan (or rather Mimi and Ganet) have prepared a wonderful Ethiopian feast, will be the first Ethiopian food I've eaten since being here

M is for.....

Mekdes, our new darling daughter.  Today we finished the final step of our adoption here in Ethiopia, our embassy apointment. 
Here's a few more details about Mekdes, or Mekdi as we often call her, her name- which was given to her by her adoring birth parents, means Holy of Holies.  Her birthday is in September and she is  5 years old.  She's been in the orphanage for over a year,  she'd already been there 6 months when we got her referral. She's gained 13 lbs in the past year and grown 4 inches.  English will be her 3rd language.
In meeting with her social worker yesterday we were told that she prays often for the Lord to guide her path, for the other children in the orphanage to find families, and for her church in America, that she can be a part of a church. 
 
Mekdes and Ella have spent the day in non stop play, running all over the guesthouse playing with the other children.  Mekdes seems to favor me over Greg for now and even gives me unsolicited kisses.
Mekdes just brought flowers in from the yard and tucked it behind Ella's ear.  We are so enjoying this time with our daughters and are so glad that we brought Ella with us!!

Our 2 Girls

Slept between my 2 girls last night, tired but so happy.  M is so beautiful, so excited about everything, not shy at all.  She was given a bag of goodies by one of the parents at the orphanage and immediately opened the bag and gave Ella the 1st piece of candy, Greg 2 stickers and for me she unwrapped a piece of candy. Our girl who's had nothing of her own gave away what was given to her.  We are so blessed!!