Ethiopia Day 9 (Saturday)

Day 9 in Ethiopia was dedicated to hanging out with our brothers. We had brought along swimsuits in a hope to take them swimming on Saturday but when we woke up it was cloudy and chilly. The morning started off with breakfast at the CCI house. We had the usual for them which was Chai (tea) and 1 birr bread (the name describes it perfectly). It was a decent breakfast and I was actually kind of excited that as boring as tea and a mini-loaf of bread are, we were actually having a typical Ethiopian breakfast for the first time.

Next we headed to Dawn's house (from Bingham). She lived in a nice neighborhood and had a very nice typical Western ranch style house. We were shocked when we pulled up. The yard was gorgeous. In her shed out back were clothes, toys, books and other items she had used for her 3 boys who grew up on the mission field. Dawn let us look through her stuff and set aside things for Elias for when we moved over there. After visiting for a while we decided to head to the New Flower Guest House to check in as we were going to be staying there for our last leg of our trip.

At the New Flower we met Helen the proprieter and Kaleb her employee. They were both very nice and super excited for us to be there. I would highly recommend staying at New Flower. After getting settled in we decided to go to the movies. There are 2 movie theaters in Addis Ababa, one of which shows movies in English so it was a pretty easy decision on where to go.

We took Emily on an errand to pick up some paperwork for some of the children at CCI then headed to the movies. We went to Edna Mall, saw the movies and showtimes then realized we had some time to kill. We went to lunch at Wabe Berehe which turned out to be a really nice restaurant with great food. I think Alemu, Israel and Elias were the only Ethiopians dining in there for the majority of the time. The boys were both really well behaved and loved their meals.

At one point Israel had to go to the bathroom. Brian showed him where it was and left him alone. 10 minutes later we were all wondering about Israel. Brian went in to check on him and found him playing with the automatic water dispensor on the sink. Israel could not believe that you could wave your hands and the water would automatically pour out. He came back to the table and excitedly told Almeu all about. Not shockingly Alemu then had to use the restroom for a very long time.

Next we went to an indoor arcade and playland. We bought the boys tickets to play in a playland which was kind of like a massive McDonalds playland. They got horribly sweaty (right before we all sat next to eachother at the movies). They had such a good time they were both upset at me for making them leave. I tried to explain we were leaving to go do something else fun and go to the movies but I don't think they understood what I meant by "go to the movies." Israel actually had an attitude with me for quite a while...I think until he realized what we were doing when we walked in and saw the HUGE movie screen.

There was only one children's movie playing at the English speaking theater so it was an easy choice. We saw Bedtime Stories with Adam Sandler. It actually turned out to be a very cute movie. We took the stairs up to the very top level of the building where the theater was. We then found out we had to do a level down to purchase the tickets then come back up to see the movie. We took the elevator down. Not a big deal, right? Wrong! The boys thought the elevator was the coolest thing EVER. It was even one of those elevators that had glass and looked outside onto the city. They were all giggles and smiles.

After purchasing tickets (30 birr/just under $3 per person) we walked into the theater. We ignored the signs posted everywhere saying you can't take cameras in and that you had to leave them at the ticket booth. We stocked up at concessions with popcorn, sodas, and fruit smoothies (yes I got a fresh fruit smoothie in Africa on purpose and lived to tell about it :) ). Everyone was getting stopped to have their bags checked at the door of the theater. This time the security kind of pretended to check our bags but didn't really. They didn't notice our massive camera. As I watched the Ethiopian women have their purses thoroughly searched I once again realized that we were being treated as superiors because of our skin color. Although we were being treated BETTER than everyone else I kept feeling like it was unfair, injust, and ridiculous. I hated being treated differently because I was white. It was a very odd feeling knowing that people would look at me and judge me by my appearance to a level where they actually treated me differently. Ethiopia was the first place I experienced this in my life. Knowing how uncomfortable it made me feel I can only imagine what strong feelings I would have if I was being discriminated against and being treated WORSE instead of better because of my skin color.

Once we sat down the boys were super excited. Alemu literally sat on the edge of his seat the ENTIRE movie. We were thrilled to be having this "first" experience with them! Elias did better than I thought with the movie. As we were waiting for the movie to start a preview for Clint Eastwood's Gran Torino came on. When the gunshots sounded Elias started crying really hard. He was in the Moby so I walked out and bounced him to sleep in the lobby. He slept for about half the movie. When he woke up he was still in the Moby and would turn his whole body around to see the screen. It was super cute!

After the movie we walked back to New Flower from Edna Mall. We walked by a bunch of construction and crossed a really busy road. It was a little long for the boys but they held it together.

When we got back to the New Flower we hung out for a while. The boys loved helping me with Elias and begged to help change him. They have so much fun being uncles! I don't remember why but Israel started acting up. Emily threatened to take them home and he continued so she had to follow through. We were all bummed but it had been a fun day.