Friday morning we and Brian and Eva (the other couple with us) got all dressed up and ready to go to court. We were going to be picked up at Oziopia so we all decided to wait outside the gate until our driver came. We didn't want to be late for this appointment! Our driver did turn out to be late in picking us up and we did make it to the court building a little bit late, but luckily that didn't seem to matter. (As a side note, the drive took about 30 minutes and the most interesting thing to me was seeing all the different embassies from around the world. We passed over 20 I think.) The judge wasn't there yet so we all waiting in a room that was clearly designed for a lot of people to wait in. It was relatively large with chairs lining the walls, floor to ceiling windows on one side, and a semi-broken flat screen TV in the corner showing something I couldn't quite make out. We , Brian and Eva, Eleni, Temesgen (AAI's Attorney) and another lady (I forget her name) were the only ones in there for a while. A little while later a few more people came in. Zack and I spent a lot of the wait time trying to remember how to say "Thank you" in Amharic. Believe me, this was no "Gracias" or "Merci". This word had about 7 syllables with no clear way to link them all (at least in my mind). We have an Amharic Language App on my phone and so we listened to "Thank you" being said over and over. I still can't say it. Here's how it's spelled: Ameseginalehu. And you pronounce it something like "Ah-meh-segi-na-lew". It's a lot easier to read how to pronounce it than to hear it being said and repeat it, in my mind.
After maybe a half hour (not sure now) Zack and I were called in to see the judge. Everyone always talked about how the judge speaks really softly and so you have to be really quiet and listen closely to hear what she says. There are signs in the waiting room that warn you to be quiet. I guess once she cleared the room and cancelled the appointments for the day because everyone was being so noisy. At least that's the rumor. We weren't about to test it. We walked into a little office with a desk where the judge was sitting and some chairs in front and off to the side. Zack and I sat in front of the desk. The judge was pretty soft-spoken. She said our file needed another police letter (which we gave her right then) and then she asked us a few questions. She said something like "You have no other children, correct?" And we responded with "Oh no, we have two boys." She checked her files and said it wasn't listed. That's when we found out that she didn't have our updated homestudy (which we completed a year ago...). We were worried this was going to hold things up, but instead she just asked their ages and wrote it down in our file. She asked us questions like "Have we seen Yematawork?" "Did we want to adopt her?" "Did we realize that this was non-reversible, that she was our daughter forever if we adopted her?" (Um, yes, kind of counting on that!) She asked if we had contact with other families who had adopted from Ethiopia. It was nice to be able to answer that one with a big yes. She said a few other things that were really hard to hear, but I believe somewhere in there she said "She is yours." And that was it. We passed! Yema was officially ours! That technically meant that, if we wanted to, we could go get Yema from the orphanage right then. Buuuut we couldn't leave the country. For that we needed permission from the US Embassy. That was the next hurdle.
But we passed and she was officially adopted! Yay yay yay!
I have to say that being a parent of three kids at that moment was not as hard as people always say it is. It was kind of a piece of cake. But that may have had something to do with the fact that one was in an orphanage and the other two were back in the states with Grandma and Grandpa. Heh heh...
After court we all went to Layla. Zack spent some time with the resident dog, Ishi. This dog looked for love from everyone willing to give it.
We got a ride to Hilawe to see Yema and take some official Evans family photos.
We only spent about 10 minutes at Hilawe since it was almost Yema's nap time. We went back to Oziopia and went with Brian and Eva and Abebe up to Entoto Mountain. This is one of the highest mountains in Addis. (Addis Ababa is actually about 7,000 feet above sea level and is a pretty mountainous city.) Entoto mountain is about 10,000 feet above sea level. There are a lot of eucalyptus trees on the mountain and a lot of women make a living by carrying giant (and I mean giant, like 3 times their size) piles of eucalyptus down the mountain on their backs.
At the top of the mountain is actually a village, the first church in Addis, the palace of Menelik the II and Queen Taitu, the royal couple that first conceived the city of Addis Ababa, and a museum.
Here's our group at the top.
Here's a shot of the church. Apparently once a year they bring the Arc of the Covenant out for the priests to see. We asked one of the guides at the museum about that and he finally admitted that it's a replica, but that the real one was somewhere in Ethiopia and no one is permitted to see it. I really liked the museum and learning more about Ethiopia's history. I wasn't so jet-lagged for this one, I guess. :)
Here's a random shot of me sitting at the computer in Oziopia. This is where we'd send emails and stuff. We would take the computer up to our room at 5:00 AM to skype from there because sometimes Abebe would be sleeping in the living room and we didn't want to disturb him.
That night the family that runs Oziopia put on a big party. They put out a big spread outside for dinner.
They had a fire in a fire pit and even had some dancers from the local community center come and put on a show for us.
It was really fun. The girls who danced were really good. Here's some video of them doing some traditional dancing that involves crazy amounts of shoulder bobbing. I'm not sure why, but this type of dancing is hugely popular over there.
After they danced for a while they would come over to all us spectators and make us dance with them. It was hard to say no to them so we all ended up looking like fools...er, dancing...with them for a while. For everyone's sake I am not posting any video of us dancing. But I will post another video of the girls and also of the front of Oziopia. We stayed in the room at the top.
After maybe a half hour (not sure now) Zack and I were called in to see the judge. Everyone always talked about how the judge speaks really softly and so you have to be really quiet and listen closely to hear what she says. There are signs in the waiting room that warn you to be quiet. I guess once she cleared the room and cancelled the appointments for the day because everyone was being so noisy. At least that's the rumor. We weren't about to test it. We walked into a little office with a desk where the judge was sitting and some chairs in front and off to the side. Zack and I sat in front of the desk. The judge was pretty soft-spoken. She said our file needed another police letter (which we gave her right then) and then she asked us a few questions. She said something like "You have no other children, correct?" And we responded with "Oh no, we have two boys." She checked her files and said it wasn't listed. That's when we found out that she didn't have our updated homestudy (which we completed a year ago...). We were worried this was going to hold things up, but instead she just asked their ages and wrote it down in our file. She asked us questions like "Have we seen Yematawork?" "Did we want to adopt her?" "Did we realize that this was non-reversible, that she was our daughter forever if we adopted her?" (Um, yes, kind of counting on that!) She asked if we had contact with other families who had adopted from Ethiopia. It was nice to be able to answer that one with a big yes. She said a few other things that were really hard to hear, but I believe somewhere in there she said "She is yours." And that was it. We passed! Yema was officially ours! That technically meant that, if we wanted to, we could go get Yema from the orphanage right then. Buuuut we couldn't leave the country. For that we needed permission from the US Embassy. That was the next hurdle.
But we passed and she was officially adopted! Yay yay yay!
I have to say that being a parent of three kids at that moment was not as hard as people always say it is. It was kind of a piece of cake. But that may have had something to do with the fact that one was in an orphanage and the other two were back in the states with Grandma and Grandpa. Heh heh...
After court we all went to Layla. Zack spent some time with the resident dog, Ishi. This dog looked for love from everyone willing to give it.
Zack was just sitting on the step when Ishi just came up next to him and stuck her head under his arm. How can you resist that?
She looks ecstatic, right? You should be, Yema. You're stuck with us forever!
We only spent about 10 minutes at Hilawe since it was almost Yema's nap time. We went back to Oziopia and went with Brian and Eva and Abebe up to Entoto Mountain. This is one of the highest mountains in Addis. (Addis Ababa is actually about 7,000 feet above sea level and is a pretty mountainous city.) Entoto mountain is about 10,000 feet above sea level. There are a lot of eucalyptus trees on the mountain and a lot of women make a living by carrying giant (and I mean giant, like 3 times their size) piles of eucalyptus down the mountain on their backs.
Here's a picture of Addis from the mountain.
We thought we had an inversion in Utah...you should see the pollution here!
At the top of the mountain is actually a village, the first church in Addis, the palace of Menelik the II and Queen Taitu, the royal couple that first conceived the city of Addis Ababa, and a museum.
Here's our group at the top.
This was the king's dining room...I think. I forget. But look at the ceiling!
Here's a shot of the church. Apparently once a year they bring the Arc of the Covenant out for the priests to see. We asked one of the guides at the museum about that and he finally admitted that it's a replica, but that the real one was somewhere in Ethiopia and no one is permitted to see it. I really liked the museum and learning more about Ethiopia's history. I wasn't so jet-lagged for this one, I guess. :)
Here's a random shot of me sitting at the computer in Oziopia. This is where we'd send emails and stuff. We would take the computer up to our room at 5:00 AM to skype from there because sometimes Abebe would be sleeping in the living room and we didn't want to disturb him.
That night the family that runs Oziopia put on a big party. They put out a big spread outside for dinner.
After they danced for a while they would come over to all us spectators and make us dance with them. It was hard to say no to them so we all ended up looking like fools...er, dancing...with them for a while. For everyone's sake I am not posting any video of us dancing. But I will post another video of the girls and also of the front of Oziopia. We stayed in the room at the top.
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