ONE LONG UPDATE

I have been trying to post and it is taking a long time for it to post so I am going to do one long one again.

We have a new volunteer at our house, her name is Emma and she is a physiotherapsist from England. She will be here for one month and she fits in great in the Bole house. She is enjoying her work and all of the craziness of Ethiopia, we are happy she is here!!!

Last Monday was a bittersweet day for me. I knew that Meheret's parents were coming so I went into the nursery to hold her before they got there. When they arrived I got to hand her to them, she is such a sweet baby and I will miss her. She is going to Ireland and her parents are lovely, as much as I do not want to see her go I am so happy she has a home at such a young age. About ten minutes after they arrived Yidig's parents came and yes I was holding him and got to hand him over. So hard, not sure how the workers do it. He is also go to Ireland as well as Salamovit. They will be here for about five more weeks so I will enjoy them while I can.

I have a lot more flea bites, the other night while in bed being eaten alive it dawned on me that I needed to change my flea band early as I had been home sick so it was not effective sooner than I thought. We also have a mouse in our house and it hangs out in the bathroom and both Louise and my bedrooms - ugh.

Christmas turned out to be quite good, better than I thought. Christmas Eve morning I went to Mother Theresa's for a few hours and got a tour and to see some of the sickest people here. It makes me very thankful for how things are handled at home. Then we had lunch with our organization. We went to Christmas Eve service which was a concert in between the story of Christ's birth, it was amazing. The music was wonderful and lots of dancing as well. Afterwards we went to the Hilton for dinner and I got a bit sick because my body had not had so many vegetables for a while but it was worth it. All of the adoptive parents were there and were excited to see me.

Christmas day we were invited to a couple house from church. It was so much fun, there were proper tables under tents that were laid with beautiful linens and place settings. The food was amazing but the fun came later. I had told one of my friends from church about the insta snow I had brought and he wanted to see it so I brought some. I made some for my table and within seconds they were throwing it and it became an Ethiopian snowball fight. It was so much fun, I got some photos but spent most of the time making batch after batch of snow. I also found a man from church who has offered to let me use his oven to cook and bake - hallelujah, I will sort out the details at church tomorrow.

My friends are ready to leave so I will add more when I come next.