Ethiopia Flashback #1

Friday, March 4: Was it only a week ago I awakened at 4:00 a.m. to check my flight status.  The travel agent had warned me that we needed to make it on time to Amsterdam for the third leg of the journey, and if there was any hitch it would be the Seattle flight due to weather or fog.  So, worse case scenario was to rebook on an earlier flight out of Eugene that was routed some other way than Seattle.  Alas, that travel agent robbed me of two precious hours of sleep!  Everything was on time!

At 7:15 a.m., we loaded up my Mom's Volvo and headed to the airport, thinking since it was an international flight, we would need to check in early.  Ha!  The ticket counter didn't even open until 8:15.  Another hour of sleep deprivation!  Oh well, we had a quick bite of breakfast at the restaurant and got to chat with my friend Renee, who works there and whom I hadn't seen for a while. 

Jack and Beth gave me hugs and were so somber as Grandma Louise led them out to the car and then to school.  I prayed for them to learn to trust Jesus no matter what happened and to feel like they were being held in His arms, to know His love a little deeper.

9:50 a.m.: We were finally in the air!  On the way to see my little boy, Joseph!  And I could finally relax, knowing that I had done as much as I could at home to be ready and to prepare Jack and Beth for a week with both parents gone.  So, a one-hour flight to Seattle, a 2-hour layover, a 10-hour flight to Amsterdam, another 3-hour layover, and finally an 8-hour flight, with a 1-hour refueling layover in Sudan, later, we deboarded in Addis Ababa.  Local time was 10:20 p.m. on Saturday, March 5.    Time back home was 11:20 a.m. on Saturday.  Tired was an understatement as, whether due to the uncomfortableness of sleep on an airplane or maybe adrenaline, neither of us had much success sleeping on any of the flights.

We headed straight for customs and were near the front of the line so it only took a few minutes to present passports, get our visa stamps and move out into the baggage claim area.  Since we had not checked any baggage, we went straight to the bank to exchange some dollars for birr.  Exchange rate was 1:16.66673  or something like that.  So when they handed me 3200 birr for my $200 it felt like a huge wad of cash, well I guess it was a huge wad, but anyway...we had to send our bags through one more machine before we finally broke through to the real world again!  Airports are such bubbles!

A man was there holding a sign with "HOLT ETHIOPIA" printed on it so we made a beeline for him.  We met another couple who had just arrived on a flight from Frankfurt and eventually a third couple who had been on that same flight but who had lost a piece of luggage and were filling out the necessary paperwork should it be found.  They weren't worried as it was a suitcase of donated items for the care centers not their personal belongings.

Walking outside, we immediately smelled woodsmoke.  Mitch says that every country he has been to has a distinctive smell and this time I really paid attention.  Yep, woodsmoke.  Anyway, as we trudged to what turned out to be the hotel van, several men started to follow us.  They had name badges on and were trying to get us to let them take care of our luggage, for a tip I'm sure.  As we tried to load the van, they just jumped right in and grabbed our bags, handing them to our driver, kind of pushy if you ask me, but I wondered if we should tip them anyway?  I asked the driver, but he didn't seem to speak English too well.  He shook his head, but I don't know if he really understood me.  Oh well.

It was a short drive, maybe 10 minutes, first on a 4-lane main road then on a narrow dirt alley/street,  to the Jemimah Guesthouse where Holt had booked our rooms.  There were several nice, walled compounds (one was even posted as the Cuban Embassy) with rolled, barbed wire across the tops of the walls.  And in between and everywhere were shacks thrown up, made of scraps of wood and corrugated sheet metal.  At the Guesthouse, the driver honked the horn and someone opened up the gate for us.  We checked in, arranged to eat breakfast in the dining room at 5:30 a.m., and headed up 4 flights of stairs (no elevators!) to our room.  By the time we got up there, Iwas so winded (lack of exercise or 8000-ft elevation?) I could hardly breathe, let alone speak for about a minute!  There was only one key, a real key, and we were informed that the front desk would hold it for us when we were "out." 

The beds looked so inviting when we opened the door and the shower was beckoning me, to wash off the travel grime.  The shower was great, but alas, the beds were hard as rocks!  Maybe it was all the strange sounds in a new place, maybe the stuffy heat of the closed room, maybe some of that adrenaline  still working overtime, but

neither Pat nor I got much sleep after all.  You'd think after a 30-hour flight and with getting up so early, we'd sleep soundly, but no, I must have checked my alarm clock at least 10 times until finally it was time to get up and get ready for breakfast.