Well, it’s only one week to go… And we will be taking our girls back to visit eat Ethiopia for the first time. It’s funny because they are seven years old, and their priorities for this trip have been, in order: the spa, seeing bush pigs, and visiting their family. So that is how we have structured their trip.
If you are new to this blog, we adopted them in 2009, in the midst of our adoption agencie’s bankruptcy. I was blogging back then too, but our old blog imploded a year or so ago. Anyway, I ended up being two months in Ethiopia with newly adopted 2.5 year old twins. Ah, the memories. Since then, I’ve traveled back several times to run our charity, Vulnerable Children Society. My mother is now going on her fourth trip!
So it will be my husband and I , our 7-year-old twin girls Sugar and Spice, and my parents. It’s my father’s first trip, and my husband was in a bit of a daze the last one, so I think the major culture shock will probably come from them.
We only have 10 days in country …which really is nothing.
Basically, we will spend a day in Addis visiting one of our projects, a retraining program for teenage sex trade workers. And probably short visit at AHOPE. Maybe a visit to the natural history museum, if we can swing it.
The next day, we leave for Nakemt, which is where our daughters are from. We will be visiting their family, which should be a long and interesting process. That’s putting it mildly… We have one of those “complicated” family situations. We hope the girls won’t be too traumatized by it, and will come away with some good memories as well as bad. We’ve visited before, but not with the girls in tow.
Back to Addis for one day, where we will spend the day at another project: the Love and Hope Center on the outskirts of Addis, in the burbs of Kality. We will be installing the new Literacy Library, doing a craft with the 70 kids, and making plans for new projects, such, perhaps, a community garden.
Then off for four days at Lake Langano, to sit in the bush and look at the hippos and the monkeys. We are really looking forward to this bit. My father is a wildlife biologist, and he’s never been to Africa. So he’s got himself a book of wild birds of Africa and is so excited to try it out. My girls are also animal crazy… Did I mention that I am a nature freak and my husband is a veterinarian? So they are really happy about spending some time in the bush. I think it will also be a really good opportunity to decompress and deal with any trauma or big stuff that comes up when visiting their family.
We will visit the orphanage that they came from, on the way down, and some friends at Debra Zeit on the way back. Then we have one more day in Addis… The thing my girls are looking forward to the most. A day at the spa! I have also hired a guide to take the boys out doing touristy things in Addis. The guide, who I’ve used before, has instructions to take them to nice tejbett and other male focused activities 
Anyway, we are looking forward to it. There’s a lot of planning, so much that no one will ever know about, except me. But it will all be worth it.
Let’s just hope our passports arrive back from the embassy before we have to leave!!
