Karen's Journal from Ethiopia 3

Saturday March 26 Today I got up around 6:30 am. Slept terrible last night. Seth slept from 9:30-7:30, so it wasn't him. He did wake up twice for a bottle, but fed it to himself. Hannah slept in the room with me. It was so cute. After Aaron, Madelyn, and Natalie went to bed, Seth crawled and laid his head in Hannah's lap. I got some cute pictures. He is still a real good baby. Only cries when his diaper is changed. He hates it and I fear he sees me as the bad guy sometimes since I have been the only one to make him cry. He loves for Madelyn and Natalie to carry him around. After we all had a choppy nights sleep - except Natalie who slept great. I felt awful. We ate breakfast at 8:30. Took some salami and crackers we had brought with us to the dining room. We ate yummy pound cake, toast and jelly and our salami and crackers, and drank the hot tea she had made. I asked if it was bottled water and she said yes. Then after we all drank some, she brought up two water bottles and sat them down on the table. Then we worried that she had thought I had asked for bottled water. Well, surely we though they know regular water would make us all sick. So far so good, but we all did take some pepto just in case it might ward off some bad stuff. I was planning on a nap around 9am. I felt awful. But Daniel, the driver, showed up to see if we wanted to go anywhere. We decided to go to the museum of Addis Ababa. I sat up front and Aaron and the 4 kids sat in the back. Another crazy ride for about 15 min. He pointed out the leaders "palace" and other things. There is one traffic light. Other than that, it is a free for all. I can't figure out how there are not wrecks. Say there are 3 lanes. Our driver seems to ride the middle of two lanes and if need be, he'll actually get in a lane. Instead of slowing down if a person is wanting to cross the road, he just "beeps" the horn - almost like saying "just to warn you, I 'm not stopping" At the stop light, it took 2-3 turns for us to finally go through it. The beggars came. Women with babies begging for money. A boy of about 12 leading an old lady who was blind. They both came to the side of the car begging. A boy came to our driver and actually spoke English "please-give me food- my mother and father dead- I'm hungry" So hard to stare straight ahead. However, I am glad I did because our driver told me after we drove away, that it is against the law to give these people stuff out your car window and if the police (who stand in the middle of the road doing who knows what) see you, the driver will get in trouble. At the museum, our driver Daniel went in with us. The "military" here wears camo but all of the colors in it are shades of blue instead of greens and browns. Anyway, Daniel and I and the girls had to get out of the car to be searched. They went through our backpack and I actually got patted down. We got a tour guide who spoke good English and took us through the whole museum. Ethiopia is known as the cradle of humanity and we got a long tour of evolution. The man was hard to understand even though he knew English. About all they had for souvenirs were postcards. I got a couple of then and we took some pictures. We found out when we returned to the guest house that Ethan should be there tonight. We ate tuna and crackers and dip for lunch then I headed to the other room ( the much quieter one) with earplugs and an eye mask for a 2 hour nap. I woke up real nervous about teaching the boys their origins. I hope we can bring them back when they are older.