After 4 flights, 23 hours of flying, narrowly missing my flight in sfo (was literally sprinting to get to my flight to houston), sneaking past security in Frankfurt (thank you to Larry for the distraction, what a travel pro!), we made it to Addis Ababa. The feeling as I departed the plane was of familiarity, a sense of returning to a place that was becoming more like a second home. We exchanged some money, made it through customs and got our bags, this is when our first adventure started.
All of our bags arrived including the four duffel bags of shoes people had donated to the construction workers at Shinshicho Medical center. Everything was fine until we had to go through one more bag scan before entering the country. As we put the shoes through the scanner it apparently triggered an inspection of the bags, which is fine usually, unless you get an inspector that was at the end of his shift and hell-bent on making life miserable for you! He first claimed that we were bringing used shoes into the country to sell and when we told him that they were being donated to the construction workers building Shinshicho, he was then upset that we did not bring in all new shoes! I showed him some of the pairs of new shoes along with the slightly used shoes, but that just seemed to irritate him more. Finally dan, Larry and I used a team effort to convince him that if he did not let us through then we would leave the bags with him and they would be his responsibility, and this seemed to work as i think he did not like the prospect of dealing with over 200 pairs of shoes. He let us though but did say while we were leaving "next time you bring all new shoes, ok!" The experience reminded me that I was in a country of extremely prideful people who want the best for their county men, even down to the shoes on their feet.
Dan, Larry, Cindy and I then met dr. Fikru and headed to the hotel. It was late in addis, around 11pm as we checked into the Hilton, which was a last minute change, as fikru was unsure about how we would react to the original hotel, Hotel Kaleb. The Hilton was nice and we checked in, dropped our bags in the room and met up in the bar to have a St George beer and decompress after a 25 hour journey, plus no one was tired as it was about 4pm back home.
I am extremely lucky to be a part of this group, they are all very seasoned travelers and incredible people. Dan Lauer is the vp of international relations for holt and met us there as he was traveling through Ghana. He is extremely kind, down to earth, and has done some truly amazing things for children around the world. Larry Carter, who is practically like family now, is a non-stop purveyor of goodwill that I am constantly in awe of. Cindy Davis is on the board and has travelled with holt to 9 different countries where their programs are located. She epitomizes what a board member should be, she asks the right questions, is not afraid to share her views and her passion for helping children shines through in all that she does. She has a medical background both in the field and administration, which will help so incredibly much in this project. I feel a bit out of my league being with all of these people who have done so much, but it is an amazing experience to just be along for the journey.
We spent a couple hours that night getting to know each other and all the sudden realized that it was approaching 1am and figured we better turn in and at least try and get some sleep! Tomorrow's plan is to tour the care centers in Addis, along with the holt office, among other things.
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