Your time or my time?

So day to starts early. Every day there starts early there. Dogs bark through out the night and our guest house is located near an Orthodox church that starts their scary, Islamic sounding music around 4 am. Yes, that is before the sun even rises.

So let me take a minute to explain the time in Ethiopia. Many things in Ethiopia are not as we would call them. For example, the first floor of a building is what we would call the second floor. A couch is what we would call a fouton. Kim wrote down many examples of this but my memory is sliding on such things as of now. Back to the time... There is WESTERN Ethiopian time. The airport runs off of this time and some people use this time to speak to visitors and keep schedule with them. This was the time that I used to call home. It was 10 hours different than in Arizona. So... If it was 7am in Ethiopia on Sunday, it was 9pm on Saturday in Arizona. But when asked by our driver if he should come to pick us up at 2:00... let's just say that I was really confused. A debate about coming at 7-8am like he did yesterday broke out and then he just agreed to come in the morning and left.

I had to figure out what was going on. Where was this breakdown coming from? Well, there is Ethiopian Ethiopian time and then Western Ethiopian time. I did not know this- obviously. The poeple in Ethiopia count sunrise which is 6:00 am in Western time as midnight? Why would the start of the day be in the middle of the night? (Yes I was asked that when it was being explained to me as the more logical approach to time). So there you have it. Noon is 6, 6 is noon, 9:00 is 3:00 and so on. So when asked if he should pick us up at 2:00, he was saying 8am. Hmmmm... When someone says what time to be somewhere, they never clarify so you just have to do the logical math and see what makes more sense!

So our second day started. We were fed by the cook at our guest house and back in the car by 2:00 or 8:00. (Yes, really.) We needed to go back to Nettie's orphanage to finalize paper work. Back in the car, through the town, up and down on the really rough road, through the black double gates and into the home. The kids recognized us immediately. Nettie knew where we were, too. She held onto Mommy. The kids all greated us this time with warm hugs, kisses, and ear to ear grins. My little "Christmas Angel" covered her eyes to play peek-a-boo with me. She remembered! I played with the children while Kim did paper work. And this time, I was invited up to the top two floors where the infants were. That was incredible. There was a premie that in the states would still be in the NICU trying hard to make it. He didn't look well. Odds are that he won't make it. I prayed for him. Other babies were doing much better than him. Crying was all about as the women tended one child and then the next. Amazing women who really do seem to care.

We spent a lot of time finalizing things with the orphanage and then went on to lunch and the US Embassy. We had to finish Netza's paperwork in order for her to cross the US lines. This was the official moment for Nettie.

It was all a lot to take in. In typing it, it seems rather short and to the point, but it took a full day. By now it was 4:00 and with little sleep to date, we were pretty tired. We decided to send our driver home early that day and had him drop us off in the street by our home. We had him help us look for the mom and her babies from day one, but there were no where to be found. He agreed to see us between "1 and 2:00" tomorrow. We set out to look at some shops, grab a bite for dinner, and call it an early day.