Live from Ethiopia

We arrived safely in Ethiopia on Saturday night. Our trip over was
smooth. One of suitcases didn't arrive (of course it was mine), but
the airport in Addis was very nice and helpful. It took a while to
get through the visa line and customs, and by the time we got to our
guest house, it was about 11PM. We got up the following morning,
Sunday, at 5AM for our trip to Lalibela. We arrived in Lalibela late
in the morning. We had a great tour guide, Gashaw, that picked us up
at the airport. He took us to our guest house, let us get settled and
grab lunch, and then we started our tour. Lalibela is famous for its
rock hewn churches, which were built by King Lalibela in the 11th
century. The churches were very ornate and everything is symbolic-
the number of windows in each church, the different crosses for each
church, the pillars in the churches. We had to remove our shoes to
enter each church, and we had a shoekeeper who followed us from church
to church and removed our shoes, and then put them back on as we
traveled to the next church. The following day, Monday, we visited
two cave churches. We enjoyed our time in Lalibela. It is a much
smaller city and much slower paced than Addis. The landscape is quite
different from Addis- very mountainous and dry, more rural and not as
modern. It was great to soak in some of Ethiopia's rich history and
Christian heritage. I'll try to post some pictures of our trip so far
later.

Today we returned to Addis and toured the city. We went to Trinity
Cathedral, the national museum, and Entoto Mountain- which is the
highest point and overlooks the city. There was a group of elementary
school students touring the national museum, and I think that Paul and
I were a more exciting attraction to them than the museum was. We are
staying at a wonderful guest house, the owners are a sweet Ethiopian
couple that have grown children that live in the US.

Tomorrow is a national holiday in Ethiopia- something to do with
celebrating the new government. We will be meeting our friend Yosef's
family and spending time with them. We are not sure of our plans on
Thursday, but will be meeting up with our adoption travel group on
Thursday night. Then on Friday morning, we will meet Kenyon Belachew!
It is hard to believe that we will meet him in less than 3 days.
We did find out today that his name is actually pronounced Bell-a-cho
(the last syllable rhymes with show).

We are glad that we came to Ethiopia early- to catch up on the time
and to enjoy more of our son's country and culture. They are still
having power cuts in Ethiopia, so I am not sure how often we will be
able to update our blog, but we will do our best to update it on
Friday (after meeting Belachew).