Off to Ethiopia
This was a flying day. The cab driver was supposed to pick us up at 8:00 a.m. to take us to the airport and he was 15 minutes early, which was good because we were actually ready for a change (yea us!). We realized we needed to call the Hilton in Addis to give our flight information, but I couldn’t call internationally from my cell, even in putting in the correct numbers. We asked. However, we could call the states easy peasy, and my sister happens to work for an international shipping company. So Adam left a voice mail message desperately asking her to call for us. Then I texted her and asked her to check her work voicemail. Just one problem – it was Sunday. We were already so screwed up we thought it was Monday. Oops. Bless her heart, she actually went into work and called for us. Yea Aunt Carissa!! Oh yea, we had a choice of going through the regular metal detector or the body scanner, and we both picked the body scanner. Warning, personal opinion: we don’t see the big deal and don’t feel like our privacy is being violated. IF it prevents terrorism it’s worth it.
The flight to Nairobi was very pleasant. We were seated in a row of 3 with an American from Catholic Charities who was on her way to Burundi. She had done a lot of work in Ethiopia with disadvantaged children. She gave us some suggested questions for the birth relative meetings for information that we can give the kids’ doctors so they can get a better idea if they suffered any severe malnutrition. Right before the flight was to take off, a flight attendant came by and said there was enough room in the plane to split up if we wanted. So, Adam and I had 3 seats between us. Wonderful flight. Then we landed in Nairobi. Had to exit of the plane onto the tarmac, and walked into the stuffiest, hottest, airport ever. On top of that, security was at the gates and we had to go through it again, and we couldn’t take water with us. Also, our flight was late. However, in our 90 minute flight, we got fed a full dinner.
We got to Addis Ababa at 12:00 a.m., went through customs – easier than we thought, but not as easy as Schlipol – and got to the Hilton by 2:00 a.m., and finally to bed and asleep by 3:00 a.m.