Easter at the Orphanage

Three us walked to a nearby Catholic church Sunday morning in hopes of catching an Easter service. There are three Catholic churches in all of Addis and it was difficult to get information about the services. Unfortunately we missed the mass but went inside St. Mary's to have a look anyways. St. Mary's also runs a school and orphanage on the property and we ended up wandering to the backyard where the children were playing. There are several orphanages in Addis but I believe that this is the only Catholic-based organization here. We got a little tour of the area - it's a very clean facility and the children all looked happy and well-fed. We found about ten babies in one of the rooms and I am thinking of bringing them all home with me now :). Ethiopians are very beautiful people in general- distinct facial features and very nice skin - and the children are all so adorable. A side note- pretty much everyone at our hotel outside of our group has been there for adoption. Definitely something to consider down the road!

So we ended up spending most of the day on this impromptu visit to orphanage- holding babies, playing sports with the older children, singing songs, having my hair braided by little girls.... They were such greats kids and I'm impressed by how much English is spoken at such a young age. It was a memorable experience, very hard to leave at the end, and a nice way to spend the Easter holiday.

In the evening myself and Keri met with some of the PT's from our hospital. We had dinner at a place called Teuj Bet - or "honey-wine house". It was a giant tukul with low chairs and tables and teuj was served in these glass carafes. Teuj is a drink usually only prepared for holidays and it's pretty strong... not my favorite Ethiopian beverage thus far, but I was glad we got to try it!

After dinner we finally got the 'real taxi' experience (our group has used the same land rover drivers thus far) which was not as crazy as I imagined - everyone had their own seat for this ride. However, when we got out of the taxi, some guy was running by and bumped into me head on, almost knocking me over. People around us started screaming and I jumped out of the way as 5 men in white clothing (holding these huge spears) ran by chased him over a fence. Apparently, he was being chased for some kind of theft. Yikes!

Just when you start to forget you're in Africa...