Merry Christmas, Happy Birthday - A challenging day

Monday, 7 January 2008

We started off the day by having the kids check out their Christmas stockings we'd set out the night before, in honour of Ethiopian Christmas. Not that Ethiopians do stockings, but I'd promised Giggles three Christmases this year (before leaving home, western Christmas, and Ethiopian Christmas). Plus I'd wanted to have some sort of a Christmas celebration with Poppet, not that he knows what it's all about yet. Anyhow, I'd brought along a few little gifts for the kids, and Laolao had picked up a small bubble-blowing kit for each child the day before, as well as a few balloons.

Giggles, of course, knew what was up, and pulled Poppet into the living room to open his bag. Poppet was quite taken with his elephant stuffy and the bubble-maker, and especially the balloon. He also seemed interested in the music CD I'd brought along to give him, perhaps taking it for a computer CD. But one of the best prezzies was a little bag, meant perhaps to be a lunch bag, that Giggles had bought at home to be her Christmas present to him. It is special because it has become his little treasure box, where he puts all his own prized possessions. He very carefully tucked elephant into it, as well as a few other little things he's collected, and stashed it in the closet. (He's since accessed it many times to take things out for playing, but is generally careful to put them back in once he's done.)

Right after breakfast, the kids went out back to see the sheep, now headless, before the slaughter was complete.

Despite it's being Christmas (again), Giggles still had schoolwork to do, so she and I spent the morning slogging while Poppet went out with Laolao and Laoye. They came back to report that many of the stores were open, whereas we'd been told that most things would be closed for the holiday. The small shops were all closed, but the larger stores were open, including the pastry shop where we'd taken care to purchase our cake the day before, to be sure to have one. The maid even showed up, though she left early. We gave her a Christmas present of 50 birr.

Lunch was simple, but topped off with a birthday cake (inscribed "Merry Christmas"!) and a candle, for my birthday. (Not sure what Poppet made of the fact that it was clearly me the Happy Birthday song was sung for, but he and Giggles who got the presents in the morning - whether he even associates presents with birthdays...)

We had a fairly lazy afternoon. The kids played with their bubble-makers, their balloons, and the ball. We took a stroll down the road and stopped for our usual ice cream.

All in all, it was a fairly relaxing day, except that Poppet had some trying times. It actually started last night. The kids had been watching some television before brushing teeth and going to bed. Then, for some reason, Poppet started crying, refusing to go to bed and not wanting me to sit with him. (Bedtime has so far been the one time he's most open to receiving and giving affection with me.) With little language, he couldn't explain what was bothering him and we couldn't figure it out. I ended up calling Laoye in, hoping that might help as he usually responds to Laoye, but it made little difference. We finally got him settled, after at least half an hour. I really have no idea what triggered it, except perhaps that he's starting to get over the novelty of everything and missing his caregivers and friends.

Today, then, he had several periods of sulking and tears. One came when his balloon popped. He had been playing with Laoye on the porch when it popped, and Laoye sat down and pretended to cry. That set him off. (Ooops.) A couple more times during the day, when he didn't get what he wanted, he would go off to cry or sulk. In the afternoon, when we went off for ice cream, at first he didn't want to go, so Laolao and Giggles and I set off, leaving him with Laoye. After a second short crying jag, Laoye got fed up and told him to stop - and he did. At which point they came and joined us at the ice cream shop.


In the meantime, Giggles has been experiencing some jealousy over sharing me. She wants special time with Mommy, time just for her and Mommy. (Of course, the fact that she spends half the day just with Mommy doing schoolwork doesn't seem to factor into her equation!) We'd talked beforehand about the need to share Mommy, but the reality of it is not easy. At least not today.

It's hard knowing how to handle some of this. I want to comfort Poppet, but he resists comfort - from me or from anyone else, when he's sulking. I wish I knew how much was sulking at not getting his own way, and how much of the tears are from loneliness or missing friends. One wants to give him a bit of leeway, as his whole world has been turned upside down, but at the same time one can't give in to every whim or want. Especially with another child in the picture, some sort of "fairness" must be maintained We can explain to Giggles, but she is still a child, too, and her world has also changed, though not as drastically. At times she is generous and willing to share and give him extra things, or let him have what he wants. (At those times I tell her she is being a good big sister.) Other times she just wishes him gone.

It has also been a time for Giggles to reflect on how it was when we went to China to adopt her. She remembers little of that, but she has asked a couple of times "Did I do that?" or "What did you do when...?" and I've been able to relay some of her story back to her and relate it to how Poppet is now behaving. Sometimes it helps her to behave generously and with compassion, but it's easy for her to forget, too.

And so we continue.

(Continue to 8 January: Museum Day 1)

Mustang and Button

I've been meaning to do this for a while - specifically, since we got home from Ethiopia in January - but the post I was going to attach this announcement to has yet to be completed, so I'm just going to go ahead with the announcement on its own.

No, I'm not adopting again! :-)

But I think a re-naming is in order for both Poppet and Giggles. "Poppet" was just a name concocted because I made a puppet-like stick/photo figure of Poppet when I first got his referral photo and took pictures of "him" in various places in our house to send to the real Poppet in Ethio0pia while we waited for him to come home. Now that he's home and we know a bit more about his personality, it's time for a blog-name that reflects a bit of who he is.

So.... introducing BUTTON!

Because he's totally into pressing buttons and turning dials, figuring out how things work and making them go. He's always asking, "Ma, can I button it?" - meaning press the button for whatever the latest gadget is. Yesterday, Giggles brought home a little toy she'd won at school for something. It's a little hand-held electronic game that you have to press buttons and try to catch dots or some such thing. She didn't know how to get it working and wondered if it needed new batteries. Well, while she was off playing, Button comes along, turns it over, flicks a switch, starts pressing buttons, and voila, it's working. He's very observant about how things work and wants to figure it out.

Obviously, that leaves Mustang as Giggles' new moniker. Why Mustang? Well, as those of you who know her are aware, she LOVES horses. Totally adores them. She's currently taking horsemanship lessons and will start riding in fall/winter, once she knows enough to tack up her own horse and groom it. So of all the horses, why a Mustang? Because the Mustang's characteristics are a good reflection of Giggles's nature: spirited, stubborn, determined, obstinate, active, on the wild side, energetic, a free spirit.

After visiting Alberta last summer, Mustang said she wanted to live in Alberta when she grows up and be a wild girl. (Yesterday she said she wanted to be a veterinarian and a mountaineer. When she scraped her knee badly while playing street hockey with her brother and little neighbour yesterday, she sat for a long while telling me she was trying hard not to cry because if she wanted to be a mountain-climber, she would have to get used to getting scrapes and bumps!!)

Has it really been more than a month?

... since my last post? Doesn't seem possible. I've been meaning to, but other things have taken priority, I guess.

What's happened since March 9th:

• March break - I planned a special activity every day. To the farm, to the Nature museum, an outing skiing with both kids (and a teenage friend to accompany Giggles on the slopes), a trip to the ceramics painting place, and one quiet day at home cooking and doing crafts (that was Monday). March break activity photos to come soon!


• Giggles' third Family Day. Her adoption anniversary usually falls during March break; this year it was the Friday, so after our day's special activities, we all went out for supper at her favourite Chinese restaurant. Her favourite dish there? Congee!!!!! I always order one (big!) bowl for eating there and one for taking home.


• Easter - we dyed eggs three times. The Saturday at the beginning of March break, the Sunday after (Palm Sunday) and once with friends at their house, on Easter Saturday. Giggles is a master egg dyer - I think she needs a dozen eggs to do all on her own! Poppet did good work too. With our friends we used the Ukrainian egg dying technique (though not quite so fancy!) but Poppet didn't use the kiska much, he's still a bit young and not good enough fine motor control. Giggles is getting better at it. Our favourite technique though is to put rubber bands on the eggs (the big ones that come on broccoli are the best) and then dying the eggs. It gives nice, solid patterns. Did you know that this year was almost the earliest Easter will ever come? It's the earliest any of us will ever experience Easter - the next time it will fall on 23 March is some hundreds of years in the future. It can also fall on 22 March but that also won't happen for longer than any of us will live.


• Shaved Poppet's head! His hair had been growing since we got him and was getting a bit long and shaggy. Well, not really shaggy, but longish. With very tight curls. So Laoye got out his shaving kit and went to work. I tried it too, so I can do it myself later. It ended up very unevern and weird-looking. But the next day Laolao got out her scissors and fixed it up so it didn't look too bad. I think I need practice!
  
• Laolao and Laoye head home. They flew back out west on Easter Sunday evening, leaving me on my own with my expanded family. Okay, now comes the real test! So far it's been okay. My friend L is now taking Poppet once aabout every other week for a few hours so I have some more time to accomplish stuff around the home (and to start planning for summer holiday) and also to give me a bit of one-on-one time with Giggles, which she dearly loves and needs. Since Laolao and Laoye left I've had a bit more of the "I hate Poppet! Can't we get rid of him? I wish it were just us again!" When they were here Laolao did take Poppet and do stuff with him from time to time, even just in another room, so I could have some snuggles and story-time with just Giggles, for example. So I think she's missing that a lot. Everyone says it takes a good year for families and siblings to adjust to a new addition, so I expcet it will settle down in time.


• We celebrated Poppet's three month-iversary as part of the family on 31 March. Went to one of the local Ethiopian restaurants with some friends, another soon(?)-to-be Chinese-Ethiopian adoptive family. Justice's daughter is very close to Giggles' age. Her (one or two?) Ethiopian kids are still just a twinkle in the eye, but they will come in due course!


• Met P and F, another single mom and her Ethiopian daughter (who arrived home last November). They live a good distance outside Ottawa, but had to come in for an appointment at the International Adoption clinic, so had supper with us since we live just a skip and a hop from the hospital.

• Got rid of (most of) the snow!!!!!!! There was a huge storm here in early March - actually two in one week - that dumped tons of snow on us. The rest of March was below average temps, and it seemed the snow would never leave. But it's now almost gone - still a few big hills, but they're hills instead of mountains, and in isolated clumps rather than whole ranges. Last Wednesday it actually hit 17 degrees - I was out in my shirtsleeves! Hauled out the bikes and Poppet spent the day riding up and down the alley (with training wheels). Have been throwing a bunch of the snow from the piles onto the street to promot thawing, and by now our front garden is almost bare, and at least half the grass is showing in the back. HURRAY!!!! This weekend is cool again, but they're promising nice weather again on Wednesday. Hope it doesn't change.

More Ethiopia pix

These pictures are from a second, wide-angle camera for which I just had the film developed a couple of weeks ago (after the other films).

One of the buildings at the Transition House, with photo of children on the wall. (Poppet is one of the kids in the picture.)

Children at the orphanage in Adama.

Note that there are many older children here.

Bole road streetscape.

Lunch at the home of a Meserete Kristos Church pastor.

A volcanic lake near Debre Zayit.
We had to climb a ways to get to the top of the crater.

Giggles and Poppet at the playground of a restaurant
near the summit of Mount Entoto.

A disabled weaver. Our friend J took us to this workshop, where we purchased several lovely woolen rugs for a very good price. I bought a rug appx 1.5 x 2 metres for just $45.

The inside of an Ethiopian kitchen. This was an "institutional" kitchen, at the Meserete Kristos College, so larger than most, but similarly equipped.
(3 pictures)

Even more pictures...

Here are a few pix from Poppet's first time on skates.

Oh yeah, Giggles and I, and friend Chuckles, are also included in some pictures, along with a few other friends. (Poppet's in blue, Giggles in purple.)

Pictures, pictures, pictures

Okay, all you eye-candy addicts, here are FINALLY some pictures. Just a few mind you, from our last week in Addis, but pictures they are. Some day when I have more free time (in the nest 20 years) , I will put attach pictures to the travel blog text and get it all organized properly. Ha ha.

Poppet and Giggles at the ice cream shop.

Giggles and Poppet with Laoye.

The Christmas sheep.

Poppet, Poppet's birthmother, and me.

Views of Addis - from the street by our house; a busy road; some poor houses (3 pix).

The School for the Deaf down the road from our house in Addis.

The countryside around Debre Zayit, an hour's drive SE of Addis. (2 pix)

Selam Children's Village, an NGO assising children and families in one of Addis's very poor neighbourhoods.

Potters at work, and their unglazed wares. (3 pix)

A weaving workshop, and a weaver at work. (2 pix)

K & M with little K, at the Hilton poolside on 15 January.

My Ethiopian children. (2 pix)

Home!!!!

Monday, 21 January

We arrived home on Wednesday, 16 January [2008] in the evening. We are still somewhat jet-lagged, but beginning to adjust. Giggles went back to school today; last night she said she was ready to go back (after a 5-week break).

Poppet is adjusting to a new family, new climate, and new language. He desperately wants to go skating; he saw Giggles take her skating lesson last Friday afternoon, watched the Zamboni resurface the ice, and saw a few hockey players come out and start a practice. This afternoon I brought home a skating helmet for him, and he promptly put it on and walked around with it for some time. Then put on his skates (hand-me-downs that Giggles used last year but has outgrown - a lovely bright pink) and walked around the house in them for a good two hours. (Yes, skate guards are a must!) I think we'll head to an arena this weekend, or to a friend's backyard rink. Then we'll see how quickly he picks it up!

Weather back here in Canada is cold! But Poppet seems not to mind. The first day, when I said he could go outside with Giggles, he just shook his head and said "No" (one of his favourite words) but as soon as we showed him the snowsuit and he saw Giggles getting into hers, he was out like a flash.



The kids went to the local slope every day until Sunday for a half hour or so of sliding at a time. You'd never guess he'd never seen snow until five days ago!

And so life goes on, as we all get used to our new relationships. It will be fun.

A New Year for a new family

Tuesday, 1 January 2008

Giggles came to my bed shortly after 6 am for a short snuggle, then said she'd go back to her and Poppet's bed so he wouldn't be scared. But he was also awake, so they both came to me for some morning cuddles. I tried to convince them that it was still night and they should sleep some more, but they would have none of it. So they went to Laolao and Laoye's bed and engaged in some morning gymnastics.

After five or ten minutes I decided I wasn't going to sleep any more anyhow, so I might as well join them. We had a family playtime in bed for about ten minutes, then it was time to start the day for real.

While Laolao fixed breakfast, I got the kids and myself dressed and we all had a few more minutes of playtime. We started off the New Year with bacon and eggs, toast and jam. Poppet ate fairly well. After breakfast we brushed teeth and had fifteen minutes of sun and play outside before beginning the schoolwork routine.

Today's schoolwork did not go nearly as well as yesterday's. For one thing, there was the distraction of a little brother to contend with, and the fact that he did not have schoolwork to do. For a few minutes he sat at the table opposite Giggles and Laolao helped him write the alphabet (which he'd done numerous times at the Transition House, as evidenced by the school notebooks they gave us with page after page of alphabet filled in). But Giggles complained that he had such easy work to do and wanted to do that too. I told her that she did that kind of work when she was four, but now she is seven and she knows all that stuff; it would be far too easy. I told her that when he is seven he will have to do the kind of work she is doing now. But of course when you are seven and have never had a little brother before, all that is just blah-blah.

When I had first taken the day's work out of the folders and laid it on the table, I had thought "Oh, that isn't so bad. We should be able to get that done easily in less than three hours." But after half an hour at the table, Giggles had not yet completed even one page of phonics, which she normally can do in about five minutes (or less). Laolao took Poppet outside to play, so his presence wouldn't be such a distraction, but we could still hear them playing ball. After 45 minutes Laolao slipped me a note – she and Laoye would take Poppet out shopping, to go to the department store Laoye had found two long blocks south on Bole Road, to buy him some shoes that fit. I nodded okay; they departed and we plugged on. After an hour Giggles had managed to do two pages of phonics.

And so the morning went. We slogged; we took two breaks; we slogged some more. She finished the phonics pages and most of her reading; we did her one science worksheet and a bit of Smarties math. The final task was to do some math exercises; I had planned for two pages but one was all that she could handle and after almost four hours of frustration, cajoling, and complaints, it was all I could handle, too.

During one of the two breaks we took, Giggles chose to spend half the time preparing an alphabet sheet for Poppet – she wrote the letters and underneath drew a picture to represent each letter. It was quite sweet, really. At the halfway point I persuaded her to take a real break playing outside otherwise we'd have to start our next round of schoolwork and she wouldn't have had any fresh air. So she did. I do hope she finishes the alphabet sheet; it was a nice thought and a nice gesture on her part.

In the end I was mostly pleased with the way she was working hard and doing a pretty good job, though it would have been nice to start out the same way. However, once again I am left thinking that the paper-based exercises they give for homework just don't work for her, and it pains me to feel obliged to force their completion just to be able to hand in the stuff to the teachers. Especially in math. Math is not her forte.

So for the morning I had little chance to interact with Poppet except during the couple of breaks we took, when the three of us played outside (once they were back from the shoe-buying expedition). We ate a light lunch, then Laolao and Laoye headed off once again, this time with Giggles for an ice cream while I stayed home with Poppet for naptime.

It quickly became apparent that he was having none of this! (I seem to be spending the day trying to get kids to do what they didn't want to!) I had wondered if he truly napped any more. When Giggles came, we were told she was still napping, but after a short nap the very first afternoon in our hotel room, she didn't nap again. I suspect the Transition House enforces nap/quiet time. Even if the children no longer sleep, they are expected to be quiet in their beds. Poppet wouldn't even lie down, and didn't seem to want to sit with me to play on the bed or to look at books. After having seen him watch the television with interest last night for the few minutes we had it on, I figured he'd like the computer – and I had brought along a few simple software games for toddlers. (He may no longer be a toddler, but with no English, the toddler level will be enough until he understands more. It took Giggles a few months to move beyond the toddler and into the preschool software.)

Sure enough, as soon as I had fired up the laptop and loaded the software, he was off. The only real computer skill this particular software focuses on is mouse control; as for learning, it focuses on matching, colours, numbers, letters and shapes, as well as some basic vocabulary. After half an hour I shut the 'puter down and tried to interest him in books again, but he wasn't buying it. Seeing as I'd been up rather late last night, I could have used a nap, so I lay on the sofa (after locking the house door and removing the key so he couldn't get out of the house in case I did fall asleep). I thought he might be enticed to snuggle with me, but again, no. However, he did turn on the television and watch until Laolao, Laoye and Giggles came home a short time later.

This is another indication of his good learning capacity. Last night the landlord's son, Abraham, came and showed us how to turn on the television as we'd not managed to get anything but static before. Poppet was watching and after seeing it once, he knew how to do it again. Similarly, he'd found Laolao's camera and Giggles had shown him how it worked; that one demonstration was enough for him to remember how to turn it on and work it again. On the one hand, this augurs well for his learning capacity; on the other, I'll have to watch out as he may pick up more than I want him to!

With the other grownups at home, I did go lie down for a bit of a nap while the kids played. (Never has it been so easy to get Giggles to play without me. Little brother is good for something already!) Then Laoye headed out on his third trip of the day, this time accompanying me to the internet café and buying a few things forgotten on earlier trips, while Laolao stayed home and made supper while the kids played in the yard with a ball purchased during the morning's expedition. (BTW, internet in Addis and the south is a quarter the price as it is in the north – 1 birr for 4 minutes, or 15 birr ($1.65) an hour. Still slowish, but much less expensive.)

Poppet ate heartily at suppertime. He hadn't eaten much at lunch, though he'd comsumed two bananas during the afternoon. Now he downed four meatballs and a good-sized ball of mashed potatoes, along with some juice. He's not into milk at all; we'll need to work on getting him to consume milk once we get home to Canada. I recall a similar challenge with Giggles!

Bedtime routine went much better tonight. I started off by reading a chapter to Giggles in the living room before teeth time, while Poppet played with Laoye and leafed through storybooks on his own. Then I paged through an Encyclopedia of Animals with him as he lay on the sofa, naming the animals as we went. He would repeat the names; I would make commentary about them or imitate their gestures; he also made some commentary in Amharic and I would nod sagely and say "Yes, of course." While we did this, Laolao read to Giggles. Then we all brushed teeth and the kids got into jammies. We all lay in bed; I asked Giggles to stay in bed resting quietly as I thought this would help Poppet fall asleep more quickly; then she could come out to the living room and watch a bit of TV and snuggle with me. The ruse worked; Poppet fell asleep within ten minutes. After 15 minutes of TV and snuggling, and another ten minutes of whispered conversation in bed, Giggles fell asleep too, leaving me free to do some more blogging and get to bed earlier.

(Continue to 2 January: Swimming in January)

Transit Visa

Thursday, 3 January 2008

The morning started off with what seems to have become the routine, at least for now – the kids wake up and head off to Laolao and Laoye's bed for some morning playtime. I join them after a few minutes and we have a family snuggle. Then it's dressed and they kick the ball around outside for a few minutes until breakfast.

After breakfast today, I got Giggles started on her schoolwork with one of the "fun" things she had to do – a lesson in symmetry that involved some drawing, cutting and pasting. (Anything with drawing is a sure winner.) I think because of that, and perhaps also because she was getting used to it, she was happy enough to do the work.

At 9:30 I left Laolao in charge of ensuring the work got done while Solomon and Germatchew, two of the adoption agency's local staff, took Laoye, Poppet and I to the Dutch embassy to get a transit visa for Poppet. We are flying via KLM, and since we have about a seven-hour layover in Amsterdam, we hope to leave the airport to go into the city for a few hours. While Ethiopian nationals are supposed to have a transit visa to fly via Amsterdam even if they stay within the airport, many people have reported bringing their kids home without one and never being asked to show a visa. But since we hope to leave the airport, I expect it will be necessary to show the visa as we exit and re-enter the airport. (Though given that Poppet is just a child and we are Canadian citizens and can produce adoption papers, they might not object, but I am not going to take the chance.)

We arrived at the embassy and found a line-up waiting at the gate. Solomon procured an application form right away and we discovered we needed two passport-sized photos. I'd wondered about that the day before, but not more than fleetingly, so we were unprepared. But we all hopped back in the van, drove down the road a minute or two, and found a shop that could do the job in 25 minutes. Back at the gate, they told us we needed a photocopy of Poppet's passport main page and Canadian visa page. (Why didn't they say so before?!?) This time Solomon sent Germatchew off with instructions while the rest of us waiting; it was 11:05 and the consulate was to close at 11:30.

Germatchew returned with ten minutes to spare. But now, a group of Ethiopians was being admitted just ahead of us, so we had to wait for them to be "processed." Everyone had to show photo ID and then they were patted down and scanned with a hand-held metal detector. I saw this happening and told Laoye he had better leave his jackknife, that he always carries around, in the van. But when it came our turn, after obtaining our ID they gave us our visitor's badges and let us in with no other security procedures whatsoever. Strike one for discrimination. (Yes, these were local Ethiopian employees of the Embassy handling things at the gate, but they would have been following the Embassy's rules.)

Inside the fortress (for such it felt – surrounded by a brick wall two metres high, topped with a metal grille another 60 cm high and barbed wire above that), we walked down a curving roadway towards a small building, inside which we waited for several minutes until our turn came to talk to the visa processing officer. Again this was an Ethiopian local employee, who spoke very good English. She took the completed application and copies of Poppet's passport pages, then said she needed copies of the adoption documents. I had the originals along but no copies, so I pulled them out of the envelope and asked if there was somewhere to make copies. She said she could photocopy them for me and did so immediately. (So why couldn't she make copies of Poppet's passport pages, too?!?) Then she also wanted to see flight information. Thankfully, I'd anticipated that they might want to see this, so I had those along too. Again she made copies. Finally I paid the fee – a whopping 800 birr ($88). The high price might be because I'd asked for a "transit" visa rather than an "airport transit" visa, because we hope to go into the city. But maybe not. And we were told to come back in 24 hours to pick up the visa. (We'll actually go next week, as we have plans for tomorrow.)

We got back home around 12:30, just as Giggles was completing her final page of schoolwork. She'd actually had a good break already; she and Laolao had walked down to the icecream shop and each had a cone.

In the afternoon, we played ball for a while, then went out to Bole Road. I wanted to find a place to get my films developed. After a bit of asking around, and finding someone who led us to the shop (and whom we tipped, of course – every small service here seems to demand a tip – but at 5 or 10 birr a time, it's not that onerous), I handed over my films and was told they'd be ready in an hour. I also asked to get the pictures on CD; that was going to take 24 hours. Then we enjoyed a family icecream cone (Giggles' second one of the day!) and walked down to the Friendship Centre to get some more groceries. On the return journey, my pictures were ready!

I haven't told you much about the area we're staying. It's on a road that cuts across from Bole Road to the Ring Road, providing a short-cut for access to the Ring Road. There are several embassies along the street, though none of them belonging to big and important or wealthy countries, so nothing like the Dutch Embassy we visited this morning. We are, rather, in the vicinity of the Embassy of Congo Brazzaville, the Embassy of Brazil (right next door), the Embassy of Senegal, and the residence of the Ambassador of Guinea Bissau.

The Embassy of Japan is apparently near the corner of this street and Bole Road (because some of the taxi drivers seem to know it as the Japan Embassy Road), but I have yet to take note of it. The house is near the top of a hill, so as we walk towards Bole Road we have good view over the city to the northwest. (I have been turned around for the longest time, but have finally gotten straightened out – what I thought were north and south on Bole Road are actually southeast and northwest, respectively.)

As most everything is behind gated enclosures, it is hard to tell what is what, but there does seem to be a mix of relatively wealthy (by Ethiopian standards) and poor. Down the hill some 50m from our house, in between two walled and gated compounds, is a row of about six or eight dwellings that would be best described as hovels.

These are more the tin shack variety – narrow and rough, with a wee garden of sorts in front of the house, a pile of tires, and other sundry items. When we walk by we see the women out washing their clothes or doing other work, and recently several large baskets of chili peppers and other spices have been laid out to dry in the sun. It is here that Giggles has spied several cats, including a couple of kittens. She has gone down to visit the cats several times with one of us grown-ups, each time attracting a small crowd of interested people, and by now the ladies know her and greet her as we pass.

Across a side-street from the hovels is what appears to be a metal-working place. Outside the compound walls we see several large metal contraptions in various stages of construction. In this vicinity is situated the "School for the Deaf." Laolao and Laoye peeked in through its open gate one time and saw several students coming out who signed to them, but they could not understand.

Last Tuesday, as we returned from the internet café, Laoye and I saw a small herd of sheep being driven into one of the compounds not far from our house. We wondered if they lived there, and if so where had they come from or where did they spend their days? Or if they had just been purchased for a Christmas feast. Ethiopian Christmas is next Monday, and a primary reason, we have been told, for the flocks upon flocks of sheet and goats we have seen in the city this past week. Tradition has it that a family will buy their mutton or goat on the hoof and slaughter it at home for Christmas dinner. I think we'll settle for store-bought meat.

Near the bottom of our hill, just before Bole Road, is Aladdin's restaurant, which we have been told is a very good restaurant and one of these days we will check it out. Opposite is a sign pointing to a Korean restaurant down a side street. Next these is a fruit and vegetable stand, a bakery where we have been buying our buns, and then as one rounds the corner onto Bole Road, shops of all sorts and descriptions. The internet café I've used is on the other side of Bole Road, down a couple of buildings.

All in all it is a very interesting section of town and we have enjoyed getting out these past few days and exploring the neighbourhood.

The evening was uneventful – supper, stories, and bedtime. The one note out of the ordinary was that Germatchew showed up around 6:30, saying tomorrow they were taking the other family that's in town at the moment, D&C, up Mount Entoto and then to the National Museum. He asked if we wanted to go too. Unfortunately we had to decline; we already had plans with our friend JN, who wanted to show us some of the projects she works with and knows of around the city. Otherwise we would have loved to; we had just been commenting that we really should go visit the museum one day.

(Continue to 4 January: Around and about Addis)