Ethiopia - Day 4 - Embassy Day

Embassy Day is the day the America World staff goes with all traveling families and their children to the American Embassy to request visas for the children to enter the United States. All the papers we filled out and signed on Monday were sent to the Embassy before us.

The day began by T, one of our America World guides, knocking on our guest house door at 8:20am to say we were leaving in 10 minutes! Our schedule said 9:30am - ooops! But never fear, Mike and I had already showered and we managed to get the boys dressed, ourselves dressed, all the paperwork we needed put in our bag along with toys and snacks (that turned out to be breakfast!), out the door and down four flights of stairs in exactly 12 minutes!!!

Driving to the Embassy we asked if there was going to be any glitch in getting the children's visas this would be the time, correct? But no, Tuesday we would have known if there was going to be a problem! So therefore we know everything is going to be okay!

We arrive at the Embassy, a rather nondescript building, go through lots of security and rooms until we get to the waiting room: lots of chairs, a television, and one corner with a few toys for the waiting children. All travel families are called one at a time and accompanied by T or Famy to our respective "window." We went to Window Number 1 and spoke with a very nice woman originally from Chicago - 30 miles for where we live! She is very nice, we answered all the questions, signed all the paperwork, and were told the boys visas would be available Friday. For us and for all the America World Families - PRAISE GOD!!!

Then it is on to the Zebra Grill for lunch. (We weren't allowed to bring cameras to the Embassy so no pictures this day). After lunch, I go on to do a bit more shopping and Mike decided to go back with the boys. This is a rough retelling of his first time alone with them (and feel free to laugh - he did and I nearly died laughing!)

Ryan Ephrem falls asleep on the way back to the Guest House and Mike thinks, oh, this will be an easy afternoon. However, as he is sleeping, Ryan fills his pull up and presently awakens on the walk up the steps. Mike attempts to change his pull up in our room's bathroom (he doesn't know about wet wipes and didn't hear me tell him they were on top of the suitcase!) so he used toilet paper instead. While Mike is preoccupied, John Eyob runs to the bedroom where the coveted television set is!! Daddy is busy, so he shuts the door and turns the television on with the volume to full blast! Mike moves to the door to tell him to turn it down only to discover John has locked it! Mike turns around and Ryan has smeared his hand in poop and wiped it on the wall! All ends well though: Ryan is cleaned up (mostly), the wall is wiped down, John unlocks the door, the television is turned off, and everyone is happy and playing when I arrive home. Everyone we told this story to has agreed it cannot get any worse than that for Mike!!

Advice/Thoughts to those who follow:
1. Embassy Day starts at 8:30am no matter what your schedule says!
2. Always double check starting time with T the night before!
3. Waiting at the Embassy wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. Maybe it was a slow day. But still bring lots of toys and snacks.
4. This is the day to shop for silver jewelry and soccer jerseys if you want them.
5. A couple families also bought soccer balls for Robel's street kids this day. He chose them for us and we paid a less than 15 dollars for one.