Monday, July 7: Paperwork and Pastries

On Monday morning at 10, we were picked up by our adoption agency’s staff to go back to the foster home and fill out the necessary forms for our appointment at the US Embassy on Tuesday afternoon. We rode there with another family, who was there to pick up their five month old daughter. I was a little nervous about going back to the foster home, just because I wasn’t sure how Juan Pablo would react. I wondered if he would recognize where he was and want to go back, or worse, think that we were taking him back to leave him there again. I wondered if he would recognize any of the staff, and prefer to go to them instead of us. We had only had him with us for three days- was that really enough time for him to develop a sense of belonging to us? It quickly became clear that I had nothing to worry about. While I filled out the paperwork, he was very content to stay in the baby carrier with Jeff. They went out into the courtyard and watched some kids play, but he made no attempt to reach for anyone besides us, and stayed calm the whole time, showing neither anxiety nor excitement to be back at the foster home. When I finished the paperwork, there were a couple places where Jeff needed to sign. He handed me the baby, and we went to sit by his Tio Sebastian, who had come with us. Sebastian blew him a kiss, and to our surprise, Juan Pablo blew a kiss right back! Since then, he has become very accomplished at blowing kisses, usually very loud, masculine kisses. I was impressed to see how quickly he picked that up.

While we were at the foster home, the father of the other adoptive family that was with us commented that Juan Pablo seemed to go to dad for fun, and to mom for comfort. We hadn’t really picked up on this yet, but over the next few days, we realized how true that was. He loved to play with Jeff, and as long as I wasn’t in the same room, he could be happy playing for a long time. Whenever he saw me though, he seemed to develop an instant need to be held. Sometimes he’d be happily playing with Jeff while I was in the shower, or boiling his bottles in the kitchenette, and as soon as I walked in the room, he would stop playing, reach for me, and then just want me to hold him for a while. We would joke that he was having way too much fun and needed to be comforted. Other times, he didn’t seem to really know what he wanted. He would be in my arms, and decide to play with Jeff, but after a minute or so he would want to be held again, and then he’d be back playing a couple minutes later.

playing with papa

clinging to mama

Monday afternoon, to give Jeff some time with Juan Pablo without risk of him being distracted by my presence in the room, Sebastian and I went out to try to find the Merkato, a huge open air market not far from the Piazza. Sebastian had scrutinized the map in the guidebook before we left, and thought he had a pretty good idea of where we were going. We started to walk, my first real experience of walking around Addis Ababa. By this time, I had a pretty good idea of how traffic in Addis Ababa works. There are streets. And there are cars. And that’s about it. There are no stoplights, no signs regulating traffic, no attempt to create any kind of order (which explains the chaos of Ethiopian Airlines). Everyone just goes when they can, and slows down only if absolutely necessary. One of our favorite intersections involved a five-lane road meeting a three-lane road. Those in the three-lane road wishing to cross over the five lane road would wait for a break in traffic, drive quickly through the first two lanes, stop in the left turn lane and wait for a break in traffic from the other direction. Now if this system isn’t complicated enough, there are pedestrians to take into account. There seemed to be just thousands and thousands of people everywhere, out at every time of day or night, walking, selling things, begging. Because the sidewalks aren’t really big enough to hold all these people, it means that there are always people walking on the side of the street. This however, doesn’t stop the cars from driving in those lanes- they just honk, and the pedestrians try to crowd closer to the sidewalk, and somehow it works and the car gets through without hitting anyone. Crossing the street at intersections is completely optional, and most people will just walk out in the middle of a street, in front of an oncoming mini-bus, and in some miraculous way get to the other side unharmed. I was glad to be with Sebastian, who seemed to know what he was doing. I just followed him, crossing in front of buses and speeding taxis, praying that I would make it back to my husband and son at the guest house later that afternoon. I was never entirely sure where Sebastian was leading me, and apparently he wasn’t exactly sure either, because we never found the Merkato that afternoon. After searching for a while, we gave up, and decided instead to have a nice Italian meal at Ristorante Castelli in the Piazza. Apparently Brad and Angelina and other famous people who find themselves in Addis Ababa eat at this restaurant. The restaurant was beautiful and the food delicious. Since this was by far the most expensive meal of our trip, we decided to opt for a less expensive place for our afternoon coffee. We asked our waiter for directions, and then headed for Tomoca Café, one of the most famous coffee shops in Addis (Ethiopia is actually the birthplace of coffee). The cost of our macchiatos? 3 birr, or 30 cents each. If only coffee shops in the US had Ethiopian prices. On our way back to the guest house, we stopped at Raizel Café to buy pastries to take back to Jeff. Though I am continually horrified at the atrocities committed by the occupying Italians in Ethiopia during World War II, I am glad that the Ethiopians were able to find something positive in the situation, and as a result, there are amazing pastries, such as chocolate cakes and tiramisus, to be found in cafes all over Addis Ababa. Raizel is one of the more upscale cafes, so the pastries we bought were a bit pricey compared to the ones in other coffee shops- about 75 cents each. Sebastian, who had been in Benin for the past year where there are no desserts at all, particularly enjoyed our purchases.

Ethiopian pastries

When we returned to the guest house that afternoon, Jeff showed us Juan Pablo’s latest discover: the mirror. He would look at his reflection in the mirror, and get excited and smile and laugh and say “Aaaah!” Jeff let him touch his reflection in the mirror, which provided an even greater level of excitement. Maybe it was because from that close, he could see his first top tooth, which had poked through that day. This became one of his favorite things to do throughout the rest of the trip, adding an extra level of difficulty to getting him to sleep at night, since there was a mirror on the wall at the foot of our bed. We had been getting him to sleep by pacing back and forth with him in our arms in the space between our bed and the mirror, but from this point on, every time we walked in front of the mirror, he would be renewed with a sudden burst of energy and reach out and want to touch it. We had to get creative, doing spin moves to keep him from seeing himself in the mirror. Despite the increased nighttime challenges, it was so much fun to watch Juan Pablo make these new little discoveries, and find such joy in them. We were so glad that he was so interested in learning about and exploring the world around him, and not only that, but that he was so happy to share his new discoveries with us.