Friday, July 31, 2009 10pm

   I don't even know where to begin. What an adventure we went on today! It all began at 4:30am this morning when we got up to head to the Bole Airport (main airport in Ethiopia). It was only a ten minute drive, with thunder and lighting and a downpour the whole way there. We checked in and hoped the storm would pass quickly and not delay our flight. Sure enough, as it has every day since arriving, the 30-minute storm swept through. We loaded on to a small propeller plane and began our 1-hour flight to Bahir Dar, we even saw a rainbow while up above the clouds. This is the location of the first orphanage that Esther was taken to. Our hope in making this trip was to visit her first orphanage and spend time with the children currently there, as well as attempt to see the location that Esther was found. Understandingly so, we were told to not have our hopes up by our agency in the states.
 
   Landing in Bahir Dar was so beautiful, much like the the scenery from The Lion King (before Scar was in power). The land was like a beautiful patchwork from the sky, farmland with different crops and at different stages of growing gave an array of different tones and colors to the land. And the trees, oh the trees, are these amazing pieces of art, not one the same. They are scattered, just one at a time, throughout the land. I will have to ask the name of the kind of tree today. They slightly resemble a Bonzai tree, or again, like the iconic trees shown in The Lion King.
 
   Slight miscommunication left us at this itty-bitty airport without a ride, so we hopped in one of taxis that was headed to our hotel. We called the man that was helping organize our trip and he immediately sent a man (and driver), named Ato Mulu, who is the coordinator or the Bete Hisanet Orphanage here in Bahir Dar, where Tsion was first brought. (Esther's given name here was Tsion, so that is how she is referred to here.) He said he had made some phone calls this morning and was able to find out a little more about Tsion's story, and we were going to take a trip up to the city where she came from, Weste Gorjme. On our way out of town, Mulu said that he needed to stop and pick up two new children that he had received a call about that morning whom needed to be taken to the Bete Hisanet orphanage. We pulled up to a little clinic and two nannies climbed into the seat behind us in the van. Tucked away under their shawls came two tiny babies. "Just like Tsion," Mulu said, "the circle of life. Just three days and five days old these babies. This is how it happened for Tsion, too." It was so amazing to sit and actually see the process and know this was the road and transition that little Tsion went down. It was touching to see the how all these people cared and how this was just the beginnng of these little babies journey to adoption.
 
   The drive took about an hour and it was wonderful to see the more rural parts of Africa. The people were working everywhere: using oxen to plow the fields, driviing donkeys pulling carts loaded with wood posts (not the kind we would think of in America), children selling bushels of their latest crop, shepherds herding their flocks of goats, farmers spreading seed on newly plowed soil, women carrying huge sachels of sticks on their heads, women and children carrying large urns full of water on their backs. The streets were often lined with people walking and carrying things ... always barefoot and for miles and miles. I was a bit in awe of the intensity of the laboring. Life does not look easy.
 
   When we arrived in this very small village in Weste Gorjme, I'm quite sure that many of the people there had never seen a white person, either in a book or in real life. We bounced down the bumpy road and pulled up to a small tin builiding, with a fence around it. "This is the police station," Mulu said, "you stay here and I will go see what I can find out.: As we waited in the van in the middle of the street, people paused around our van and laughed when they saw us sitting inside. We waved and they laughed even more. Mulu returned after several minutes with a woman dressed in a navy blue uniform. "This is the police officer that took Tsion from Weste Gorme to the orphange in Bahir Dar." We introduced ourselves and she came in the van with us and said she was going to take us to the woman who found her. We drove just a few hundred yards down the road and again Mulu told us to stay in the van while he and the young police officer woman went inside. During these ten minutes inside, the excitement and curiousity around our van grew. The children began to gather and call to their friends to come look. There apparently is no culture taboo about staring! They giggled and pointed. I wasn't sure if I should feel insecure or like a rock-star. We opened the windows and smiled and waved to them. They giggled some more. Mulu came back with the police officer. They said they knew who the woman was, but this was not her home. They loaded back in the van and we drove several minutes out of the little village area to more of a farmland area. The road to the woman's house was too muddy for the van to drive down, so Mulu and the police officer got out and walked. We stayed with the driver. There was a small hut nearby with several children playing outside. They spotted us and came to inquire. I was so wishing I had brought things to give them, but was not prepared that this was going to happen. I took out my camera and motioned to them if I could take their picture. The giggled as I don't think they had any idea what I was asking them. So I took a picture of a couple of the older girls and called them closer to come see. I turned around the camera so they could see their picture on the digital screen. Their eyes grew big and squealed in delight. So the younger ones came closer. I took picture after picture, pausing after each one to show them the little 2x2 image of themselves. I wish I would have been able to provide them with an actual picture to keep. Our driver got a call on his cell phone and he turned around and headed back down the road we came. He didn't speak any English, so we did not know what was happening next. In essnce, he drove "around the block," a very big block, to where Mulu, the police officer, and another woman were standing along the side of the road. The three of them piled into the car. "This is the woman who found Tsion," Mulu introduced us. She was a beautiful African grandmother, named Marie. "She will take us to the place Tsion was found." We drove just down the road a bit, and she called out in Amharic for the driver to stop. The five of us piled out of the van and she led us off the road, down into a field. She walked to a bush, next to a small stump along the side of the field and stooped down and motioned as if she was placing a baby beneath it. She spoke to Mulu, "This is where Tsion was found," Mulu translated for us. Marie went on to explain the story ... A farmer was walking through the field early in the morning (police report reads "6:30am") when he heard a noise and went over to find a baby crying under a bush. He went to the police station and informed them of what he had found. (It is a crime to abandon a baby, so people are not allowed to "disturb" the crime scene, so to speak, so the farmer could not just pick her up and take her to the police station.) The police have nothing to care for a baby, so they stopped at Marie's house, the sweet grandmother, who is well known in the area for volunteering to help women. Together the two of them, were led by the farmer to the location he saw the baby. There Marie found Tsion with a small cloth on her, crying, still covered in blood. She scooped up the newborn baby. We had been told that they estimated her to be a week old when she was brought to the orphanage, but Marie said that could not be accurate, she was born during the night. Marie took her back and gave her a bath and paid 15 birr (about 12 cents) to buy Tsion some clothes. It was then that Marie gave her the name Tsion. Marie also said that along the road, woman were offering her money for the child, saying they could raise her. But Marie said, "No, I am taking her to a big government agency." Together the police woman and Marie, rode to Bahir Dar together in the police vehicle to leave Tsion at the Bete Hisanet orphanage.
 
   I hugged and kissed Marie, thanking her over and over for her loving care of Tsion and for sharing the story with us. Wai Tim pulled out our digital camera and showed them new pictures of Tsion with her big happy smile. Marie smiled with great delight and kissed the picture of Tsion on the camera. I told Mulu I would send pictures, so if he was ever back in the area, maybe he would share them with her. He agreed. She was a precious woman, and even through the language barrier, we were both so thankful to each other for the life we had both givien to Tsion. "Tsion's grandother," Mulu said outloud as Marie and I posed for a picture together next to the bush. "Yes!" I exclaimed, "Tsion's grandmother."
 
   We dropped the police officer and Marie off along the side of the road by her home, and kissed and hugged again. And then we returned home with our new-found story and an hour car ride to digest all that had happened.
It was an emotional journey. It was heartbreaking to see where our girl was left alone and crying, but even more so, it was exiting to see the location where she was found and how the Lord has woven these pieces together and see the very beginning of where her journey to us all began.

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