According to the schedule we had received from our adoption agency, one of their staff would be coming by around 3 to drop off Juan Pablo’s passport and immigration packet from the US Embassy. Because of this, and because of our long day out the day before, we had decided to stay close to the guest house. In the morning though, Sebastian, who was getting more than enough sleep since he wasn’t being woken up every few hours throughout the night, suggested we go and explore the Piazza area more, now that we had a better idea of where we were. He had been there for a little while on Tuesday while Jeff, Juan Pablo and I were at the Embassy, and had found a shop with religious items that he thought we might like. I was feeling pretty good, so I decided to go with him, and because Juan Pablo does so well in the baby carrier, we brought him along so that Jeff could get some rest. (As a side note, I would like to provide my official endorsement of the Ergo Baby baby carrier. I don’t know what we would have done without it on the trip. It really is very ergonomic- I would wear it for hours at a time, and never felt like Juan Pablo got too heavy. It was great not to have to lug a stroller all the way there and back, and since the baby carrier doesn’t have any metal on it, I was able to go through security at the airport without ever having to take it off. Juan Pablo was very comfortable in it the whole trip, just falling right asleep whenever he got tired. It was also very nice to be able to keep him that close to us, and in a place where he could always see our faces and know that we were there with him.) We had a great time walking around, checking out a couple different stores, and stopping to have a treat at Akihome Café. I have to admit, one of the reasons I had been eager to go back to the Piazza was because we still hadn’t sampled any the famous Ethiopian juice. So instead of ordering coffee to go with our pastries at Akihome, this time, we both ordered a mixed juice. It looked beautiful when it came, with layers of mango, passion fruit, guava, and even avocado juice. It was so thick and delicious, pretty much a meal by itself, although we did manage to eat a few pastries as well. When we left the café, Juan Pablo fell asleep in the baby carrier, so Sebastian and I decided to walk around a little more. We went to see St. George Cathedral, the Ethiopian Orthodox Cathedral in Addis Ababa. Again, we felt incredibly irreverent, walking up towards the church past all the extremely devout pilgrims, with their faces bowed to the ground, murmuring prayers in Amharic (which made it sound to us like they were all praying in tongues). We did not go in to the cathedral, partly because we felt a little awkward, and partly because you have to take your shoes off before entering the church, and I was a little worried about having to walk back to the guest house barefoot.
I wanted to be at the guest house when Juan Pablo’s passport and immigration packet arrived from the Embassy, so we headed back to wait for our agency’s staff to show up. It took longer than we had anticipated- they arrived closer to 5pm than 3pm, but we had fun in the meantime, talking and playing with Juan Pablo. After checking out Juan Pablo’s cool Ethiopian passport, and his cute passport picture, we decided to go to dinner at Seranade, a restaurant that was only a couple blocks away from us, and had received its own “Editor’s pick” box in our guidebook. When we left the guest house, it was pretty clear that there was a power outage going on. It was already getting dark, so we stumbled over to the restaurant, which is a little bit hard to find. It’s tucked up an alley, behind a gate, so the main reason we found it is because we heard the sound of a generator running, and knew there wasn’t anything else in that area that would be likely to have a generator. The restaurant was beautiful, very upscale with lots of shiny wood, white table cloths, and beautiful place settings. They brought out bread, and olive oil with rosemary. Juan Pablo then proceeded to knock my silverware and napkins on the floor, and, when we started feeding him, drop Puffs and bits of bread as well. I’m sure the restaurant staff at a place like that rarely has to clean up after a baby, but they were all very gracious and pretended not to notice, quietly bringing me replacement silverware and stepping over the Puffs on the floor. At the end of our wonderful, yet somewhat stressful meal (thanks to a little boy who wanted to eat such things as roasted veal and Nile Perch and was upset that he was not allowed to), the power came back on, which was nice for our walk back to the guest house. There are many things on those streets that a person could easily trip over, which I normally wouldn’t worry about too much, but with Juan Pablo strapped on to me in the baby carrier, it was much more nerve-wracking.
Earlier in the day, the guest house owner’s son, KB, who had picked Sebastian up from the airport, and had helped us out several times during the week, had asked if he could come over in the evening to talk for a while, since he would be leaving the next day to go on a weekend trip, and we would be gone when he got back. We had agreed, and so when we returned from our dinner, and he returned from his evening out with friends, he came over to our suite to hang out. While he was there, Juan Pablo started chattering away, and KB says he heard him say, “Abet!” which is apparently and Amharic word you use to respond to someone when they call your name. So it’s possible that our son knew at least one word in Amharic before meeting us. He was getting very tired by that time, so I said goodbye to KB, and went to get some sleep with Juan Pablo. Jeff and Sebastian stayed up a little longer, talking with KB about the small business that he runs selling CD’s in addition to helping his parents run the guest house, and the speed reading business that he hopes to start up. We were so blessed to find a place to stay that not only was clean, comfortable and fit our needs perfectly, but had such helpful and friendly hosts as well.
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