After 16 hours or so in the air, and short stops in Amsterdam and Khartoum, we landed last night in the Addis airport. Those of you who know my son Thomas will not be surprised to learn that he made lots of friends along the way, including a group of high school students from Tennessee who were on the same plane to Addis. He heard their southern accents and struck up a conversation with them. By the end of the flight, they were trading facebook addresses.
Feleke did fine on the long plane trip. He spent the entire time either watching movies or playing on the ipad or listening to music or talking to us. I don't believe he slept at all. He kept saying that "sleep is not coming", and I guess he was right. He did crash though when we go to the hotel room. Thomas and I slept a few hours on the plane, but not much.
We were greeted at the airport by our tour guide, whose first name is (no kidding) Million. He provided me with a phone and took us to our hotel. He also showed up this morning at 9am to give us a walking tour of the part of the city near our hotel. First, though, he took us to Dr. Rick's house, where we met a bunch of the crew. We woke most of them, but they awoke in reasonably good moods. The house is exactly as it appears in the HBO movie, Making the Crooked Straight (which I highly recommend). We met several of the kids whose lives had been saved by Dr. Rick and his team of surgeons.
Million took us to to have breakfast and coffee at a local spot, from which we could watch the river of people pass by. Because we were siting outside, we would be approached every few minutes either by beggars or by people trying to sell us copies of the latest Teddy Afro cd, which we already have. But then across the street we saw a guy drive up in a new range rover. Million identified him as the owner of an entire row of luxury homes and condominiums that could be seen across the street from the coffee shop.
The highlight of the day, however, was when Feleke's brothers, Kabede and Derege, finally arrived at the hotel to get Feleke. I can't possibly capture in words the emotions we all felt as we traded handshakes and long hugs. I felt as if they were already my brothers. We stood for a long time silence just staring at each other and smiling and nodding and shaking our heads at the craziness of the whole thing. Then we sat and Million translated between us. They thanked us many times. I told them it was not necessary and that it was our privilege to have Feleke with us. We hugged some more. They said that they--the whole family--had assumed that when Feleke left for America he would die there. They did not expect him to survive. He had been sick for so long; the news had been bad so many times; they had almost lost all hope. I tried to make clear how important all the various people were in the process--from dr. rick to people like Steven, Neal, and Susan Weinberg and Michelle Groe and, of course, Dr. Forman. And I told them that the person who had invested the most time and energy was my wife Ruth Ann, who has treated Feleke like one of her own children from the very beginning, but who could not make the trip to Africa. I told them that she would love to be there, to hug them, to talk to their mother especially and assure her that her baby was being well loved. They cried a little at that and said that they had hoped to see Ruth Ann too.
We talked a bit about the logistics of them getting Feleke to Dafe JEma with the 3 suitcases full of stuff we were sending for the family anbd vilage. And we talked about the details of our trip to dafe jema, when we would come to get feleke. The details of that are still up in the air. Im sure it will work out.
The Internet connection here is terrible, so I'm not sure when my next post will be. And I won't be posting any pictures until I get back. But I will try to write again soon.
Here a few pictures from Day 1 in Addis.
Thomas, me, Feleke's brothers Kabede and Derege, and Feleke on the end. This is just after we gave Kabede his new laptop.
The fruit here is amazing, though we were told only to eat fruit that you can peal. Apparently the water used to clean the fruit is not always clean.
Billboards on Bole Road.
The giant orthodox church also on Bole.
Here we are--Thomas, Million, and me--dining at a coffee shop on Bole Road.
Feleke did fine on the long plane trip. He spent the entire time either watching movies or playing on the ipad or listening to music or talking to us. I don't believe he slept at all. He kept saying that "sleep is not coming", and I guess he was right. He did crash though when we go to the hotel room. Thomas and I slept a few hours on the plane, but not much.
We were greeted at the airport by our tour guide, whose first name is (no kidding) Million. He provided me with a phone and took us to our hotel. He also showed up this morning at 9am to give us a walking tour of the part of the city near our hotel. First, though, he took us to Dr. Rick's house, where we met a bunch of the crew. We woke most of them, but they awoke in reasonably good moods. The house is exactly as it appears in the HBO movie, Making the Crooked Straight (which I highly recommend). We met several of the kids whose lives had been saved by Dr. Rick and his team of surgeons.
Million took us to to have breakfast and coffee at a local spot, from which we could watch the river of people pass by. Because we were siting outside, we would be approached every few minutes either by beggars or by people trying to sell us copies of the latest Teddy Afro cd, which we already have. But then across the street we saw a guy drive up in a new range rover. Million identified him as the owner of an entire row of luxury homes and condominiums that could be seen across the street from the coffee shop.
The highlight of the day, however, was when Feleke's brothers, Kabede and Derege, finally arrived at the hotel to get Feleke. I can't possibly capture in words the emotions we all felt as we traded handshakes and long hugs. I felt as if they were already my brothers. We stood for a long time silence just staring at each other and smiling and nodding and shaking our heads at the craziness of the whole thing. Then we sat and Million translated between us. They thanked us many times. I told them it was not necessary and that it was our privilege to have Feleke with us. We hugged some more. They said that they--the whole family--had assumed that when Feleke left for America he would die there. They did not expect him to survive. He had been sick for so long; the news had been bad so many times; they had almost lost all hope. I tried to make clear how important all the various people were in the process--from dr. rick to people like Steven, Neal, and Susan Weinberg and Michelle Groe and, of course, Dr. Forman. And I told them that the person who had invested the most time and energy was my wife Ruth Ann, who has treated Feleke like one of her own children from the very beginning, but who could not make the trip to Africa. I told them that she would love to be there, to hug them, to talk to their mother especially and assure her that her baby was being well loved. They cried a little at that and said that they had hoped to see Ruth Ann too.
We talked a bit about the logistics of them getting Feleke to Dafe JEma with the 3 suitcases full of stuff we were sending for the family anbd vilage. And we talked about the details of our trip to dafe jema, when we would come to get feleke. The details of that are still up in the air. Im sure it will work out.
The Internet connection here is terrible, so I'm not sure when my next post will be. And I won't be posting any pictures until I get back. But I will try to write again soon.
Here a few pictures from Day 1 in Addis.
'
This is Thomas with our friend and travel agent Million carrying one of our suitcases from the Desalegn Hotel around the corner to Dr. Rick's house for storage. Then Million takes us on a walk up Bole Road, home to some of the best shopping in Addis.
