Court!

Today was the big day….

This day will forever change my life in such a profound way. We arrived at the government building in downtown Addis Ababa slightly before 9am. I was nervous and the stress forced me to skip my morning coffee. We waited about 30-40 minutes outside the courtroom. It was standing room only, all the people waiting were adoptive parents or people relinquishing their children, many countries were represented in court today. The range of emotions in that room is staggering to consider. We were the second group to be called and all 4 families from my agency entered together. The court clerks (women) reviewed our passports and the judge (woman) named the children and we acknowledged our presence for our child. Then she asked us a few questions to which we answered ‘yes’ in unison. We were all finished except for that ever-elusive MOWA letter which is about 30 days delayed. I realize you now want to know when little Gemechu is coming home….I do too! I am hoping for sooner rather than later, but to be honest it could be 6 weeks or 3+ months. But for today, I will celebrate that I have made it this far.

Entrance to the National Museum of Ethiopia

After court we headed to the National Museum of Ethiopia, home to Lucy. To be fair this portion of today’s blog post is especially for my fellow art and history teachers…. Lucy or as she is referred to in Amharic: Dinkenesh (wonderful) is indeed the most famous artifact at the National Museum. Lucy is a 3.5 million year old skeleton, the oldest hominid that has ever been found, on a side note she was named after the Beatles song Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds. Lucy was found on November 24, 1974, at Hadar in Ethiopia. "Hominid" basically means a being in the ape/human family that walks upright. There was a fascinating exhibit about the progression of man, which included many artifacts and was quite interesting. As a update to this information in 2009 another female skeleton was found in Ethiopia ‘Ardi’ which precedes Lucy by a million years. As for the art in the National Museum, it was beautiful. The painting floor was of course, my favorite part of the tour but what was most interesting was the mixture of paintings: primitive, ancient, modern, realistic, non-objective. The most distressing thing about the museum itself was the conditions. There were no airtight cases, no protection from sunlight, outside air, or even water damage. One of the families brought their 20 year old daughter who is a photographer… she pointed to a portion of the painting and asked if it was fading away- she was so distraught and commented that she felt she was lucky to see it before it was gone-

Lucy

The actual skeleton is preserved in Addis Ababa and not on display

We then enjoyed a pizza lunch, which we all agreed was delicious since we have overloaded on Injera, and bypassed a second museum to visit the children. This was the last time we will see them until our return trip…it was bittersweet. Each time we visit we are graced with more insight to these precious children and I am referring to all of the children in the orphanage. They love the attention and the interaction and I am so happy that almost all of them have families. I spent a solid 2 hours holding my little guy and even let Grammy have a turn or two. Saying goodbye was rough…. I will be leaving a big part of my heart in Ethiopia…soon sweet boy, I will be back soon….