June 26th Ethiopia trip day 3

When we arrived at the Guest House it was around 1 am. We woke up around 9 am and took long hot showers. It felt so good. I'm spoiled with my once or twice a day showers. We went down for breakfast around 10 am. There are 2-3 ladies who work in the kitchen at the Guest House. They make all the meals, clean the house every day, and do the laundry.Yonatan is the manager so he would make all of our calls and keep track of what we were doing each day. He would hire taxis for us and take us into town and shop with us. He knew very well English and the rest of the staff new very little. He was a HUGE help to us! Without him we wouldn't have gotten to do lots of stuff.The staff was all so sweet and we enjoyed getting to know them. They treated us like we were royalty. They served pancakes and coffee for breakfast. Then we emailed back home and updated our facebook status with a Hello from Ethiopia :)
These next few pictures are the outside of our Guest House. We will definitely be staying here when we go back if they have room. We loved it!
This picture is the driveway to the road. The house was in a compound so we felt very safe. Just outside the gate were orphans and homeless.


Picture paintings on the wall

This little room is where Yonatan sleeps and the gate keeper, Job, sleeps.


Laundry

Britton on the outside of the gate. After breakfast we sat outside for awhile and then I went up to our room and took a three hour nap while Britton ate lunch with the staff and talked with one of the owners of the house. After I woke up Britton was anxious to explore the city.
As soon as we stepped out of the gate a young boy came up and said, "hungry, hungry!" "No Mother no Father, will you give me money??" We decided to go back and fill our backpack with crackers and raisins and a soccer ball and see if we could get to know some of the children.
This is one of the busier roads. The the building with the red on it was the Jupiter Hotel and we found free internet and yummy pizza inside the lobby.

So many children came up to us. The girls in the above picture told me they were 13 years old and they were either pregnant or they already had children. They were beautiful but it made me so sad. They are still just children themselves.
We both held this little girl and we got soaked with urine. But she was the sweetest little thing. She loved to be held. The young mothers were asking me for my clothes and wanting to look at my pictures on my camera. They couldn't believe I was from America. I felt so guilty just knowing I am nothing more then they are. I am just so blessed.
Dirty feet of the orphan shoe shinners. We found out that all these little boys make their money by shinning shoes. They LOVED Britton. He ended up playing soccer with them almost every day and he really got to know them. When we would drive past they would wave and shout :)
Britton getting to know the little boys
One of the shoe shinners in action

This coffee shop they said is alot like Starbucks. We didn't even get any coffee from there...it makes you to guilty to sit and drink coffee while watching dirty poor starving children beg for food.
We ended up walking into town and we sat on the railing and watched people go by. The little shoe shinners followed us and Britton took videos of them playing and then they all watched the footage. They thought it was so funny!
Then we told them bye and that we would be back tomorrow. It was looking like it was going to rain and it was getting dark so we thought we better get back in the compound. When we got back to the Guest House one of the families had gotten home from there journeys of the day. John and Leah are there names. They are a African American couple in their late 50's who had adopted a couple girls two years ago. They had brought the girls back to live with their birth mother for a couple weeks. Very nice couple. He is a pastor and works at Moody Bible Collage and she is a nurse. We spent most of our evenings watching movies with them.
We ate our Ramen Noodle Soup tonight. It tasted SO good! I hadn't eaten all day so I was feeling a little gross. My stomach growled almost the entire trip. It was fun to loose some weight but sadly I gained it all back.One of the buildings that is being built
The little boys laughing at the videos
They loved Britton



Then we watched two movies with Yonatan, John and Leah. It was a good day. I was glad we had a day to catch up on sleep and explore our surroundings. There were three big thunderstorms today just like Ohio. It is their rainy season so it was cold.
It was a good day!

*This is as far as I can go because on Monday we got to meet Gracie :) Looking forward to showing you all her pictures and telling the rest of our trip.